Fultondale Rails to Trails

We hit the trails this morning at dawn (someone actually beat us out there!) hoping to get some bikejoring in before the weather warms up where we can’t do it at all. We logged 5 miles.

a beautiful way to start out our day

This is a fantastic trail to bikejor (urban mush), run with your dog, hike off trail down to the many places the stream comes near the trail, or just walk with your dog. We’ve never had any trouble with loose dogs on the trail or trouble with people. There’s never been any dangerous trash (we’ve been on other trails with loads of broken glass and even needles on occasion). It’s a good safe well maintained trail.

Not sure what these markers were. Maybe had to do with the train? This was where we heard the coyotes! The light was so amazing through all the green. I couldn’t capture it well on film though!

We highly recommend this rails to trails section. We have only been to the 2.5 mile marker so I’m not sure exactly how long it currently is or when they will stop expanding it. I’ve heard the trail is currently about 3.5 miles and will eventually have benches along the way (Whiskey will appreciate this!). To get to the trail you can park at either Black Creek Park and walk along the pretty obvious Rails to Trails path that heads back under Hwy 31, or you can park at the Fultondale Bark Park (check out their fb page too) and walk out of the park onto the main road and curve back to your left towards Leora Avenue. The trail goes parallel to LEora for a short block or so before veering off into the woods. By the way, the Dog Park is located at the corner of Fulton Road and Stouts Road in Fultondale.

At 2 miles Whiskey suggests turning around. I veto him.

After not running a lot Whiskey did pretty good on today’s trek but we spent about half the time at a slow jog or even slow walk pace. I typically let Whiskey set the pace, especially given some of his health needs that leave him a little worn out at times.

If you’re alert and on the trail when no one else is- it provides a wealth of wildlife. We saw several birds and rabbits, heard one duck, and heard coyotes in the distance making a great morning sunrise ruckus! Whiskey also picked up the scent of an animal I saw no tracks for but he went totally nuts trying to track it so it wasn’t anything he’s used to. Deer? Boar? No idea.

To keep up to date on the trail you can follow Black Creek Park’s fb page

Everyone should get out today and experience this fantastic spring weather with your pups! Be safe and have fun and hit those trails mkay?

-Gina & Whiskey

Apologies. It’s fuzzy because we are very high up above this wide section of the creek below. We plan to hike down to it on our next trip! Happy trails y’all.

Unresolutions

Each new year people pen out their wishes and dreams for themselves, their lives, their families. I see no harm in this.

I do it. But I also see perhaps more value in setting out to do certain things instead of just wish for. These things rarely make into a resolution list which is more akin to a dreaming made ink onto paper. But the doing, now there’s the thing. I try to do 1-3 things each year that force me to grow. Grow! GROW!

Recap: This year here are my main big undertakings that stretched me as a human, a mate, an animal lover, a traveler in 2012…

1. I took a series of horse riding courses. This is something I had wanted to do since I was a child. My mother spoke of riding horses as a child and my cousins had horses. It left me with an empty hole… a longing. I wanted these memories too… so I took the lessons and it was wonderful, and challenging. I didn’t even care much that I was surrounded by a bunch of 7 year olds… lol. I wasn’t the only adult, by the way, just one of the very few… and they were private lessons, but you see other lessons (with seven year olds) going on.
   

   We tried to get a good pic on my phone of me riding. Not possible on my phone apparently! Sorry for the blur!

2. I finished our solo trek of the Natchez Trace. (Even if I haven’t finished blogging about it yet!) It was challenging and stirring and moving and inspiring. It made me feel much more confident with Whiskey as we faced new traveling challenges.
   

   On the last leg of our Natchez Trace Trip Whiskey looks quite at home on the top of an old Indian Mound doesn’t he?

   

   This trip really solidified some of our traveling habits. I feel much more confident traveling with Whiskers now! It was really good for us 🙂

3. I got chickens. That’s right! I got Cheeeeekiiiiins! And we couldn’t be happier. They are our pets, and are named. They live outdoors but in swank surroundings. I have had to learn some instant on the spot vet skills and had some tearful trying times but all three of our 1 day old baby birds have lived and we are very proud of each of them. Chickens are so rewarding! I can’t imagine ever not having them (unless someone comes and tells us we have to get rid of them… as many zoning ordinances do not allow for backyard fowl, even in small numbers… but let’s not think about that!).
   

   From L to R: Chicki Minaj (an Australorp), Feather Locklear and Yolko Ono (Laced Wyandottes) love apples!

4. I hiked a BIG chunk of the Pinhoti alone. This was a HUGE undertaking for me. Much harder than I imagined. The loneliness was palpable. I had company on the first night only and then spent the rest of the week in solitude cursing along in my too tight shoes that cost me several toe nails (they weren’t tight till the feet started swelling….) But my confidence… wow I cannot tell you how much more confident of a backpacker I am now that I have camped so many nights alone in the wilderness. It was spectacular.

So onto this years goals? I have a few ideas.. we’ve got some stuff in the works as a family (shhhh… it’s a secret) and then individually I’m taking on the goal of getting a city bike and riding it to work a few times a week. This is both exciting and scary! Scary because I’ll be going home in 5 o’clock traffic. I have a few more solo trips I’d like to take backpacking… specifically to finish the entire Pinhoti trail. We’ll be gardening more… I’m working on some art pieces, and working on some poetry that I’d like to see published. I’m also going to teach myself knife throwing. I looked for classes anywhere within a days drive and couldn’t find any. And I’m talking frontier skills knife throwing. Not some pansy ninja crap- but the Take Down A Bear or Zombie at 20 Paces stuff! Yeah! Just call me FrontiersWomanGina. (Don’t worry, no beards included).

So as for Whiskey- my goals are this- to get a new bikejoring harness (his is too small and I’m worried about it hitting too high on his throat and restricting breathing… so we need a new one), to hike 2 entire sets of park trails in Alabama, and to camp at a new state park to explore.

For the farm- my goals are to plant twice as many herbs, plant at least 5 veggies, and to get in two new fruit sources this year. I hope they do better than last years blueberry bushes!

So what about you? I challenge you to think small- I sometimes only undertake ONE new skill a year. This makes it manageable and completely doable. What have you been putting off learning that you’ve always wanted to do? Pottery classes? Painting? Restoring an old vehicle? Hiking??? I challenge you to *make* time somewhere in the next year. Getting out there and learning a new skill makes us better people and grows our souls. It stretches us.

Whiskey and I wish you the best of new years!

w&g

Dog Friendly! The 2 best words a pet owner can hear…

Let me tell you about a fishing location that is super pet friendly. Lake Purdy, near Birmingham Alabama .

We recently went on an all day fishing trip and when we were getting ready to get on the boat the guy mentioned a fellow who comes up to just ride around the lake, doesn’t fish at all, with his dog, a pretty collie.

“Wait” I said. “You’re dog friendly.” Oh yeah! The fellow responded. “You mean my dog can go on the boats!?” Yep!

Say no more, sir. You have suddenly become my new best friend.

Cap’n Brandon! Leaving the boat dock you can see the gentle rise of the hills behind us.

I had been bemoaning the trip because while I like to fish a little while- I do not like to fish all day. I like to read. I like to hike. I like to play with the dog. I do not like to fish all day. So I was all moany like “I wish I could bring Whiskey ::insert sad wife pout grumble::” and now… now I can.

Here is a link to their page. They do run specials (we got our boat for half off) and if you have a motor then you’re definitely in the best boat (no pun intended… or maybe terrible pun was intended haha!) financially because it will save you quite a bit. They have a wide variety of boats. No private vessels are allowed. Also, make sure to talk to the guys before going out- they are a wealth of information. I could have just sat around talking to them all day. If you aren’t an avid fisherman don’t worry. These guys couldn’t have been nicer to a novice like me. They answered every question and were so informative! You could tell the loved their jobs… and why wouldn’t they?

