Blog Posts

Hiking Photo Collage

11/26/2019

We have gone back and forth over our time hiking about how best to remember our hikes. Way back in college when I first started hiking I went out and purchased a black moleskin notebook. In it I wrote the stats of each hike and a little synopsis almost like a journal. It is safe to say that I was rather poor at keeping it updated even though I kept it for years. Then there was scrapbooking which my wife loves. She used to make scrapbook pages for all of our hikes but the more we hiked and the busier we became with life. It quickly became an unsustainable system. We have used digital systems like the All Trails app which is convenient but not a great way to look back on your trips.

The whole purpose of creating this site is to share how we manage to go hiking and outdoors while still maintaining a “normal” or traditional life. We both have normal full time jobs, with a mortgage, and car payments. So to that end the way we remember our hikes reflects that. We maintain a hiking photo collage.

Instead of it being on your traditional canvas print or in a frame we decided that it would be more fun to display them on a larger and ever evolving scale. Our gear closet is located under our stairs- think Harry’s room from Harry Potter- so we had the brilliant idea to install a roll of cork on which to display our pictures. After each and every hike we go through and pick out our favorite picture or the picture that reminds us the most of that hike, sometimes this can be difficult as we both take a ton of pictures. We print the winning photo and write on the back the trail we hiked, the date, elevation gain, and mileage. Then the picture gets pinned up on the board. So every time we go into our gear closet we can see all of the memories we have made out hiking.

What we Use (Amazon Links)
Canon MX 492 printer - $120
Canon 4x6 Glossy Photo Paper - $10 (100 sheets)

The Canon MX 492 is a little pricier for a printer but we wanted one that supports wireless printing via iPads. The Canon Glossy Photo Paper on the other hand is super affordable at only ten cents a page. So after each hike we go through the pictures we took and do some editing. We then pick our favorite and directly from my iPad I send it to the printer. Then the wife writes the info on the back, I have crappy handwriting. The picture goes up on the board and in about five minutes we have a way to remember our hike or trip.

Our hiking photo collage just seemed like an economical, efficient and fun way to keep our memories somewhere that we knew we would look at on a regular basis, we even hang up our dog leashes in there so we literally get a look every night. We easily take 30-50 pictures per hike so even keeping the pictures organized on our iPads is starting to become a bit of a task. There are other ways that would better showcase all of our trips such as printed photo albums or scrapbooks but those would quickly become more time consuming than the hikes themselves. With our photo collage we keep the focus on the hiking and making the memories not memorializing them. Plus with our memory board in our gear room the best time to remember is as we are planning out our next trip to add to the college so the focus stays on making memories. It is a really fun, easy, and quick way to remember our trips.

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