Trail Registers

A fun part of trail communication are the trail registers. Posted at shelters along the trail, it can be a way of leaving your mark as well as seeing which hikers are ahead of you on the trail.



One thru-hiker writes

Trail registers are located at every shelter and key landmarks along the Appalachian Trail. Usually a notebook left by other hikers, they are a vital communication tool for the family of thru-hikers along the length of the trail. Hikers leave messeges to other hikers, tell anecdotes, add wildlife sitings or just whine about something that's bugging them. Trail registers become required reading for all thru-hikers.

- Tim Novak of HAE

He writes about "the nicest privy on the AT" at Cloudland shelter in Vermont. Even including a picture of what his readers are led to believe is this luxury privy.



If you're looking for an incredibly upbeat and fast reading journal, the website above has a link to his "journal summary" as I will call it. Him and his hiking buddy Mark went pretty heavy on the beer on occasion from what I read. Bryson wrote about his swearing off alcohol for the trip in his book A Walk In The Woods. Mark and Tim actually finished the trail in a thru-hike. Bryson and Katz did not. To each their own!