Don’t like to fish? No worries. This is a mecca for birdwatchers and animal enthusiasts. We saw a small family of maybe 3-5 deer wading through the lake to get to part of the shore which they then climbed onto and rushed up a hill. We saw a variety of large herons and the like flying about all day. And we didn’t even canvas the lake. I plan to harass ask Brandon nicely (a lot) when we can go back and drive around the perimeter of the lake so I can see more critters. The boat rental place has lots of people just come up to ride around on the lake (like the Collie and his owner) so don’t feel weird about it! Pack a lunch and hit the water for a relaxing day out.

Along the shore we saw numerous herons, deer, and other fascinating critters.

Also if you like being on the water at night they have night boat rentals. Seriously cool.

I was also very interested in the history of the lake. It’s been there well over a hundred years when they dammed it up. You can’t get near the dam now (it’s guarded and has a long line of nets to keep boats back) but it looks really pretty from the top of it anyway. It’s a matter of security why they do this. It’s been restricted since 2001 since it is a water supply for our area.  Apparently when they dammed the lake there used to be a small school house, and town that was flooded over to make the lake it’s current size (the original lake was waaaay smaller).

Brrr! It’s cold in the winter. Sorry there are no Whiskey pics. Maybe next time!

So if you’re like us and are thinking of taking your dog on a boat trip- check out these helpful tips for dogs and boating.

• Ohio’s Dog and Boating tips: http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/watercraft/safetytips/dogs/tabid/2132/Default.aspx
• Discover Boating Article: http://www.discoverboating.com/resources/article.aspx?id=511
• Global Animal’s sad story of a dog overboard, but with a happy ending because they dog was equipped with a life jacket with contact info on the dog http://www.globalanimal.org/2012/06/08/dog-overboard-canine-safety-on-boats/75770/#sthash.erVxQ8IV.dpbs

And if you’re dog is not familiar with water/boating you might want to have a back up plan. For instance- you do not want to force your dog to walk the shaky gangplank to his doom if he’s seriously freaking out about the boat. Also, not all dogs are good swimmers. Don’t take your dog on the boat if you haven’t already worked with him on swimming. It took us an entire summer to get Whiskey to swim! As for the backup plan- Make sure you have a person who can perhaps stay on shore and work with him until he’s ready to get on the boat. Or better yet, don’t pay for the boat until you see if your dog is a water friendly, boat dock friendly pup. If he’s not, it’s better you haven’t paid for hours you can’t use. Just drive him home and then come back sans pooch if he truly panics. If you’re coming to Purdy from anywhere around the B’ham metro area this shouldn’t be that much of a chore to do, and in the end will be better for everyones mental health. Always be prepared for the randomness of dogs though. We’ve loaded Whiskey onto a boat before with no problem, then the last time a few weeks ago we had to spend an hour with him on shore hanging out- just me and him watching Brandon fish and explore the lake until Whiskey was suddenly (but still reluctantly ready to board the boat). But once he was on the boat he was a-okay.

Lastly, it is *always* a good idea to invest in and have your dog wearing a dog life jacket in case he falls overboard or decides to go daredog and dive in. Remember too that if a dog doesn’t have an easy way to board back onto the boat he can get injured if he jumps off and tries to climb back in. I have a friend who got seriously bruised and scratched up trying to get her dogs back into the boat after they went overboard.

Well, I hope you can go out and explore this little niche of Alabama woods and history. It was a lot of fun. Next time we will be bringing Whiskey!

After hiking the Pinhoti, all I can see in this water trail is a turkey track 😀

Some helpful links:

Birdwatching at Lake Purdy

A beautiful Youtube video shot (not by us!) by youtube user Particlelight. I hope if you live far away and can’t visit Lake Purdy you’ll check out their awesome shots of it. Beautiful!

BookBark Review: Dewey’s Christmas at the Library

Dewey’s Christmas at the Library
By Vicki Myron and Bret Witter

By now everyone’s heard of Dewey.  Right.     Right?  If you haven’t I suggest you pick yourself up a copy of the book Dewey the Library Cat. I listened to it on audiobook and it was read by the author. I thought she brought something extra to it, as authors who read their own work often do. Well, actually sometimes authors reading their own work is a terrible idea. But in this case it made me feel I knew the author a lot better than I otherwise would. But I digress…

We let BabyCat take center stage with this BookBark Review…given the species of the main character.

So about this cat Christmas story. It’s cute. And a short kids read too. Adults will like it as well I think. I enjoyed reminiscing over the cats I had growing up, and the two we’ve had together since being married and their incredibly different reactions to Christmas Trees and all the fuss. You never know what you’re going to get until you get it all out and see how the cat responds. Oh, and the dogs. The dogs are just as funny.

I was saddened recently to realize I’d lost an important picture. We had a picture of Whiskey and Midnight (his best bud- a cat)  staring thoughtfully at the tree the first year they encountered it together (I believe they were plotting its demise and indeed it did suffer minor damages under their reckless care). They looked very mischievous. And while I can’t find that picture anywhere on my various devices I do have the image branded into my brain. In lieu of it I have to post this picture. Despite the uncountable numbers of times we found them sleeping closely, or grooming one another affectionately, I can only find one series of pictures of them together. I regret this. I wish I had more pictures to remember them together. Midnight a survivor of FIV left our family for the rainbow bridge in the spring of 2011.

Midnight and Whiskey were often found snuggled up together. BabyCat who adored Midnight, could never warm up to Whiskey that much.

I once had two tortoise shell cats that delighted in ripping off the bottom ornaments and eating and playing with them. Instead of fighting them, we put the least valuable and/or softest sewn ornaments on the bottom so they could have them. Seeing those knitted red and white Christmas stocking ornaments still brings tears to my eyes when I think of Brack and Puck. I got them in high school. My husband Brandon drove me to pick them up (way out in the middle of NoWheresVille. And then took me to the local Food World to get their new loot). He also helped me name them. Little did I know a little more than 10 years later I’d still be crushing on the hot guy who helped me get those pets and eventually marry him… (ladies, take note- guys who are good to their pets, will probably be good to you.) wait! I’m Digressing Again! Okay. Focus. It’s Christmas I think.. it makes us reminisce.

“I see you watching me read.”

I hope you will all take the time to include your pets in your holidays and to remember those that came before. Make it safe but fun for them. Enjoy and treasure their reactions to the decorations, the special food, and visitors that grace your home. And take some time (I hope you can) to slow down and check out a book (picture or otherwise) to celebrate the season.

All our pawsome love,
Gina and Whiskerdoodle.

Skyway Motorway, Sections 2 & 3

A barn nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains caught our eye and we had to get this pic.

Note: B and I decided to split this trip into several post based on driving conditions. This sectioning off is purely from our own thoughts and not based on anything we read any where 🙂 We have driven on 4 different parts of the old Skyway Motorway so far and intend to finish it all the next time we can both get a day off From the ones we’ve driven so far the first two road sections were best suited for 4wd/high clearance vehicles. The 1st part wasn’t that bad, but the 2nd part scared the crap out of us (but it was fun!). We have an Element (low clearance) w/ 4wd so we were okay on when we needed all wheels but scraped bottom constantly and were incredibly lucky not to have to get towed, or (much) damage our vehicle because of how low our Element sits. We would NOT drive the second again without a higher clearance 4wd vehicle. It was stupid, but we had no idea how bad the road was till we were in the thick of it. So unless you hear that it’s been leveled (and I doubt this will happen..maybe ever) I’m saving you the same problem if you have low clearance. I hope this helps other people who want to drive this historic road and soak up the beauty as we did. Get out there and enjoy it… who knows how much longer these roads will be with us. However, I actually think hiking the Skyway Motorway would be pretty cool. It’s entirely on Forest Service land so you’ve got free camping options everywhere you walk

This blog post covers road sections 3 & 4 which were drivable by anyone anywhere. In fact one of them was paved. Hurray for you non outdoorsy car people! How did we determine where a road section stopped and began? Easy. If we started on a forest service road and crossed a major road or turned off of the Forest Service Road and had to take several turns to get back on the old skyway motorway then we consider that starting a new section.

