November flowers - a color riot

"Florida or Bust" - Day 44

Today I was deep in the heart of rural south central Alabama.  The only town I passed through was Honoraville.  It has a church, a gas station, a senior center, a tiny post office, and a hand-me-down store that was selling out and closing.

The people here are the salt of the earth.

I'm coming to an understanding of these people, and I love them.  Two or three times every day, someone stops beside me as I'm walking and asks if I'm 'broke down' or 'need a ride somewhere'.

Being from the urbanized, jaded northeast, I'm finding their concern and willingness to put aside their personal agenda in order to take care of a stranger's needs astounding.  Hard to accept at first, but this is their way of life.  They watch each other's backs.  They care.  And I am touched.

But back to the title subject.  It was a humid warm day, and the November flowers seemed to all be competing with one another for the bees and butterflies - trying to make one last quick batch of seed before winter.  The morning glories were the star, and I don't know the names of some of the other flowers in the photo up top, but here's another example of the aggressive profusion of the red star morning glory, Ipomoea coccinea

I also saw yellow blazes for the first time since I left the Coosa Trail and began my road walk south.  It seems from here on south the route is pretty well blazed.  Here they only added to the color riot :-)

Okay, now for a change I'm presenting a bit more of the nitty-gritty detail about today, and some of the flavor of my logistical process.  For this, I'm copying my personal journal.  It's workmanlike prose, not meant to do anything but record the facts:

"I was up before dawn and got out the laptop to check weather, because it looks sketchy today.  Radar shows that the expected rain was still all north of Montgomery and the local forecast is for the chances of showers to increase through the morning and not be ‘serious’ until after noon here, which is what I had guessed from previous forecasts.

Today is the Pinhoti 100 endurance race and up there in northeast Alabama they are going to have rain through the day—tough conditions for them.

I got off the laptop just after 6AM and began hike preparations and had the time to trace a great Post Oak leaf on the shirt I wear today—number 32.

 Like the tulip poplar, post oak leaves are works of art—very pleasing to my eye anyhow.

 Finally it got light enough to hike, and at 6:30AM Eastern as civil twilight was beginning I headed to a pull-out a mile and a half down in a quiet spot. That began another day of many short legs, all less than 2½ miles today.

 The morning started out warm and humid and a bit foggy with temperature in the low 70’s but then a weak front came through and brought slightly lower humidity and a north breeze. If that was the front associated with the rain it was a very weak one. The temperature actually rose into the mid 70's.  The rain didn’t make its appearance the entire time I hiked today, though I carried my umbrella most of the day.

 I got to Honoraville at 9AM but found the post office closed. I hiked another short leg from a gas station a half mile west of town and when I got back there the post office was open, so I bought stamps as intended. Next, when I got the car to that gas station I filled it up with gas—was close to a quarter tank—and bought some orange juice and Reeses as ‘thanks’ to the owners.

 I hiked several more legs, all down CR 11 in Crenshaw County, though the roads kept changing names and had a couple turns at stop signs. I found a "road-kill" ball cap early in the afternoon. This was my third fully functional cap in three days—I never mentioned it but I found two in one day on Butler Mill Road a couple days ago. Those were an Alabama ‘Roll Tide’ hat and a Mossy Oak camo hat that was badly sun faded. Today’s hat was a Walt Disney Studios ‘Paris’ hat and the label was indeed in French. But it was a black hat—not very appealing. None of these three hats is immediately going to supplant any of the seventeen in my rotation. Maybe I should start working on a second seventeen, since I now have six or seven ‘spares’.

 When I got to the Centenary Church, mentioned in the guide information as hiker friendly I saw some ladies there so stopped in and asked them if I could park there tonight. Their pastor has long since changed—the guide info is a decade old at best. They gave me the new pastor's number and I called it and left a message but never got an answer. Despite that I decided to park the car there for the night, not in the church lot but beside the cemetery across the street. I might have gone on, since it had not yet rained a drop and I had only hiked 15 miles and there were still three hours until sunset, but I scouted ahead with the van and found no decent place to leave the car overnight unattended—certainly not one that would give me the confidence that the church does. By the time I got done the scouting there were some threatening looking clouds and they indeed had rain with them, so if I had hiked another 2.5 miles to a stream crossing with grassy flat shoulder (the next best option), I probably would have had some light rain by the time I finished that."

