|
| Home | Guest - Not logged in | |||
|
» Register
» Login
Gear Reviews
Documents
Tools
» Contact
|
Reviews > Books > Blank Journals and Writing Implements > RITR - Adventure Travel Journal > Graham Blamey > Field ReportRite in the Rain Products ADVENTURE TRAVEL JOURNAL Field Report 5 October 2003
I first went camping at about age five and have been camping, on and off, ever since. I started serious walking about 21 years ago and backpacking a few years later. I have backpacked, with my wife Ginny, mainly in Europe and the UK. We have spent three weeks of each year for the last six years backpacking the GR11, a long-distance, high-level route that follows the spine of the French/Spanish Pyrenees. We are fortunate in living in an area surrounded by countryside and are able to walk daily on a network of public Rights of Way that exist in the UK. We additionally spend at least one day a week on long day-walks in different areas within a two hours drive of our home. We take a number of three-to four-day backpacking trips throughout the year and take part in several night and weekend orienteering events. Our backpacking style, although essentially traditional (mid-weight backpacks, Therm-a-rests, tent etc.), is getting increasingly lighter as we get older and explore the possibilities that are opened up by new materials and designs. Product Information
The Rite in the Rain Adventure Travel Journal is about the size of a small hardback book, because basically, that is what it is. It's sturdy, probably too sturdy to qualify as a notebook. The yellow board end covers are stiff and difficult to bend and the pages are stitched in and look as if they would take a real effort to dislodge them. The outer cover spine is glued firmly to the pages and the papers on the inside of the front and back cover are also firmly glued in place. As a nice touch, the cover corners are rounded, as are the page corners; a small detail perhaps, but reflecting the overall quality of the product. With the company logo and title, gold embossed on the front cover, the overall impression is good. Upon opening the journal the first page is a 'title' page, reflecting the cover and with a brief description of the paper. The next page is pre-printed, with spaces for 'Important numbers', 'Medical info.' and 'Vehicle info.' Facing this page is another pre-printed page with space for 'Personal information' and 'Emergency contact'. Then follows the journal proper. Each page has the printed heading 'Date' and 'Location'. Each page has 18 lines and this format continues for a further 70 sheets, making a total of 141 sides to write on. At the rear of the journal are 10 pages of 'General information'. These are preceded by an Index, which lists the General information as 'Tourist commissions', 'U.S. Embassies', 'Ten essentials', 'Planning a trip', 'Beaufort wind scale', 'Climate zone map', 'Wind-chill chart', 'Heat factor index' and finally a 'Metric conversion chart'. Inside the back cover, the end paper has illustrations of other Rite in the Rain journals and notebooks. Test Conditions The hot, dry summer continued in the UK during the weeks leading up to September, with temperatures in the mid-high 20's C (80's F). For our three week trip to the central Spanish Pyrenees in September, we had a mixed bag of weather ranging from hot, sunny days with temperatures of 38 C (101 F), spectacular overnight storms, occasional days of mist and rain, hail and sleet and a 24 hour period of heavy snow, when the temperature dropped to an overnight low of -2 C (28 F). The terrain of the Central Pyrenees is high mountain, above tree line and our route took us up to elevations of around 2600 m (8500 ft). (The highest peak in the Pyrenees is Aneto at 3404 m (11170 ft)). Field Test 
I have
continued to use the Adventure Travel Journal (hereafter called the Journal)
for day-to-day notes at work and on day-walks, to record items of interest
or notes on route details. As I mentioned in my Initial Report, the
Journal is a little bigger and heavier than I would use for such things,
but I got to like having a more substantial, stiffer notebook, as it's not
necessary to find a firm surface to rest the notebook on. Writing
in the Journal, whether with ball-point pen or pencil is less of an effort
than with a 'normal', fibrous paper, but the writing appears to be a little
less bold in the Journal than with other papers (see photo.right, which shows
a page from the Journal on the right and a page from another notebook on
the left). This might be due to the 'waxy' surface of the Journal paper
not absorbing as much ink, or the lack of contrast due to the slightly tinted