Let’s review shall we?

The 4 sections we have driven so far listed below in order from South to North:

1. 600-1 &
2. 600-2 before Gunterstown Road {section 2 requires a higher clearance vehicle than we have, and although we made it we wouldn’t recommend it for anyone else as low as we are (we drive an Element). 4wd was used, but only in certain sections}
3. 600-2 after Gunterstown road &
4. 281 {both easy to drive in any vehicle and blogged about today}.
   

   Your gps may try to convince you that you are not only not on any road known to man, but are also floating in a sea of green. But as you can see, we are indeed ON a real road. CCC made and going strong decades later.

The third section by our definition starts when 600-2 comes to a stop sign at the intersection of Gunterstown Road (though we think it actually might be called by several names) and the Talladega map shows it going to Gunterstown or that it is Gunterstown Road it’s a bit unclear. Either way you don’t turn. Just go straight. In our previous post we talked about ranking the roads as easy (1) to incredibly difficult and need a 4wd (5). Once you cross over you are on a great smooth road that ranks a 1. It is still 600-2 and I have no idea why one part of it is so well maintained and great and the other…not so much. But on this road you can actually pick up some speed!  There are several good views on this section and they’re easy to miss because you’ll finally be able to go 30 miles an hour without wincing. The road is smooth, well graveled and extremely well maintained. Because of this you may pass cars on this road. Be very aware. There aren’t a ton of places to pull over but you can usually have room to pass if one of you goes wide and you go slow. We stopped in the middle of the road several times for fall pictures of the road because it was so pretty!

I loved the orange and reds that seemed to appear on this stretch of road.

At the end of this road is section 4. It spits you out on AL 281. You’re really coming out straight but if the intersection confuses you just remember to go to the left when you come out. It’s a hard intersection to explain. This is a paved road that we only traveled half of because it got dark. Lots of pull overs on your left to admire the view. You will also pass directly past the road to the left that goes to Cheaha Lake. IF you took that road as a detour and went further past Cheaha Lake the road takes you to Chinabee Lake, which I highly prefer over Cheaha Lake- a great place to have a picnic (they charge a small fee) get in a little hiking, or check out their affordable campsite.

ahhh! watchout Brandon! Tree falling!! lol It’s actually a BIG group of trees growing together. Sideways.

But back to the road we actually drove -as you continue up 281 you will pass by Cheaha State Park which has a restaurant and lots of hiking and a general store for some resupplies. We are not fans of the food there but the view cannot cannot be beat at sunset. If you can time it right, eat there. You won’t regret the view!

Beautiful soft fall colors lit up the roadside on section 4.

When we get to go back and finish it I’ll hop back on here and pick up with the final sections and fill you in on how good (or bad they were). I hope this helps people wanting to explore this part of Alabama’s important history and amazing scenic areas. The fall colors here are fantastic. One of the best day trips to see fall colors in Alabama, hands and paws down. My final piece of advice is to not go right after a big rain. We hit mud puddles that were pretty large and it hasn’t even rained lately. Now if you have a 4wd with more clearance than ours, then go after a rain and hang on and have fun!!

Sunset View, section 4.

We thought (wrongly) on section 1 & 2 that the mudpuddles would be a) safe to go through at a higher speed and b) necessary to go through at a higher speed because you do NOT want to go slow and get stuck. However, while b) remained true, a) did not. We HIT a *terrible* rock when flooring it through one of the bigger loooong mudpuddles. Horrible noises escaped from the banging and hitting beneath. We are very thankful nothing was broken under there… But you’ve been warned. At least one of the mudholes has rocks in it. It should be against the law lol!

Well, I wish we could go back sooner but it looks like Christmas or maybe New Years, unless it rains a lot, will be the quickest we can get free to drive. Happy hiking, biking, and exploring y’all!

I’ll leave you with a picture of happy Autumn jumping in the woods.

Skyway Motorway, Road sections 1 & 2

Note: B and I decided to split this trip into several post based on driving conditions. We have driven on 4 different parts of the old Skyway Motorway so far and intend to finish it all the next time we can both get a day off 😀 From the ones we’ve driven so far the first two road sections were best suited for 4wd/high clearance vehicles. We have an element (low clearance) w/ 4wd so we were okay on when we needed all wheels but scraped bottom constantly and were incredibly lucky not to have to get towed, or damage our vehicle because of how low our Element sits. We would NOT drive the second section listed below without a higher clearance 4wd vehicle again. It was stupid, but we had no idea how bad the road was till we were in the thick of it. So I’m saving you the same problem. I hope this helps other people who want to drive this historic road and soak up the beauty as we did. Get out there and enjoy it… who knows how much longer these roads will be with us. However, I actually think hiking the Skyway Motorway would be pretty cool. It’s entirely on Forest Service land so you’ve got free camping options everywhere you walk 🙂

The next blog post will be on the road sections 3 & 4 which were drivable by anyone anywhere. In fact one of them was paved. Hurray for you non outdoorsy car people! How did we determine where a road section stopped and began? Easy. If we started on a forest service road and crossed a major road or turned off of the Forest Service Road and had to take several turns to get back on the old skyway motorway then we consider that starting a new section.

Panoramic twirl of one of the first places we stopped

The 4 sections we have driven so far listed below in order from South to North:

1. 600-1 &
2. 600-2 before Gunterstown Road {these constitute the 2 road sections blogged about today}
3. 600-2 after Gunterstown road &
4. 281 {both easy to drive in any vehicle}.

Note: Brandon found various references online of people interchanging the Skyway Motorway for Skyline Drive. So be aware of this name switching as you plan your trip.

Part 1:

We both took a day off work to go do something adventurous (for us) and fun. And I might add, without the third wheel of the dog (sorry man). We decided the road would be too bumpy (it was, terribly so) for Whiskey to manage his car sickness. It was the best idea not to bring him. We got bounced all over and when were concentrating on not getting stuck front end side in a ditch or backing off a mountain when correcting a bad choice, the distraction of a bouncing 80lb dog in the backseat would have been too much (not to mention, who wants to clean up puke on a date?)

me showing Brandon the Pinhoti trail. I often found much of the trail blaze on the ground and am showing one piece of it to B in my hand. Hard to follow a trail where the blazes jump ship! I was so glad he got to see where I hiked 😀

So we hit the Talladega Forest area to seek out the remnants of the original CCC built Skyway Motorway. Here’s your history lesson for today: This area was accessible only by horseback or foot. But since it was one of the most beautiful parts of the state, the CCC wanted to change access and allow everyone to view it. Lookout towers and telephone wires were also run to increase safety and contact with the outside world to these remote areas.

“The Cleburne News reported on August 1, 1935, that the Forest Service was to construct a 75 mile scenic road along the crest of the main ridge running through the newly acquired national forest. The scenic road, called the Skyway Motorway, was to connect Sylacauga to Borden Springs. The 1936 annual reported that 17 miles of the “Skyway Motor Way”  had been located, opened and graded. When the road was finished, it would be one of the most beautiful scenic routes in Alabama and the South.”

