Help for Recovering an Old Trip Report

Welcome back, Steve. I've been hoping that you'd turn up eventually.

Do a google search using phrases that are unique to your report. Put the phrase in quotation marks and do a search.

For example, how offen would the two word phrase "Nathan's Jeep" occur across all of the Google surfdom? I've recovered past posts on Google. You can also try archive.dot org.

High Sierra Fan, thanks for the link. I've been searching it some.

Some good news. I fired up our mothballed PC. It had a failed hard drive, but my son was able to recover what appears to be a pretty good draft in MS Word. None of my photos for the trip are organized and will take some time to arrange. Originally they were rather small JPEG files scanned by Costco from Kodak film. I still have the negatives and a Nikon Coolscan scanner, so it might be worth for me scan into TIFF files.

If there is enough interest, I should be able to reproduce the report. From memory I might be able to recreate the 2004 SHR trip with my son as it contains more drama and mishaps. Naturally it wouldn't be as detailed as my 2003 SHR complete trip report. I'd have to use both my photos and my sons video to recreate a timeline of events. The 2004 SHR includes a high Sierra crossing of about 20 miles just to get to the start of the route at Roads End, King Canyon NP. The trip almost ended at the Ranger Station when were told we would need a film permit, as the size of my son's made her sure we were shooting a documentary. His equipment was somewhat high end in 2004. Of course now most decent cameras shoot great high def.

Yes, I agree. It was a classic.

Okay, I need some feedback regarding the "proper" location to post the trip report. After my 2003 trip, i had posted the report in the Trailhead Register. As the trip took place over a few weeks period as I recall, I believe I'd write up a day of the trip every couple of days and post. Doing it in installments seemed to increase interest in my story as some folks were looking forward to the next episode. If i were to post the entire report in it's entirety, I think it's too much to digest all at once.

The other problem I'm going to have is that the report heavily depends on the photos I added along the route. The photos were originally on Webshots that have long since been taken down. My photos were also on the failed drive. Although I have recovered hundreds of photos on the SHR that year, they are no longer identifiable according to sequence. I probably won't be able to reproduce which pictures I included in the story. Actually it even gets worse, as I have literally thousands of SHR from the 5 years i spent hiking it. I also have my son's pictures he took when he through hiked it by himself. The photos from all the different years are mixed in together. To compound the problem, I edited the earlier photos in Photoshop and the later years with Aperture. I think the Photoshop photos had sidecar files which carried the metadata. I believe if the sidecar files are no longer connected with the right photos.  And the directory was not recoverable.

Here is my proposal.

1. Post a day or two of the trip report at a time, perhaps spaced a few days apart, depending on my schedule. This would give me time to pick appropriate photos to match the ongoing trip description.

2. The copy I have is pretty rough with a lot of clerical errors. I may have originally posted those same errors, as I was typing it up on my breaks at work. I'd prefer to do a little editing of missing words, etc. I don't intend to change the content, as that is part of the "charm". Some folks thought I was too rough on my hiking partners. You can decide as I rather not make it anything other than what I was feeling during the trip.

3. As it will have the same number of photos (maybe a few added here and there), where does it belong? I read through some trip reports and I can put it with the others, as there doesn't appear to be a Southwest forum any longer? I should say, the SHR is considered one of the great hikes and may belong with the PCT, AT, CDT, WCT, WT, JMT and any number of other fine hikes. It's my opinion, but it might be helpful to have trip reports divided by geographic similar to the old board. Lumping everything under one title may discourage readers from finding older reports as the trip section fills up.

4. I also did a lot of research prior to the trip as there was very little out on the web. The main resource at the time was Steve Roper's book. I also spent a lot of effort finding anyone willing to attempt a thru hike. I have a lot of emails, which some back and forth, might help anyone who may be considering the SHR. The pre planning stuff was mostly left out of the report, but may be of interest to some. My first topos I created prior to the hike were spot on and the GPS coordinates were used in subsequent years. I never included these as part of the report and i don't intend to include them now. ndwoods on the forums was rightfully a critic of my putting out a report as it advertised the SHR at a time when it was little known. She made rethink what I had done and I had some regrets for sure. After Steve Howe from bp magazine did the SHR, and wrote it up, I think it's okay to share it with others. I was an old beat up hiker at the time with serious back problems and roughly 60% lung capacity. I feel if I made it, then anyone with the right information can do the same. Most likely, there is better information out there now on the web. Hopefully, my account, if nothing else will inspire someone who unsure of cross country hiking in the high Sierra to take an informed chance.

Any feedback appreciated before I get too deep in the weeds.

Steve Armstrong