Number of Pages as shipped: 43 lined pages (86 lined writing surfaces), 6 informational pages (11 surfaces with reference information and 1 blank), totaling 49 pages total (50 advertised)

2. DuraRite Extreme Journal Field Report

Description:

Description:
Please refer to my Initial Report for an in-depth description of the DuraRite Extreme Journal.

Field Testing Experience:

So far, the majority of my testing of the DuraRite Extreme Journal has taken place at or near my home. I have had it out on two day hikes, but to be honest, the great outdoors have been a rotten testing ground for a product like the Extreme Journal this summer. Western Washington has been experiencing record dryness and heat, offering virtually no precipitation. The endless drizzle should be arriving any day now, so my Final Report should have plenty of nasty weather experience in it.

My home testing has been at times spontaneous and at others very deliberate. The spontaneous testing came during a remodel of our bathroom. With the fixtures removed from our sink, toilet, and bath, I headed underneath the house to track down a couple of leaky pipes. This is a small, belly-squirm section of the house's crawl space, and working in the dark with water dripping on my head was less than pleasant. I soon figured out that to have any success in tracking down the leaks, I would need to create a map of the piping. This is an old house, and the plumbing has been moved a couple of times in pretty creative ways. Being able to write on a regular piece of paper would have been a challenge, as being in position to track the pipes meant being under them and getting wet. The Extreme Journal came to the rescue, and performed flawlessly. There wasn't a deluge of water on the Journal as I used it, but there was regular dripping and it withstood these conditions quite easily.

The deliberate testing consisted primarily of finding out what writing utensils will work on the paper, and in what conditions will they be effective. The first thing I did was to create 3 pages with the various writing tools used on each. I kept one sheet clean to use as a comparison. The writing utensils I used were:

1. A Rite in the Rain "space" pen, pressurized and claimed as all-weather
2. A regular blue ballpoint pen
3. A regular black ballpoint pen
4. A Sharpie brand permanent marker
5. A Marks-a-lot brand permanent marker - the big kind
6. A standard yellow-ink highlighter
7. A standard pink-ink highlighter
8. A #2 pencil

All utensils were legible and looked no different than one would expect from normal paper. The yellow highlighter was very light, but still readable if held at an angle.

The first test was a shower test. I put a sheet of the DuraRite in a shower of water for about 5 minutes. The way I had it set up, it equaled a good couple of inches of rain. This is pretty extreme in a 5-minute period, but this is the Extreme Journal after all. The two highlighters almost immediately began to fade away, but all other utensils showed little change. I smudged the first letter of each line with my finger to see if they would bleed, and many did. The regular ballpoint pens fared the best, and the Rite in the Rain pen and the #2 pencil fared the worst in the smudge test. The Sharpie and the Marks-a-lot had small but noticeable smudges.

The other test involved soaking a sheet of the DuraRite paper in water for an hour. Hopefully field conditions wouldn't replicate this, but it's certainly possible. All utensils fared similarly to the shower test, but in a more exaggerated way. The Rite in the Rain pen and the #2 pencil smudged considerably, and the ballpoint pens looked the same as when they were written with.

My conclusion from these tests is that if the weather will be warm enough to keep regular ballpoint pens from freezing, they are definitely the option to choose. The ink looks great, it's durable, and it won't smear or fade with exposure to water. For about 99 cents for a dozen, it's hard to go wrong. The DuraRite paper seems to be an ideal medium for ballpoint pens.

The Reference Section of the DuraRite Extreme Journal hasn't come into play too much so far, again because of the mild weather we've been having. I did use the Planning Page on my day hikes. It's pretty basic, but nice to use as a double-check. If it saves me from forgetting something even one time, it's worth using. I look forward to using the weather-related pages, and the First Aid Basics pages. It seems like one of us always ends up burning our fingers or losing a toenail on trips lately, so it may come in handy in real world situations yet. If we can manage to get into something nasty enough, we may even have a chance to check out the "bloodproof" claim of the Extreme Journal!

So far, I have no complaints about the DuraRite Extreme Journal. It's tough as nails, does what it says it does, and as long as you don't prefer a highlighter as a writing utensil, should serve well in a backcountry environment.

My plan for the Final Report is to test the DuraRite Extreme Journal in fall and winter conditions - primarily rain and wet snow. I intend to use the Extreme Journal as my ski log this winter, logging things like edge performance, snow conditions, wax conditions, etc. I hope to do this on the lift rides or on breaks when in the backcountry. In the Northwest, it will certainly be exposed to constant wetness and snow.

3. Testing Location, Contact, and Background Information

Testing Location:

The vast majority of my uses of the DuraRite Extreme Journal will likely be in the Central and North Cascades. We're just a couple of months away from the rain arriving, so regular - if not daily - precipitation will soon be available for testing. I also plan on using the journal as a ski wax and run record. The snows usually pile up enough to ski on by December, so I should have a couple of months of wet snow testing as well.

Background Information:

Review by Curt Peterson: e-curt@attbi.com

Age: 31

Gender: Male

Height: 6'3" (1.91 m)

Weight: 270 (122 kg)

I live in Seattle and do the vast majority of my outdoor activities in Washington State. During the summer I try to head to the backcountry at least every other week, averaging 3 to 5 multi-day trips in July and August. In the fall and early winter, I usually do a couple day hikes a month and probably one overnight per month. In the winter, I ski 1 to 2 days per week, and backpack in the Central Washington steppe 1 to 2 times over the season. Spring and early summer I usually climb, most often on the Cascade volcanoes. I usually go to the coast in Olympic National Park at least once a year, and try to summit at least one big volcano a year, so the range of locations that I test gear is pretty broad. I also do a 3-mile walk each day with my dog, no matter what the conditions are, and I often evaluate gear during that time.

I played football in college, and have been pretty active my entire life. I have been camping and backpacking as long as I can remember. First in Utah as a child, in Minnesota until I finished college, and here in Washington ever since. I served on the Product Test Committee for Seattle's biggest outdoor gear retailer for a two-year term in the mid-90s, then guided backpacking tours with my wife in Olympic National Park for a few summers. I've been interested in the most recent shift to lightweight thinking for the past few of years and really enjoy checking out new ideas and approaches to backpacking.

Read more reviews of Rite In The Rain gear
Read more gear reviews by Curt Peterson

Field Report

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