Quote from The Civiliain Conservation Corps in Alabama, 1933-1942. By Robert Pasquill Jr. Mr. Pasquill provides several primary sources, secondary sources, and websites in his indexes. This book is definitely worth checking out. Currently in the last year I have seen several talks on the CCC at various state parks. It’s hard to find but there is a buzz building out there about these wonderful programs, camps and people in an effort to preserve the past before it’s gone.

I think it is important to note that this historic road was no doubt seen as some as the Blue Ridge Parkway of the Heart of Dixie South. Yet it failed. How? I don’t know. I can only tell you it failed because the Blue Ridge Scenic route is still a major destination, and hardly any one knows about the Skyway Motorway…  it isn’t in good repair, well known about, advertised, or kept up, and to me this means it failed. We must get out and educate ourselves about these relics. These beautiful places. We must Visit, Use, Celebrate, and spread the word. I don’t know how to garner support to restore this road to its once glory and use, but if anyone else has any ideas… I’m all ears. And heart.

Brandon walks back to the car on one of the best parts of the first section of trail. Just looks like a regular road here. No problems! And pretty as heck.

How to get there:

Drivers Note: Your gps, google maps (printed up), the actual road signs, and the Talladega National Forest ((Talladega and Shoal Creek Ranger Districts)) map are often (but not always) different when it comes to road signs. We thought this might be the doom of us. But it wasn’t. We often had all 4 out at the same time to cross reference. We did this- if the Talladega map, and our gps showed we should be turning and the road sign had a different name, but it was in the right spot, we turned. The GPS would show we were on the right path and voila, problem solved- names of things be damned. By the way, that Talladega National Forest map is a goldmine. Get one. Get One. To get a map: http://www.fs.usda.gov/main/alabama/maps-pubs Go here and from the form you can find the title of the one that we used “Talladega National Forest, Talladega and Shoal Creek Ranger Districts.” This map is also the one I use for the Pinhoti hiking/backpacking and is an excellent resource.

So if you plan to go south to north, then here is how you get to what, as best as we could figure, was the beginning. Go down 280 towards Sylacauga, until you see Co Rd 511/Old US 280 on your left. Turn Left. It is well marked. Then after about 2.6 miles take a L onto W 4^th street. I didn’t see the sign say W 4^th street but we ended up on the right road anyway thanks to the gps. Follow that for about 1.2 miles until you come to N Broadway Avenue.

Detour: Here is a great place to turn Left and go about a mile or less to a subway just a ways up on the Left. Grab a foot long and sides and then head back the way you came. Trust me, driving the Skyway will take a while and you’ll enjoy sitting on an overlook with your lunch 😀 Now just a tiny ways down N Broadway Avenue you will see AL 148 on your Left.  Take that and follow it about 11ish miles. The forest service roads are on your left (okay you’ll pass several, just make sure to look for the right signs). There are two in a row where you turn. The 1^st one is some 600#… maybe 607. The one right after that is 600-1 (with a painted A underneath it). That’s your boy. Turn left there. If you pass it there is an easy place to turn around just a bit down the road (we had missed it. They sneak up on you! And the signs are a ways back off of the road so it just looks like a driveway until you fly by and see the forest service road sign.)

Okay, back to it. Now you are on FS Rd 600-1 which google maps kept wanting to call Co. Rd. 6000-1. Goooo figure.

The conditions of what we’ll call the first section of Skyway Mtwy (with 1 being flat gravel no problems and 5 being holy &*^% you need a 4 wheel drive with TONS of clearance…)was  a 3. We had some squealing, we had a few good mud puddles. ONE of which I might add we floored it through only to hit ROCKS. HARD. The undercarriage scraped and moaned as we hit it at a frightening speed. After that we cautiously dipped into mud puddles. I hope this doesn’t happen to you but if you are riding this in a low clearance vehicle like ours (Element) then good luck and be careful of mud puddles hiding tigers. Also, if it’s recently rained- good luck. Those suckers are deep even after not having rain in foooorever.

There were not so rough parts and some nail biting ones. But nothing nearly as bad and frightening as the second section (but we’ll talk about that in a minute).

The leaves also camoflauged the rocks quite a bit. The leaves covered the roads and large rocks got lost. Needless to say we scraped a lot. Again, bigger taller trucks and jeeps should have no problems. Why were boulders sitting in the middle of the road anyway? I asked Brandon at one point if he felt like he was in some video game dodging huge rocks at high speed because that’s what he looked like, concentrating hard, constantly advancing only to spin left or right to avoid a huge rock that just popped up in the road, slinging us everywhere. And we weren’t flying! They just popped up like those gopher heads you beat on at Chucky Cheese. He said “No” that he didnt’ feel like he was playing dodge it in a video game but that he was frantically trying not to get us stuck in real life. Point for Team B. Real life is always better.

There are several good overlooks on this section mostly on the left. But there were several suspiciously pretty places on the right that we didn’t have time to stop for.

Tips: Start early. AM. I wish we had left B’ham as early as 8 or 9. We didn’t get on the trail till 1 and we missed a lot of daylight driving time, especially since the days are shorter now… And we paid for it dearly by rushing by sections in order to get out of the middle section before night fall. The first section took us a few hours.

The three things you definitely want to see in order of arrival:

1. The major power line crossing (on the pinhoti this is at mile marker 40.9). Pull over and get out and walk up the steep hill to your left for spectacular views). You can’t miss this because it’s a straight line in either directions as far as you can see and transformer sized lines running through. It’s huge and it’s one of the few places lines pass like that overhead.
   

   The view goes on in both directions for as far as the eye can see… gorgeous!

2.  Heath’s cross at Heath Cliffs (pinhoti mm 41.8). Again park and get out  and go to your left. You’ll kinda come up close to the cross. You’ll be able to tell from the road that it’s an overlook over cliffs to your left. If you found the powerlines just be on the lookout after that on the left.
   

   Heath’s Cross at Heath Cliffs Overlook

   2.a)want a spectacular view? Looking out over the cliffs find the trail that leads to your right. Follow the pinhoti marked trail for a short few minutes until it breaks open on these set of rocks. I camped here back in September 2012 and it holds a soft spot in my heart. You can make a quick shortcut down to the road to get back to your car because as you head back you’ll see a straight barely noticeable footpath down to the road. The views are better here in my opinion that Heath Cliffs. A great place for lunch.

   

   On top of the world, my favorite lunch spot, the side trail past Heath Cliffs on the Pinhoti. I slept here last month 😉

3. Horn Mountain Fire Tower. (Pinhoti mm 44.1) Pull into the pull off near the gate on your left. You’ll be just tipping down the mountain and the gate and road shoot back up the left hand side. You can’t miss it. Walk about ½ mile up this hill. Be on the look out about half way up on your right for the bamboo forest.
   

   Different shots of the bamboo forest. B wouldn’t go in with me! But I spent quite a bit of time meandering around in there 😀

   You’ll have to walk about 50 feet off the road to get to it. But you can walk thru it up to the tower instead of on the road. The rangers have been clearing it. You should see it before it’s gone. I don’t know if they are intending to just control it or eradicate it. However, it’s beautiful and magical and would be great for photo shoots before it’s gone. Note the rock retaining wall along your left and remains of the steps that lead down into the forrest as you stand inside the bamboo forest… it’s truly magical. Once you make your way up to the tower try to remember how beautiful it was when this stone park was first created by the CCC. Take your time to explore some of the back trails there. There is a very old outhouse, several springs that have been enclosed to tap the water source (I didn’t dare filter any when hiking. It looks yuck and not moving). Also this is a great place to stealth camp if you are hiking the Pinhoti, or heck, driving or mountain biking the Skyway/Skyline route. There are several places off the main park area (bamboo forest to name one) that are flat enough and pretty to camp in.

