Hikers keep in touch through trail journals. The journals are placed in shelters and as hikers pass through they sign their names and can write anything they want. In this way, hikers can tell who is ahead of them and how far ahead they are. Some people choose to do something a lot more creative than simply signing a name; take Stewball for instance. He is a big burly man with a long beard who chose to write Hannah's Hiking Tips in the trail journals. He wrote as if he were Hannah Montana, the Disney teenage pop star. As you can see from the picture, he takes quite a bit of time to create these entries. Stewball's tips are written in gel pen and are elaborately decorated with Hannah Montana stickers. The advice can range from the above entry to how to remove your make-up at night (Cover your face with peanut butter before going to sleep and the little animals will come and lick it off in the night. When you wake up, you are both make-up and peanut butter free!) -Madeline
Zen-ish observations, diatribes on trail maintenance, exaltations of the natural world, and autobiographical ramblings are among the scribbles and scrawls found in trail registers. The writings left behind by hikers range from the monotonous to the brilliant, but they all give some idea of the types of people who spend time on the Trail.
Started as a safety measure to pinpoint the whereabouts of hikers, trail registers (usually spiral-bound notebooks) have become an important link to the vast communications network. Trail registers offer hikers the chance to make comments to those behind them, and to get to know, sometimes intimately, those ahead.
- The Appalachian Trail Hiker by Victoria and Frank Logue
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