Do you think it possible to write a purely fictional journal and get away with it? I’ve often thought it might be fun, although, who would have the time. Have wonderful adventures with fellow hikers you make up. Make it believable but yet outrageous. Really get folks into it. Be like a Master Troll. I think I’m going to do it one of these days.
180
If you did it right, it would be barrels of jollies. But you’d have write with care. Include a love triangle, lots of realistic stuff based on real journals, and of course a few good Deliverance or hillbilly characters and run-ins down South.
Incissor
If I don’t make my thru hike this year, I will write you. Maybee you could put me in your fake journal. Combined with the people that remeber me starting , I will have the proof I need if someone dosen’t beleive me. This way I can’t fail.
:tongue
Buckwheat
Perhaps the hills in Virginia are flat but that super model hiking with 180 sure isn’t.
Super model
Bill Bryson wrote a fake journal and made millions. Everyone loved his journal (I know, it was a book). I’m just saying, here is an audience and fun is fun afterall. But could you get away with it? You would need to be like a Troll God I think. And yes Incissor, lots of sex would suck everyone in and they wouldn’t even care.
180
I think my fake hiker would definately need to be a female, a very blonde female (they just don’t make backpacks for girls with large breast, etc. etc.). From there, I have everyone’s attention and lots of journal hits for sure. Have to include a lot of mundane hiking description for believability. Would need to develop a very “out there” philosophy of life for her. From there, the sky is the limit. I’m going to do this. It will be so much fun.
180
You’re saying the Bill Bryson hike was a hoax? I’m convinced he hiked the sections he claimed to hiked but may have exagerated some things in the book to make it more funnier.
The biggest hoax was when One Leg Wonder claimed at first to have walked totally from Springer to Harpers Ferry then turning around. He also claimed during one of his updates he hiked through the White Mountains and Vermont. He later changed his story admitting he had actually skipped a lot of the trail including all of the Whites and Vermont and a good portion of Virginia and the Smokies.
Now he is writing a book also.
Shawn D
Ever hear of him? He entered a solo round the world sailing trip. When he ran into trouble off Brazil and was too far behind to make it, he just began to sail circles in the South Atlantic and send in fake position reports. Ended up going crazy and apparently jumping overboard. His sailboat was found abandonded sometime after he quit sending in position reports.
Which of course has nothing to do with writing a fake journal.
Gene Roll
have her hiking with another girl (room for lotsa innuendo right thar) and they crossing a road near Hiawassee when a pickup stops with these two guys with green teeth and one sticks his head out: “yew girls wanna rod?”
Incissor
Why not, a lot of people end up lieing about their hikes anyway. They convenientley forget to mention they skipped an entire state, an aqua blaze here, and a few yellow blazes there.
Chef
Thanks Chef, you took the words right out of my mouth.I was thinking the same thing as I was reading down the thread. People fake their hike every year. So this is nothing new. Our world is full of frauds. Hey 180,maybe a good study for your book would be to give future hikers on this sight advice on gear,maildrops etc. You know, just act like you hiked the whole trail so you can discuss things like attitude,food consumtion and physical pain. Gee I think Ive seen that on here before. Never mind.
Virginian
The year before my thruhike I did write a journal in which my pet cockatiel thruhiked but not here on Trailjournals. Her trailname was “Downpour” and along the way she acquired a human companion named “Sunshine”. Come to think of it with the help of two coauthors it DID end up with the triangle, desperate characters and all the rest, complete with being pursued by government agents after uncovering the secret of the Secret Spaceship of Snowbird Mountain!
Mouse
It’s been done before…anybody remember Bearsnax?
I bought it, until I laughed so hard my sides hurt.:lol
RockyTrail
Check out Ktiep’s American Discovery Trail journal. This one is not a real hike at all, they even admit it.
WoodBadge
“complete with being pursued by government agents after uncovering the secret of the Secret Spaceship of Snowbird Mountain!”
That’s brilliant and hysterical.
Leki-Less