IMPORTANT FOR HIKERS: There is no Horn Mountain Shelter here as a sign proclaims on the trail. Unfortunately I ran into to two hikers who like me wasted a great deal of time trying to find this place (me because water was allegedly stashed here. It wasn’t. Them because they thought they could sleep at the shelter. There is no shelter. Unless some misguided person means the picnic pavilion). Additionally I’ve read on the Pinhoti Trail Alliance website that the Forest Services frowns on people camping here and you should stealth if you do so. So unless there is some hidden Horn Mountain Shelter none of us could find, they really should remove that sign. Gets people hopeful for something that doesn’t exist.

Fall Color on the Skyway Motorway

Brandon nearly passed the two pinhoti hikers we met on our travels. We backed up when we saw them a ways past the Fire Tower and I asked them a few questions. They asked if we had water. I did, but not enough. I gave them all we had, cursing that we hadn’t packed more. We bitched about how badly the trail was marked (seriously not cool) and how little water there was. They, like me, were not fully prepared for what “There’s no water on the trail” means. When people say this, they usually mean “Theres very little and you’re going to have to pump from one water source or so a day and make it last.” No. These people mean There.Is.NO.WATER.At.All.In.Any.Form.On.The.Trail.Am.I.Making.Myself.Clear.

They mean business. So we gave them our two 32 and 20 or so bottled oz of water we had and they went on their way to make it to Scott’s lake before night fall, which is the same destination I had had when I hiked.

PLEASE if you are reading this and you are considering driving any of the old CCC Skyway roads- put several gallons of water in you truck and a) offer it to any hiker you see to refill their containers, and b) leave them at the uncountable # of pinhoti hiking crossings that go across these forest service roads. Take a marker and write “Trail Magic, free water to fellow hikers” or something on it. Tuck it in just a few feet down the trail out of sight of the road but in clear sight of hikers. Trust me, they will appreciate it more than you can know. I told them I had to get off the trail and leave water drops. They aren’t going as far as I did. I wish I’d had thought to tell them that at Horn Mountain fire tower park area two men just about saved my life by giving me water from their truck (they carried a big water container thing on the back that held a massive amount). They said they did it all the time for hikers. Lovely men who helped me. And oh, if you two guys are reading this! Email me! I am trying hard to get out accurate info about the Pinhoti for future hikers like yourself. I’d love to talk to you about your trip. It was a pleasure to meet you both.

Part 2:

You will come down the hill and hit pavement. You take a Right onto 77, and then almost immediately take a left onto Horns Lake Road. Just a little over a mile you turn Left at a cemetery onto Skyline Drive.  This pretty little stretch of road will pass by what once was the only hostel on the Pinhoti (currently for sale and not in operation for hikers I think…) Looks pretty scary and near abandoned. One time I hiked by it said “Chickens for sale…” I have to say I was tempted. But hiking with a chicken is hard.

You will cross over a bridge over a pretty little stream that I spent quite a time staring at when hiking.

This bridge (pic taken in sept 2012 when hiking not during our drive) is the last little bit of pavement you’re going to enjoy before all hell breaks lose. Appreciate it before it’s gone….

Then you will go straight onto county road 600-2. This road gets a 5 for “gonna scratch your car, and dent your undercarriage and scare the &^%$ out of you.” Seriously. I would NEVER do this section again unless we had a higher vehicle. Brandon thinks you can do about 90% of this road without 4wd but do you really want to chance that 10%? We have 4wd on the element and we used it. A lot.  We also had to back up and change course because you can’t see where the one side of the massive ditch/washout takes you until you are up it. Unless you want to get out a lot and constantly walk forward and pick your path. We should have done that the one time I nearly backed Brandon’s right tires off the mountain trying to back down a scary section to get to the other side, equally as scary, except for the end were we wouldn’t go face first down into a 3 foot ditch we had no hope of crossing with our low clearance. Dammit.  Soo… yeah. This is a rough piece of road for someone like us. You got a high clearance 4wd? Have fun. You are going to Love this. Love love love. I mean, I even had fun despite getting banged up and our car scratched (if you have low clearance you have to hug the left and right sides where the trees are and get badly scratched because the washouts in the middle were so bad you can’t straddle them…)

Brandon trying to get the GPS to behave. Look at the NO clearance we have on that Element. What were we thinking! Well, we did okay until section 2… if your car is this low…don’t go lol. Go on the other sections. Plenty to see on the other ones!

This section ends when it comes down the mountain to a stop sign and crosses Gunterstown Road (or it might have other names…). 602 picks up on the other side but despite having the same name, is a completely different smooth wonderful easy ride. Hurray for that!

All in all, this drive was magnificient. My only regret about road section 2 was that I didn’t get out and stand IN the huge ruts that kept us terrified and squealing each time we scraped or dented soemthing under our car, or every time we hit a tree on the side and had to listen to the agonizing Sccrrreeeeaaaape down the side. I should have taken pictures of the poor shape of much of the road. Sure there were flat nice sections, but you had to go thru hell to get to them.

Till next time. Happy Hiking, Happy driving, and seek out history in the woods whenever you can. If you have driven this and have any info to add please contact us (email form is on the bottom of our About Page) or add the link to your blog/page/resource to the comment area below. We’d appreciate it!

Self portrait in rock and shadow…waving goodbye to my fellow outdoor lovers.

Turkey Creek- Thompson Trace

This new trail opened up yesterday at Turkey Creek Nature Preserve, located in Pinson, AL off of 79.

A tunnel of yellow greeted us about half way on the trail. I loved this stretch. Whiskey says it all belongs to him now ‘cuz he marked it all. Silly dog.

A public service announcement from Whiskey “Now if you follow us on fb you know, that unlike many other dog fb pages I normally don’t make personal appearances and speak directly to the public. For one, I’m a very private dog. I choose to let Gina translate and type for me. Secondly, I’m a busy dog. I’ve got stuff to do. Things to chew, chickens to tease, and lately I’ve been trying real hard to catch that squirrel in the back yard.. anyway I’m busy see. But I felt the need to talk to you in person because this is incredibly important. See I figure, I was the first dog to officially hike this trail since it opened yesterday. So I made sure to mark it good every so many dozen feet or so…and now in dog legal terms it belongs to me. So any of you dogs passing through you just know your in mah territory. That’s right fellas. My trail. It pays to be punctual.”

Tips (i.e. Personal Opinion lol): You should park your car at the main parking area and walk up the trail first so that it loops you around to the exit. You will exit at the upper picnic area directly before the exit of the park, then walk back on the road to your vehicle.
We chose to do it this way because that way we weren’t walking up hill all the way back after a 1.4 mile woods hike when we’d be tired. No, we had a nice downward slope the whole way back to the car. Perfect!

Whiskey and I pause as we start up the first (and really only hill). It was a good fast dog clip we were going at so the hill was a great workout! Made me think of my time on the Pinhoti.

When you first start off you’ll be hiking up a steeper incline for more distance than anything we’ve hiked yet in the past few weeks at Red Mountain Park (which we liked! felt that blood pumping on the uphill!). But once you’ve turned fully to your right and are up above the parking area it flattens out and you have a very easy hike the rest of the way. I imagine that when the leaves are down some short distance views will open up, but when we went the leaves were still on. And boy where they pretty!

You’ll see that the trail is well marked with blue blazes. Sometimes you’ll see a hiker man 😀 or arrows on the same kind of yellowish sign. Which was very helpful with all the leaves on the trail. Yay for well marked trails lol. (ahem, pinhoti, take notes)

You aren’t actually directly on the ridge line. Instead the ridge is on your left and you are down hill to the right anywhere from 20-50 or more feet from that ridge. We walked over to the ridge a few times to see if we could catch a view (no luck, just trees). But regardless I loved the trail. It had some FANTASTIC fall foliage. This is without a doubt one of the best trails to see some fall color when the leaves start changing. I would say one of the best places to also get in some good pics. Definitely!

