Date: 2004-01-29
To: Electronics and Cameras
Miles today: 0.0

ElectronicsI carried about a pound (17.2 oz.) of electronic gadgets to help me keep up on my journal. I put my Palm M105 PDA, a Palm folding keyboard, and a PocketMail BackFlip modem into a one-quart Zip-Lock bag to protect them from the elements. At the end of each day I could type my daily journal into the Palm and then when I got to a phone I could E-Mail my notes to myself. At a town library or hostel I could then get on the Internet and transfer the notes from my E-Mail to Trailjournals very fast since I didn¢t have to type them in again. Speed was crucial since many public libraries would limit you to 20-30 minutes per day. At times I would be adding a week or more of notes to my journal so the Palm with the keyboard on the trail saved me lots of time in town. The new wireless PDA¢s are even better, but the cost is much higher and the monthly charges are too. PocketMail is about $10 per month. I chose a black & white Palm over a color model since the battery life was several weeks instead of several hours. In fact I used it for almost 2 months before changing batteries. It had enough memory to store books and I even loaded up an ASV Bible so I could read through the entire Bible this year again in that older (1901) version. I would read some in the Old Testament, the Psalms, the gospels, and the rest of the New Testament every day. Eight megabytes is enough memory to hold the equivalent of 6 Bibles worth of books. I also had my addresses and phone numbers with me in the Palm as well as weights of all my hiking gear, my daily hiking schedule with notes about re-supply, places to stay, etc. At 4 ounces and the size of a pack of cigarettes, the Palm was taking the place of multiple items which would have weighed much more and taken up more space in my pack.The M105 Palm is supposed to retain all its data when you change the 4 AA batteries. It doesn¢t. I even bought another one to see if my first one was defective. The second one also lost all its data when I changed the batteries. So I used them both. My wife would send me a Palm with fresh batteries and I would mail the one with the used batteries back home. It worked somewhat but eventually one of the units got too wet and stopped working completely. The last two weeks or so (including the 100 mile wilderness) I just kept notes the old fashioned way with pen and paper and typed them into TrailJournals when I got home. That saved me a pound of weight. I did spend several days in towns simply keeping up with my Journal. It was a lot more work and hassle than I thought it would be. I¢m glad I did it. But I wish there was a better way.CamerasI used a Fuji ASP 200 2X zoom lens camera for most of the hike. It took a beating and was held together with duct tape, but still worked well until I lost it and bought a 35mm point & shoot Samsung with a 3X zoom lens in Gt. Barrington MA. It never did work properly. The flash would not work. When the camera determined that I needed flash because it was too dark (which was most of the summer since it was overcast and raining a lot), the camera would not take a picture at all because the flash did not work. One time it refused to rewind my film so I had to open up the back and remove the film manually which ruined my entire roll of film.Two Fiddy found my Fuji camera and turned it in to the Village Store in Salisbury CT. He E-Mailed me and told me where it was. I called the store and they mailed it home for me. It was just a harsh summer for electronic devices on the trail. I chose not to bring a digital camera since the battery life was very short. Newer digitals should be just about perfect. The Olympus Stylus 400 is weatherproof and is very light and compact too.I also carried a small pair of binoculars around my neck ready to use in an instant.There¢s one last thing I have to say about hiking gear. It came up with several other thru-hikers every time we passed a boy scout or other youth group hiking. I passed several groups that were carrying 50-60 pound packs and they all looked miserable. Why do scout leaders make hiking into drudgery and misery? Why don¢t they teach the kids how to make there own light gear and then use it on a hike? That would be a fun learning experience. They seem to have these lists which were probably handed down to them for over 20 years of every item that each scout has to carry in his/her pack. Hiking should be fun with anticipation at every turn in the trail. Burdened with 55 pound packs, the only fun time is when you get to take the pack off.