paper.When we travelled to the central Pyrenees at the beginning of September, we arrived a few days ahead of a weather front that swept up from the south-west. This caused serious flooding and damage through many parts of north-eastern Spain but passed slightly east of our location. Using the Journal to make notes for the first few days was not much different from my earlier experiences. When we started to get days of heavy mist, rain and evening thunderstorms, I tried using the Journal. Taking the Journal out and writing while rain was actually falling on it was no problem. Both the Rite in the Rain pen that I had brought with me and an HB (#2) pencil wrote well and the writing with both was legible and didn't run or smear. The Journal appeared to be functioning as intended and holding up well. The worst weather we encountered caught us on the hop, so to speak! We were camped by a small lake at 2600 m (8500 ft) and it had started raining suddenly and heavily, at about 7 pm. We got all we needed from our packs and then put the rain covers on and left them outside the tent. During the night the rain turned to snow and we woke to find it snowing heavily. It snowed for the rest of the day, gradually turning to sleet, so we stayed put. When I went to use the Journal, I couldn't find it in the tent and I concluded that I'd left it in my pack. When I went out to get it later in the day, I found it lying under the (now slushy) snow next to my pack. I'd obviously got it out the night before to bring in to the tent, but misplaced it. It was now thoroughly wet and I was a bit concerned to see that it looked 'swollen and soggy'. I got an even bigger shock when I opened it and the front cover and spine parted company with the main block of the pages. The cover inner lining paper had 'wetted' through and behaved just like a normal piece of paper - it had torn as easily as a sheet of wet tissue. 
This
left the cover and spine hanging off and I could see that water had soaked
up through the spine and the adhesive that had been used to bond the main
block of pages to the spine and cover, had turned rubbery and gum-like (See
photo.right).Despite this breakdown in the construction of the Journal, the individual pages seemed to be un-affected and intact and the writing was still good. The appearance of the Journal was now, as I said earlier, as if water had soaked into the card inside the covers and spine and it looked swollen and soggy. The stiff covers, which had impressed me initially, were now soft and pliable. The Journal also now didn't close as flat and compactly as when new. (see photo. below). 
The end result of this was that it remained wet for the rest of the trip and took several days in a warm room to dry out completely. Where the water had swollen and softened the covers, they remain slightly softer than when new, but the covers and end papers have not peeled any further. I'm still able to use the Journal (and will continue to do so) and writing on the paper is no different - it's just a far less attractive product than it was. :-) Conclusions and Future Testing In my opinion the soaking the Journal got was not extreme by any means, although it was probably prolonged - if I'd been able to dry the Journal immediately without opening it, it might not have broken apart but that wasn't feasible at the time. It's not uncommon (anywhere generally, but especially in the UK, in winter) to have heavy rain for long periods at a time. A Journal such as this, being used over a period of three weeks on a backpacking trip might get wet and dry and wet and dry successively for the whole of the period. If a user took this Journal on a trip to, say, the tropics and it were used in the rain and tossed in a pack it might stay wet (or at least damp) for the whole of the trip. I have serious doubts as to whether this Journal is totally suited to backpacking - not the writing paper, but the actual construction and the adhesive that's been used to hold it together. Some efforts will have to be made to keep it from getting totally soaked and that doesn't always fit in with backpacking in some cases. Sometimes, getting wet on a backpacking trip can mean staying wet until such times as the weather improves (if it does) and so it's often best to avoid getting wet at all costs. I'll continue to use the Journal for general day-to-day use, at work, on day-walks and on any backpacking trips between now and the end of the test period. As we approach winter in the UK, we can expect the usual mix of wet, cold weather so it will be interesting to see how the Journal fares. I'd like to thank BGT and J.L. Darling for this opportunity to test the Rite in the Rain Adventure Travel Journal. Read more reviews of Rite In The Rain gear Read more gear reviews by Graham Blamey Reviews > Books > Blank Journals and Writing Implements > RITR - Adventure Travel Journal > Graham Blamey > Field Report | |||