In fact, a photographer pulled up the same time we did, and was at the falls taking pics when we got done. I let Whiskey jump in the water to cool down and grab a drink. The photographer seemed to enjoy taking our picture. He even waved that it was okay to come down where he was, but I’ll be honest with you, I’m a shy creature. I get …anxious… when meeting new people. And most people want to talk to me now that I have a dog tethered to me at all times lol. But I’ve not gotten any better at it. So I tried to explain from a great distance over the waters roar that we’d just done Thompson Trace (with hand motions towards the trail) and were headed home, but thank you.) He seemed super nice and had some awesome photographers equipment. Now I wish I’d been brave enough to talk to him! I bet he is a fascinating man. Since getting Whiskey I’ve gotten used to having our picture taken. At parks. When hiking. When walking down the road. At parties. At home. At stores. People everywhere whip out their cameras and phones to take pictures. Sometimes they ask permission. Sometimes they don’t. It’s okay. I figure at this point since getting him over 2 years ago we have had our picture taken by an estimated 100 strangers who have no idea who we are or that we have a blog and facebook page. They just admire a pretty dog. With the exception of the tourists from China (long story) and this photographer today, I’ve only gotten my entire body in those pics twice lol. Which is fine with me. My knees should be famous by now, and my dog, but not my face LOL.

posing for fall pictures… It was nice of him to do so. I know he’d rather be ferreting out all the chipmunks he terrorized on the trail.

I also can’t say enough how much Whiskey *loved* this trail. He was beside his furry self smelling everything. We crossed over about 10 different types of scat and he relished each one (but thank GOD didn’t roll in any.. phew). This is an easy enough trail for almost any dog I’d think. The length is something to consider. We’re not sure how long the road walk back is (and trust us, this was just as pretty in the fall color and Whiskey loved all the smells) but we think total we walked about 2.1 miles. That’s our best guess.

Our favorite time to go is Sunday mornings, around 8:30. The park opens at 8 am (check fb for current hours and days) and right now is closed on Monday and Tuesdays. Unlike Ruffner Mountain where they have a backdoor parking area and you can park and walk in at the wetlands at any time or day as long as the sun is up, I don’t think Turkey Creek welcomes that kind of traffic. Go when the park is open and during regular business hours. Dogs are welcome but must be on a leash.

Our favorite spot (other than the tunnel of yellow!) was what we’ve dubbed The V Oak. You can find it on your left once you’re walking up on the ridge. Just keep your eyes out for it. Can’t miss it. I think…

Rating: 10 fantastic Fall happy tail wags! We love this park because it’s free, it’s close to home, it has a variety of activities for dogs (easy flat trails, two trails with steeper inclines for those wanting a workout, road walking, biking, swimming, and just lounging around enjoying nature. yes!)

Once we got up to the V Oak we found an old fire ring. No fires allowed! But I hope they keep the fire ring. We think Turkey Creek should do fireside talks up here like Desoto Park does! We’d go!!

Standing on the trail, this is what the V Oak looks like. Again, would love to see events up here. Could easily see us sitting around the fire ring listening to a speaker. Come on Turkey Creek…isn’t this a swell idea! There’s room for a good crowd up there 😉

 

Links:
Turkey Creek Nature Preserve on fb
Link to map on TCNP FB page. Hope this link doesn’t go bad. If it ever does, go to their fb page and to their photos and look for uploads of map looking photos!
To see more fall photos from this trail go to our fb album🙂

Last picture! This is where you exit the trail, just above the picnic area near the exit of the park. We enjoyed the easy downhill walk back on the road. Peaceful and pretty…

Barking at the Moon Festival

Barking at the Moon Festival
Fultondale, Alabama
Sunday October 28, 2012

Whiskey and some of his admirers enjoying some off leash time at the dog park.

I’ve never been to doo dah day. But I hear it’s crazy. I know a lot of people enjoy it and have a lot of fun, but I hear about the crowds and the impossible parking and the craziness and I think, do I want to brave that? Luckily, now I won’t have to. We have our own North Jefferson version of it thanks to the great people at the Fultondale Bark Park. (Check them out at their face book page! http://www.facebook.com/FultondaleBarkPark)

Whiskey has only been to one festival before. It went fine but I definitely had to time my trips to booths well (when other people weren’t there) and I had to kind of walk away from crowds. Not because Whiskey would hurt anyone, but because he doesn’t understand personal space. Everyone is game. Everyone wants to pet him, right? Well, no. But he thinks so. So he approaches everyone and everything with the same gusto and distracted charisma that makes me love him so much. And actually he doesn’t care if you pet him. He really just wants to smell you… and this can make some people nervous. I mean, he is a huge black dog after all. A bit intimidating to people who maybe don’t like dogs. So random festivals are a bit tricky, but dog festivals? Bring it on! Technically everyone there should be a dog lover right?? Right?

There were so many entries in the parade! We got there just in time to see it. This is just the beginning of the line it stretched waaaaay around 🙂 There were plenty of dogs costumed and not. So no pressure to dress up if you want to enter next year!

So Whiskey’s distraction is a bit hard to describe. He displayed this at the Barking at the Moon Festival as well. It’s like he’s so overcome with all the things that he can’t look at anything for more than a second. He’s constantly moving, changing direction, looking everywhere. When people would try to pet him he’d give them attention for a second then duck his head away as he turned to look at something else, leaving them trying to pet him again only for him to dodge away to smell or see something else at the last second before impact.  I describe him apologetically to people who don’t know him- as a “Very ADD dog.”  But strangely if there’s not a lot of distraction when he’s met new people they have often described W as “very calm.” And I’m always like “Really!? You think so?” Funny stuff, how other people can perceive your dog.

The skunk costume was my favorite! Look for the wee doggie towards the right bottom. Loved!!

Anyway, enough rambling, you came here to know about the festival. Lots of people AND pets in costumes. Both! I wish I’d dressed up! The parade was a lot of fun. People and dogs of all types and ages. I was really shocked at the turn out. Great crowd for the first event. TONS of booths to explore and talk to. Lots of dog lovers. Lots of dog treats. It was truly a wonderful event that I cannot wait to go to next year. This year we scored one free dog toy (a squishy ball W wouldn’t touch there but has played with a bunch at home), severaaal free treats (yummy in his tummy), bought two dogeriffic t-shirts, entered a raffle for swank dog food, set up to buy a jogging belt system thingimajig from Alabama Siberian Husky Rescue (who were shocked I used a retractable leash with a husky for *anything* to which I assured them he’s broken many a leash in his 3 years on this earth), and bought a new DogMom bumper sticker for my truck (sweet!). And we just chipped a bit at the tip of the iceberg in our fleeting time there. Next year I plan to stay longer and have even more fun- including a costume for us both I hope!

I also loved that April M. who runs the Alabama Siberian Husky Rescue mentioned above, told us that she was positive Whiskey was a husky and not a mix. She’s evaluated tons of dogs in her time. This makes one breeder, and one head of a breed specific rescue that really thing W is a full blooded dog. Look, it doesn’t matter to us in the end one way or the other, but it is neat to think about and we would love to know, just because knowing the breed can help you in training with breed specific things, as well as giving you a medical heads up for breed specific problems that might pop up. Plus, it’s just fun to guess about his heritage. We had a gazillion people stop us to ask “what kind of dog is he!?” and I always hate never being able to 100% tell them. I’d love to be able to proudly say “He’s a Husky!” or “He’s a husky/australian shepherd mix!” etc.

