For those of you who keep a journal, what is your style? My journal tends to be pretty much just factual and not too emotional. I tend to just state things like left site "A" at 6:30 AM, went over mountain "X", traveled 16 miles, rained until 3:00, stopped at site "B" etc. I do not tend to wax eloquent over the beautiful scenery, pretty butterflies, my emotional state etc. I keep my journal for "ME" and enjoy reading on winter nights to remember the trip and also as a reference for future trips to the same area. Choppy sentences and poor form are perfectly acceptable. I am not trying for a piece of literature.

I have been asked to post my journal on other lists etc and I usually get someone upset because they think that I was too critical of their trail. For instance I posted one as requested where the trail had designated campsites and you were required to camp in the designated sites. In my journal I had stated that I found the designated sites to be less than desirable since they were all mud and I could not even find a flat spot big enough to set up my tarptent. On another I had recorded that the blazing and trail clearing was not good. Both statements were true and that is the information I would like to know if I went back a few years later. Also it is the type of information I would like to see if I were going to duplicate someone's trip.The local trail folks in both cases got upset because I was putting down the work that they have done. As a result I have been very hesitant to post my journals.

Therefore I am wondering what is the style of other folks journals. I probably am not going to change my style since I do this for me and not as a work of great literature for publication.

I tend to write pretty much what I feel like writing. On occasion I tend to get as poetic as I am capable of being; a lot of the time my notes are more of a list like you describe.

I keep a handwritten journal at home that I use to write up each trip; in that, I try to maintain a bit of a literary style. I try to transcribe my field notes to the home journal while my memory is fresh. I have been keeping this journal since 1966: there are a few trips missing but it is a pretty good record of my mountaineering and my hiking over the years since I started it.

There is sort of a bittersweet feeling when I read over what I have done, and the places I have been, in the past. No question, I am getting older.

I made use of the "Trail Journals" website when I hiked the JMT last year. The online journal entries are almost directly transcribed from my home journal.

IMO you said it all with this phrase: "I keep my journal for "ME"". The journal by definition should be what you want it to be. Much like what you described, my focus is on recording things from my perspective at the time, primarily to better remember the trip later, as well as to share it with folks that I know (friends, relatives). It was, however, a kind of nice feeling last year to find that others found it worth reading, and posted comments to the guest book.
One thing that's perhaps a little different about my journal --- though I think it's becoming steadily less different due to technology --- is that I always write up my journal entry at the end of the day, so it's always an on-the-spot (and more verbose than it sounds like yours is) summary of what happened that day, while it's all still very fresh in my mind.

But much like HYOH, I think it should also be JYOJ, like Frank Sinatra "do it your way", and if folks don't like what you have to say, there are a lot of journals out there, they can move on and find others to read.

I think that my main problem is in letting folks talk me into publishing my journal. As I stated this is for me. On the other hand some of the information can be valuable to others who are doing the same trip and I would like to have that information if I were doing the same trip that someone else has done.