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Reviews > Books > Blank Journals and Writing Implements > RITR - Adventure Travel Journal > Graham Blamey > Long Term ReportRite in the Rain Products ADVENTURE TRAVEL JOURNAL Long Term Report February 2004
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 hour 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 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 appears to be glued firmly to the pages and the
papers on the inside
of
the front and back cover also appear 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. For my initial impressions see: RITR ADVENTURE TRAVEL JOURNAL:INITIAL REPORT:GRAHAM For my Field Test results see: RITR ADVENTURE TRAVEL JOURNAL:FIELD REPORT:GRAHAM Test Conditions Since my Field Test, I've used the
journal as an every-day notebook, inside and outside, in wet and dry
conditions, at
work to take notes on clients, Architect and Designer's instructions,
on
day walks to record changes in routes or conditions and to record notes
on photos taken. The weather conditions I've used the journal in
have varied from late summer, with temperatures around 15.5 C (60
F), through autumn, to winter with frosty, wet weather with a lowest
temperature so far of -5 C (23 F).
A couple of times I've needed to remove a page to leave a note for someone, and this has not been easy. Because of the way the pages are stitched into the binding, it's necessary to find a place where two pages at a time can be removed without damaging the stitching (removing one sheet would leave the corresponding one loose in the journal). A note that I left pinned to an outside shed door wasn't picked up for a week (and a week of rain at that). At the end of that week it was still as good as when I wrote it. I've carried the Journal, on a day-to-day basis in a small waist pack that I use. When on day walks, I tend to take this waist pack also, with wallet, mobile phone etc. in it, so it's fair to say it's lived mostly in this pack. I think carrying it like this has prevented the cover and spine (damaged in my Field Test) from becoming completely detached from the main block of pages. Final Test Period Results I was completely satisfied with the performance of the paper in the Journal, and nothing about this aspect has changed. It's still possible to write legibly with ordinary ball-point pens, with an HB (#2) pencil, and with the Rite in the Rain pen that was supplied to me at the start of the test. Of these three implements, the RitR pen seems to work the best. My best results though, came when I acquired a short, stubby, waterproof ink, ball-point pen. This was being used at my local dry-cleaners (I suppose to mark laundry tags). I expressed interest and was promptly given a pen. This pen writes really smoothly on the paper, the writing is sufficiently bold, and the pen is small and therefore ideal for backpacking. The waterproof ink is an extra bonus and should mean that the writing should be really permanent. I don't expect this pen to last long though as it's about half the length of an ordinary ball-point pen. Although I've used the Journal to write in the rain and in wet conditions, I've not subjected the cover and spine to further humiliation by getting it as soaked as I did in my Field Test. It hasn't deteriorated any further but I've been a bit careful how I've handled it. It still has the swollen appearance that it had after being dried off from it's soaking. Had I not been testing it, I might have tried to stick the cover end-papers and spine back together with a waterproof adhesive. Conclusions My conclusions have changed little from my Field Report. In my opinion the soaking
the Journal got in my Field Test, 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'd like to thank BGT and
J.L. Darling for this opportunity to test
the Rite in the Rain Adventure Travel Journal.My understanding at the date of this Long Term Report is that Rite in the Rain have addressed the problem I experienced in my earlier tests, and that a new generation of this journal, essentially the same, but using a different adhesive, will be marketed. 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 > Long Term Report | |||