My secret How-To-Tip: Park at black creek park to avoid the small parking area or parking on the street. If you park at Black Creek Park here is how you make your way to the Dog Park. From the parking lot you walk towards the senior center on the trail. You will see where the trail branches up to your right onto what was the old rail bed (tracks removed now). Follow that trail bed under hwy 31 till you exit about ¼ or less of a mile onto a road. Directly across the road is the dog park (you’ll have to turn left onto the road and then right down a walkway into the park). Trust me! This will save you a parking headache. And plus, this means you’ll get in most of your daily walk on the way to the park! Bonus.

Hope everyone can get out and go to the next one next year. They’ve already picked a date! October 27, 2013 We hope to see you there!

Want your fix now? Visit their fb page and look at this photo album from this years event. There are some truly beautiful dogs in the pics. Maybe get some inspiration for next years costume while you’re there too!

Chickens and Eggs

I am as of this exact moment, writing these words sitting in the hallway outside our bathroom listening to a chicken scream. Have you ever heard a chicken scream? It’s a pretty debilitating sound. It sort of makes me feel … small, and regretful.

Chicki after her bath. She was not happy with me but did get back on my lap.

Yesterday we found one perfectly fine egg, and then a busted egg with nothing but one pinky sized amount of shell to be found. If there was a yolk I couldn’t recognize it. I imagined the egg crushing in the chicken and this oozing out. I frantically tried to flip each chicken and see if I could see anything. And the damnedest thing happened. I couldn’t find Chicki Minaj’s um… hole. Vent. Vent is one word for it. We’ll go with that. I had to leave in 30 minutes to go to my husbands work for a show they are producing so I.had.to.leave. I left them all hoping for the best.

Whiskey hasn’t had a walk in two days so he’s a bit..off the dog deep end with pent up energy and theres no way I’m fitting in a walk tonight so that will be make three days. I’ve had to lock him up while I tend to the chicken vent because I don’t trust him not to chase the chicken and make this worse for all of us.

And this is probably one of the wost days of my chicken raising career which isn’t even a year old yet (will be in April). The other worst day was when I found Chicki Minaj (see a trend here) hanging upside down and BACKWARDS from one toe in the chicken coop. Yeah. She’s that good. It’s a terrible pity she’s my favorite because if she’s in line with the cat for nine lives…she’s using them up pretty darn quick. She’s also the chicken whose vents got pasted when I first got her home. Nice. Thanks Chicki.

So back to the screaming chicken and how we got here. So I couldn’t find the vent and I let them go on about their chicken way. Then this morning I opened up the coop and it was…disgusting. I mean really gross. I let them out and had to clean out all the paper for the 2nd time in less than about 14 hours and then had to rush off to work. When I finally got home tonight and could check them again it was dark and they were all on their perch. By the way, this is the perfect time to do things to them. They are half sedated by the darkness and easy to control. I looked and was horrified. Her vent seemed to be surrounded by dried egg. I went inside and frantically looked up all the advice I could find.

Apparently there is a school of thought that these are chickens and there’s not a lot you can do and this is nature. Just let it ride out its course, give antibiotics if you need to (one of the BIG things we were trying to avoid!) and watch the bird for sluggishness. Try to make her comfortable etc. These people see them more as farm animals and not as pets. Their would not consider a vet.

Then there is this middle road kind of people who have a laundry list of how to help loosen things up: warm bath, which is what we just finished, oiling her up around her vent which I found a few people to say is about as useful as oiling your left ear. Funny stuff. Others said warm heating pads, and extricating the broken egg with your finger. Flushing her hoohoo with a syringe of water and vinegar which left me running around the house frantically looking for one, bemoaning loudly the whole time “How could I not buy a syringe! I’m a horrible chicken parent! A syringe! If I could just find a syringe!”

This second group sees the chickens as pets but recognizes that vets may not be able to help and you should learn to do all your vet fixin’ of the chickens at home. I do tend to swing towards this group for various reasons. Sometimes for these people distance to a vet is a factor as they are really on farms, isolated from their neighbors. Sometimes it’s money (it’s a $3 bird they reason- are you going to run up a couple hundred $ vet bill when you could do the vet care at home yourself?). There are other reasons. Some people don’t have a vet that will see chickens for example.
The last group is probably the most hardcore to me. But in a different way. They will not do any work on their chickens themselves and pay their vet to do everything. This person would have not gone to the performance last night and would have had the chicken x-rayed at the vet this morning.

While I may not know exactly where I fit in, I certainly don’t feel confident to stick a finger where the sun don’t shine so without a syringe I was dead in the water. Which leads us to the bath bit. After I gathered her up and got her inside successfully (No small task!) I set her down in a bath of warm water which she tolerated at first. I was able to clear off all the stuff and get her to submerge her vent for a while but not a full 30 minutes. This supposedly loosens up the vent muscles which will help things…pass. And pass they began to. But it was chicken poop. Not chicken eggs. I began to believe that like humans, chickens might have stress poop. Because the more stressed she became and the more she screaming she did the looser and more utterly disgusting her poop got.

Lets just say I had to change my clothes.

Several articles talked about making sure they continue to eat and drink and suggested fruit because of it’s ability to..umm…move things along. So she got an apple which she ripped up! glad to see her eating.

She also got an apple, bread, and fresh water. She seemed to dig the apple and not competing for food but this isn’t to say our bathroom trip was easy going. She jumped onto and fell off of the toilet, loosing her grip on the seat and banging her head and body violently on the way down. I began to worry if she were better off alone in the coop instead of in here with me.

And when I exited to do something the screaming began. From her and her nest mates. When I re-entered the bathroom it intensified. I imagine now as I sit on the other side of the door listening to her, that she’s cursing me in chicken. Great violent bursts of cursing that would make a sailor blush.

Lastly, I read that trying to free an egg when it’s not really stuck can break the egg waiting to come out that’s fine. Everyone seems to use how the bird is displaying itself as a good predictor. She seems fine if you overlook the chicken gypsy curses being hurled through the door.

I eventually pulled myself off the floor and took her outside. I put her back and everyone seemed happy. I’m going to have to keep  a close eye on her but I’m not entirely sure how this will go.  If I wake up tomorrow and she’s perky and chipper for the entire day then I think we are in the clear. If she’s droopy then I’m going to have to decide what to do…

Thanks to everyone on fb for your concerns. I promise to keep you updated as the weekend goes on.

Pinhoti Reflections

In writing the posts for the sections I’ve completed for the Pinhoti I realized I need to do a summary of some things first, so that my actual day 1, day 2 section this section that, posts don’t get too cluttered with my big mouth running in all directions. So I’m doing a reflections/summary/points of interest first then will be posting shortly about the sections individually after this.

Day 1 of my attempted “thru” hike of the Pinhoti set the tone for the rest of the trip I’m afraid- a little short on mileage lol. I should say up front that I didn’t make it to the GA line during my vacation time, even though technically if you just took the number of miles and divided it by days I had available it seemed doable. Maybe a longer day here makes up for a shorter day there… but it seemed plausible.

Sometimes attempts to mark the trail succeeded. I became real attached the old school turkey mark of white on bark, which was my favorite type of Pinhoti trail mark.

But on the first day we didn’t hit the trail until a little before 11 and though we packed in a decent amount of miles before calling it quits at 4:30 we didn’t make it as far as I needed to to keep up with that miles/days ratio I had going on. I figured I’d make it up later. But I didn’t. I hit some snags later in my hike (an hour or two lost here and there when blazes thinned out or multiple trails branched out at an intersection that wasn’t marked… road crossings that were hard to find… taking a zero day to arrange water drops for the next few days, etc) that stole even more time.

