Logbooks
And where to find them
Last week Molly and I took a short trip through the Mojave desert. A few days of bouncing around the back roads and boulders exploring a zone we would have previously sworn we knew well—but once we dug in, realized we hardly knew at all. We scrambled in canyons, soaked in a semi-secret hot spring, scampered to the top of the Mojave’s highest peak, and found some epic campsites.
She and I have a weekdays-only policy on hot springs. Less traffic… it only takes one weirdo to sour an experience. So we knew we were cutting it close visiting on a Friday, and sure enough a woman named Gita came biking in just as we were disrobing. But, Gita turned out to be quite interesting; just the right brand of spunky-not-kooky. We had a great conversation about her travels and lifestyle, and she mentioned she’d be biking to the lone bar in town for a beer after her soak.
When leaving I noted that the hot spring was well cared for. Public pools often aren’t. This one had a cover, scrub brushes, skimmer, a jug for rinsing, and a small mailbox off to the side that contained a logbook where locals were passing notes and charting use and maintenance.
I didn’t see a pen and we were in something of a hurry, so we didn’t bother to sign it. But we did drop a message with the bartender in town—we described Gita and said that she’d be biking through shortly, and handed off some cash to cover her beer along with a thank you for the conversation. Hope she got it. But more important is the social cred I get by sharing it here, because this was my most generous act of 2025. You’re welcome, world.
That afternoon we traced a rowdy road over the range and camped just beyond the pass. In the morning we set out toward our only real goal on the trip—summiting Clark Mountain. It’s not terribly tall as far as mountains go. But it’s the highest in the Mojave and has a class 3 scramble near the peak that required a backpack full of rope. It’s off-trail, and squirrely and steep enough that it took us five hours to complete just 2.8 miles.
At the summit we found a logbook. Placed there in 1995 by a Sierra Club chapter. This one we signed. It wasn’t much to make it to the hot springs—but this mountain top only sees about one visitor a month. Seemed worth saying hi.
As I was tucking it back into the ziplock within the ammo can, Molly asked “You ever consider writing about logbooks?” So here we are.
She partially brought it up because we encounter hikers’ logs like these not infrequently, but mostly because we’ve kept a few logbooks ourselves. We had one at our first cabin, which Drew made for us with a screenprinted cover. Friends would doodle and log notes of the weekend’s activities. When we tried to reach the property as the fire was encroaching it was one of the few items we’d hoped to grab. Didn’t make it though.
There’s a logbook in the new cabin. And Zach’s kids started a fresh one alongside it—a “Kid’s Draw Log.” We also keep a sauna log. It’s customary for new attendees to fill it out, but otherwise there’s no real system and it’s pretty freeform.
Our appreciation for logbooks runs deep. They feel adventure-y. Nautical. Scientific, yet nearly treasure map-adjacent. Totems to a pre-digital era when records didn’t risk deletion from a power surge. There’s something about hand-written notes1 and the yesteryear necessity of recording happenings and chronological observations for the next visitor to one’s post. Logbooks harken to fire-watch lookouts and ranger stations and lighthouses—remote outposts where communication was stowed for whomever next found it, then dusted off and examined as a sort of antiquity. They’re just… so fucking romantic.
After descending Clark Mountain we trekked south, past some wild burros, and camped in a box canyon. Dinner was Costco pupusas and we watched Andor on my laptop in bed—we love a dusty notebook, but we’re not Luddites.
The next morning—our last venture before heading home—we went searching for a couple of basalt ravines. Ones cut so deep by ancient rains they’d become permanent water tanks—beacons for desert-wanderers of all types for god knows how long. We located one of them; the other will have to wait for a future excursion.
The chasm we found was about twenty feet deep, a hundred yards long, and held 900 petroglyphs. Squiggles and maps and snakes and late-period bighorn sheep and what I can only assume are depictions of alien visitors. These were messages and notes and sketches, beaten into the rock, passed between people who visited the same spot, and shared the same experience, for millennia. Logged in posterity, for however many thousands of years more.
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Beth Matthews recently wrote about mid-century industrial design—a world filled with logbooks and maintenance notes—and she released a font in conjunction with it. It’s a worthy substitute for handwriting.
*logs comment* *envies adventure*
**scanning for Kate Easter eggs**. Located. Loved.
Bonus for Ben. Also immediately felt drawn to Gita.