That's the end of the hike report from my personal journal.  Below is a map of the route with links to more of the photos I took.


Florida or Bust - Day 44. More of rural south Alabama at EveryTrail
EveryTrail - Find the best Hiking in Alabama

Beautiful Rural Butler Mill Road and a close encounter with a Copperhead

Tree-lined, Spanish moss festooned Butler Mill Road.  It was a dirt road when first designated as the ECT/GET route, but paving it has taken away none of its charm.

"Florida or Bust" - Day 43

I'm finally back on the 'true path' - the route of the Eastern Continental Trail and the Great Eastern Trail as designated by those who designate routes.

I wasn't interested in the designated route through downtown Montgomery.  The chaos and noise of busy streets and highways are things that I go hiking in order to avoid.  Here, starting on Butler Mill Road, the designated route checks all the boxes as far as a desirable hiking route, from my point of view.

Butler Mill Road gets very little traffic.  Perhaps a vehicle every hour or two.  There aren't many houses here.  There's swamp and hunting land and working forest.  There was one cute little church set out there in the middle of nowhere, and near it I knew I had returned to the fold of the faithful (GET/ECT hikers, that is) because I spotted the first yellow blaze since I left the Coosa Trail at Hatchett Creek.

By afternoon it was hot and muggy.  Crossing this pretty sandy stream I was tempted to plunge in.

Then ... where Butler Mill Road comes to an end, the route takes unpaved Surles Road.  If anything, it's even less traveled .. at least by vehicles. But ...

Right there in the middle of the road I came upon a snake lounging in the shade, seeming to be recovering from a sunny crossing.

I didn't know what kind of snake it was.  It didn't look threatening - indeed it wasn't moving at all, even though it surely saw me.  So I got closer.

Still it didn't move.  So I got within six inches of its head to take a good head shot.

Notice the dark pit between the eye and nostrils.  I should have realized.  This is a pit viper.

Pit vipers are venomous.  This was a southern Copperhead, something I'd never seen before.  I was only familiar with the much darker northern copperhead from my many treks in the Pennsylvania woods during my youth.  This reminded me more of the harmless Milk Snake or Chicken Snake.  And as a result I was thinking 'harmless' rather than seeing the obvious danger signs.

Fortunately pit vipers are sluggish during the day.  They hunt at night when their heat-seeking infrared pit sensor works better.

This one never did move, or I might be posting this from a hospital, or from beyond the 'Pearly Gates'.

These are the kind of stupid mistakes one doesn't make twice.  I'm out of my home territory.  I need to be far more cautious.  By jove, I'm still trembling.

Below is a map of the route taken on this eventful day.  Fortunately it didn't end there on Surles Road.  I live to hike another day - hopefully just a bit wiser for the experience.



Butler Mill Road part two at EveryTrail
EveryTrail - Find the best Hiking in Alabama

The Pike Road Natural Trail and the walk of a thousand ponds

"Florida or Bust" - Days 37 to 42

I searched the internet for bike paths or greenways through the city of Montgomery, Alabama but couldn't find any.  I don't like cities and I don't like hiking noisy four-lane-divided highways.  The designated route of the Eastern Continental Trail and the Great Eastern Trail directed me to go straight through downtown Montgomery on city streets, right past the State Capitol building, and then onto some of the busiest highways in and around the city and on north for ten miles or more.

No thanks.  I sought a different route.

And what I found was the four-mile-long Pike Road Natural Trail and lots of quiet country-road walking past more roadside ponds than I could count, which I am calling the 'Walk of a Thousand Ponds'.

I think it's a worthy alternative to the route through the city, where I would constantly be watching my back and worrying about sketchy residents and bad drivers, not to mention noise and fumes and other human-produced sensory pollution.

