Reviewer Information

• Name: Cora Hussey
• Age: 23
• Gender: Female
• Height: 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m)
• Weight: 155 lbs (70 kg)
• Email address: cahhmc "at" yahoo "dot" com
• Web page: http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~chussey
• City, State, Country: Los Angeles, CA, USA
• Date: September 25, 2003

Basic Product Information

• Manufacturer: J.L. Darling Corporation
• Year of Manufacture: 2003
• URL: http://www.durarite.com/ (As listed on Product)
  http://www.riteintherain.com/ (Alternate link)
• Listed weight: None
• Weight as delivered: 3.4 oz (97 g)

Field Testing

Trip Details:

• Trip One (Inyo National Forest, Backpacking/Scrambling)
  • Dates: August 29 - 31, 2003
  • Location: Inyo National Forest, CA
  • Weather: Clear skies, then rain. 80 F (27 C) daytime and 40 F (4 C) night time
  • Elevation: 8,000 - 12,500 ft (2500 - 3800 m)
  Description: The journal stayed in my pack most of the time, except one night to write some thoughts down at night. I wrote in pen, in the cooler night weather.

• Trip Two (Sequoia National Forest, Backpacking)
  • Dates: September 10 - 17, 2003
  • Location: Sequoia, CA
  • Weather: Clear Skies, 75 F (24 C) daytime and 40 F (4 C) night time
  • Elevation: 6,000 - 10,000 ft (1800 - 3000 m)
  Description: Previous to the trip, I wrote down some notes for a seminar I would be giving. I kept a journal through the trip, and took notes on seminars given by others. I wrote in pen, pencil, and crayon at all hours of the day.

Comments by Trip and Use:

+ Trip One:

On this trip, I wrote basic journal entries under the stars with the aid of my headlamp. This was to test how the journal felt as, well, a journal. It performed well. I liked writing in it more than writing in the small paper notebooks with very thin pages. The journal opened to lie flat, was easy to write on, and my writing was easy to see under the headlamp. The smooth paper was quite nice to write on, and the dirt did not stay on the paper. The paper still folded (retained its pliability) and felt normal in the cooler weather. In the rain, the journal only got damp as it rained on the hike out. However, the existing writing was unchanged from the dampness and was dry by the time I arrived at home.

+ Trip Two:

This trip had the most diverse testing of the journal. Overall, I immensely enjoyed having it as my notebook. Other people brought paper that they either had to protect by clipboards or let fray at the corners. On this trip, the journal was exposed to a great deal of dirt and sweat, and it came out looking fine. Other notebooks would have disintegrated, especially since the more I was impressed, the more I tried to be a little meaner to it, and then it impressed me more, and so on. I tried tearing and folding the paper, cramming it everywhere in my pack (even stuffing it in with my sleeping bag once), and holding it down with rocks and boots while writing on it. It took everything in stride. The only thing that did not work well was writing in crayon. Admittedly, I wrote in very cheap wax crayon, but it smudged and stuck to the nearby papers. After that, I will stick to pen and pencil for important things.

Comments by Attribute:

Paper

+ Ease of Writing: Fantastic. The paper is smooth and responsive to fast writing, slow writing, and careful pen/pencil placement. The only disadvantage that I found was that, when dark, I could not write well at all. On normal paper, I had the frictional response of where my pen or pencil was and how far it had traveled. The Rite in the Rain paper, on the other hand, is so smooth that my attempts to take clean, readable notes in the complete dark (while listening to a lecture) were almost always in vain. But, as I could easily turn on my headlamp if I really wanted to write, I would trade Rite in the Dark for Rite in the Rain any day.

+ Durability: Excellent. I removed two pages from the journal and tested them different ways. One rode in my pocket for eight days (sleeping, climbing, sitting, crawling, and jumping) and came out just fine. Even my "waterproof plastic" maps show a little wear around the corners when shoved in my pocket for that long. The other served as a napkin for everything -- from tomato sauce, to snot, to caked mud. The paper looked very tired of being a napkin at the end of the trip, but it was still in one piece and was really not all that stained (all caking washed off except where it had been ground in at the folds).

+ Use of different mediums: So far, only crayon really had the worst problems sticking to the paper. Pencil was also harder to see in the dark, since the writing does not leave a slight depression in the Rite in the Rain paper as it would with normal paper.

Journal as a Whole

+ Durability: The journal is bombproof. I often sat on it, or stepped on it, or even crammed it under large pointy rocks to prevent it from blowing away while I alternated between reading and storing it. I hiked with in in my pocket, and although it felt too stiff to do so continually, the journal came out fine.

+ Size: I have small writing, and so I can fit a decent amount of notes and writing on one page, but diagrams, lists, and visual aids are too big. However, I will continue to use the journal into the winter, and expect it to make an excellent weather and snow log book.

Summary

+ General Comments: This is a pretty spiffy little journal. I really feel like I could write thoughts or notes that are important to me in it, and that they would survive the trip. I thought of it sort of like a good camera case that I have appreciated over the years -- as long as I take good pictures (or write good notes) the case (and the journal) ensures that my memories will come home in one piece.

+ Trips that I would bring the Extreme Journal on in the future: Any trips that were note book or log book intensive. It is really too small for my diagrams, but very useful for text and carrying in my pocket for easy use.

+ Upsides so far:

• Durable outside and inside
• Easy to hold when writing
• Easy to separate and fold pages

+ Downsides so far:

• Too small to teach from
• Slippery paper
• Crayon can smudge

Read more reviews of Rite In The Rain gear
Read more gear reviews by Cora Hussey

Reviews > Books > Blank Journals and Writing Implements > RITR - Extreme Journal > Cora Hussey > Field Report