This was worth it though because of a few factors. I had Brooke with me on day 1 and she needed to be picked up the following morning so the company was ABSOLUTELY worth the late start and shorter mileage day because with her she helped me be brave enough to start my journey.  Brooke and her husband also did me a HUGE favor the next day by setting up a water drop and that gets them gold stars in my book. I seriously needed a teddy bear on my first night on my trip and Brooke agreeing to go with me was a major comfort. Without her I wonder, would I have been brave enough to go on? I’ve never hiked solo like that in the woods before. There’s no one there… I mean…no one. Each road crossing felt a little like Russian Roulette. Each time I was getting ready to camp I had safety to take into consideration- I didn’t want to camp right by a road crossing… and my mileage kept playing out where I’d either have to have a reeeeally long day or a “regular” day. I ran into a few off road vehicles and each encounter had the potential of being dangerous… But short of one near encounter with some crazy drunk cursing rednecks everything went fine. I was totally safe and began to trust my instincts and talk to the people I met at road crossings. This hike has been a real growth opportunity for me as a long distance hiker. I can’t wait to finish out the rest of this trail!

Brooke and I found a place off of the trail to camp the first night. We found old blue blazes and realized our stealth camp was actually on part of the old Pinhoti. Interesting! Her presence on the first night was just the bolster I needed to continue on alone over the next several days. Thanks Brooke!

So in retrospect here’s what I would have done differently:

• Arranged water drops ahead of time (logistically I’d never done this and had no idea how) I’ll cover the best way to do this on the Pinhoti further in the future blog posts.
• Planned my mileage much more carefully before leaving- I was way too “oh, whatever happens happens” and was a bit shocked I think at falling short of my goal.
• Had arranged a backup ride home (my ride ended up having to pick me up two days earlier than originally planned because of work scheduling conflicts).
• Taken bug spray! (most of my zero day was spent tending to serious wounds received from bugs like I’d never experienced!). I’ve never had to take bug spray.. I’d never needed it..but lots of different types of bugs ate me on this trail. One even ate most of the skin OUT OF my belly button. It looked like it was infected and got round the clock attention on my zero day as did my feet which were almost the worst shape they’ve ever been in. I can’t explain that either… just one of those things…
• Left the set of Pinhoti maps at home. I felt they were worthless bunches of paper. Instead I would take the two other things I did have and DID use and ditch those map sets. I did have the Talladega National Forest Map. Mine was dated 2008. I do not know if there is a newer one. It is weather resistant and has everything you need on it. I also did something a bit time consuming but incredibly worth the time. I went to the Pinhoti Trail Alliance (PTA) website and took the “snail trail” descriptions of each section. They were far too long to just print out. I copied and pasted them into word then altered the font size down, put some stuff into columns, got rid of the unnecessary stuff (“you’ll see this type of flower in April…etc etc.), got rid of all those annoying spaces between lines, but kept everything else. I had to do a lot of formatting to make the sections small enough to print. I left the back of the pages blank for journaling or writing notes about the trail and put my second half in my resupply box my mom was bringing to Cheaha on Wednesday. This guide was sometimes wrong. Sometimes misleading (his account that a road crossing path back into the woods would be ten yards down when it was only teen FEET etc.) but it definitely got referenced to the point of nearly disintegrating in my hands and was a wonderful tool. It will take a long time and will be a headache to reformat to make it small enough to carry but I cannot reiterate enough how useful this is. Do it! I also used my compass more than once, even though I have a barely working knowledge of how to do that lol. But the PTA print out I made would reference a direction and low and behold I could use that compass to see if I was going that way. I felt like such an awesome hiker LOL. I really need to learn about compasses and reading maps, and about using a gps.
• I would have begged someone else to go with me for even part of the trip. I usually hike alone during the day but enjoy the camaraderie of camping near other people more than I can say. Plus that tree falling on my campsite really was a downer (details to follow in future posts) and definitely got me thinking about how long it would have taken for me to be found (no phone signal where I was) or even be reported missing if it had hit me. What are the odds you say? Apparently for me, pretty damned good.
  

  Sometimes the attempts to mark the Pinhoti trail…failed.

  Things I wouldn’t have changed:

• I took my MP3 player despite debating whether to do so. The loneliness was so palpable. Don’t worry, I still had lots of that crazy “alone in your head time” that you get on long distance hikes but sometimes that mp3 player was all that kept me going
• I still would have brought a book. I usually consider it unnecessary weight but again, at the end of the day, reading a few pages took the edge off of the sense of aloneness the forest engulfed me in. As a person prone to anxiety and fear and worry- well, these two items really helped me stay strong.
• I still would have taken the zero day because my feet needed a day of rest (they’ve never gotten so bad so quickly!) and some of my bug bites also needed some serious healing.
• I still would have NOT taken my dog. I don’t feel my dog is physically able to go here. It was rough on me and I think, sadly, I’m in better shape than he is, the lazy woofer. It is still too hot, the trail is far too overgrown, and he’s not allowed or trusted off leash. For some people bringing their dog might work but I know without a doubt that his paws would have been shredded the first day and he would not have been able to carry his own food or water for such a long trip. Even with boots some of the areas were so entrenched with blow downs he would not have been able to pass without serious backtracking and rerouting of your hiking path, hoping you’d meet up with the trail on the other side. Not my style. I’d rather just climb over them, belly to the tree and pack to the sky- sliding if need be to get over. And I had to do some seriously fancy footwork on some of those tangles of blowdowns.. Not to mention the nearly 2 miles of rock fields!
  

  this went on in varying forms of torture for nearly 2 miles. Sometimes there were stacked layers of small twisty stones, sometimes large stones you think would never move, shifting beneath your feet. A crazy ride through the rock fields left me glad for flat solid ground!

  The rock fields were too complicated for him to cross. I fell 4 times on the rock fields. They were seriously seriously challenging. And to make it worse by that point I was in a hurry to meet a ride picking me up for a zero day so I went faster on the rock fields than you should. I wouldn’t want to put my dog through that. He’s safe and happier (this time) at home.

Overall- if you’re looking for a secluded trail to hike on, that presents a nice mix of flat gaps to speed through as well as some challenging and fun climbs then the Pinhoti is your gal. She’s not marked as well as she could be in some places. And in others the trail is nearly, okay, entirely lost and you go on gut instinct or you glance up and far off in the distance is a faint blue blaze and you just tromp towards it- hoping when you get to it you can glance up and finally see another. I only got entirely lost once. I got partway lost twice -once on a way up a mountain that wasn’t marked until you were coming down the other side and the other time at a road crossing (okay, maybe more than one road crossing but one in particular I remember distinctly cursing at the guys use of the word X “YARDS” when he clearly meant X “FEET.”  X yards away there was a trail. It was not the pinhoti trail. I was not happy and it took me quite a while to figure it out. Your biggest problems will be- road crossings, water scarcity, and if you hike while their are leaves on the ground you may lose the trail *completely* as it’s not always visible and/or marked.

But would I say do it? ABSOLUTELY!

I look back to my left to see the way I just came up. Over those rocks. Yeah. that’s pretty awesome.

I promise to work hard this weekend to get the sections I completed up and detailed on the blog! Hope everyone has a happy hiking weekend and gets out there with (or without if you have to) your dog and enjoy the nice fall weather!

I look over the Appalachian Mountain Range, some of which I have hiked. I couldn’t help but wonder if any of the mountains and peaks I saw I’ve already conquered.

But, lest you think I’m some sort of hiking god- I met this fellow on the trail and he gave me a good run for my money up the Stairway to Heaven section. I beat him up it only by a second. See- that’s why he looks so mad! Because I beat him.