So this is the report.  I've kept the words abbreviated, and just show a few select ponds, then provide a set of turn-by-turn directions.

Pike Road Natural Trail was just completed in 2012, so not too many people know about it yet.  It's a dedicated gravel footpath that runs beside Meriwether Road for four miles.  It has large dedicated hiker parking areas on either end with rest rooms that have flush toilets and sinks with running water.  It's hiker luxury. 

Pike Road Natural Trail's east trailhead parking area and rest rooms

The west trailhead parking area is even more impressive, and this rest room  not only has a flush toilet and sink but even has electric light.

The trail itself is flat and ordinary, but being on dedicated footpath makes me feel special.  Meriwether Road is not a busy road, so the sounds of nature are all that fill the silence most of the time.

And along this four mile stretch of trail you pass within sight of two or three dozen ponds, including a private fish hatchery.  This part of Alabama seems to take special liking to ponds.  It seems like every home is set on enough acreage to have a pond, and most of these are set between the road and the house.  This was true along nearly the entire Montgomery Bypass route that I hiked, so I came to call it the 'Walk of a Thousand Ponds.'  Here's just a small sampling.

Golf course pond

Mansion pond

Institutional pond

Quintessential residential pond

Country pasture pond

Natural shore pond

Bridged pond shared by two homes

Prison pond - Kilby Women's Correctional Facility

One of many, many ponds with Gazebos

Biggest pond, so big the owner calls it Lake Charles

And what pond collection would be complete without a duck pond

The walk was great fun.  If I have to do a road walk, this is the kind I prefer.  Rural Alabama is distinctive and worth getting to know.  If walking through a city on auto-roads is not for you, then give this a try.

North to South directions:

From Hatchett Creek trailhead and the east end of the Coosa Trail turn right onto CR 29
5.9 miles to Left on CR 31
2.7 miles to county line where name changes to Buyck Rd., CR 429, continue straight
4.2 miles to Left on New Home Road, CR 80
0.8 miles to crossing of CR 21.  Continue straight, road name is now Bradley Rd.
0.3 miles to Right on Bowden Rd. CR 335
2.0 miles to Left on Laurel Creek Rd., CR 334 (Right 2 miles on Laurel Creek to resupply)
0.2 miles to Right on Rea Rd., CR 336
0.9 miles to Right on Weoka Rd., CR 221
1.6 miles to Left on Blake Rd., CR 340
1.2 miles to Right on Nobles Rd., CR 338
1.0 miles to Right on Grier Rd., CR 209
Immediate Left onto Fortner just before the church
1.2 miles to Right on Trace Rd., CR 206
2.4 miles to Left on Williams Rd., CR213
1.3 miles to cross Central Plank Rd., GA 9, continue straight
1.1 miles to Right on Georgia Rd., CR 63
0.5 miles to Left on Old Georgia Plank Rd.
0.4 miles to bear Right on Old Tallassee Rd.
0.9 miles to Right on Tallassee Hwy., GA 14, New Style Methodist Church
0.8 miles to Left on Firetower Rd., CR 59, at Texaco and big convenience store
3.8 miles to stop sign, cross Redland Rd., CR 8, Continue straight, name is now Dozier Rd.
4.8 miles to left on Rifle Range Rd., CR 4
0.5 miles to right on Emerald Mountain Expressway.  Convenience store at corner, Dollar General on right 200 yards before the turn.  After turn is the toll gate, crossing is free for pedestrians.
2.1 miles, crossing Tallassee River then passing Creek Indian Casino and golf course to Left on Wares Ferry Rd.
4.4 miles to crossing of I-85, no exit.  Continue straight to flashing red light. (go right and follow frontage road on to many services.
0.3 miles to flashing red light, Road name becomes Pike Rd.  Continue straight (go right and follow frontage road for many services including a huge Wal-Mart)
5.1 miles to town of Pike Road and PIKE ROAD NATURAL TRAIL Trailhead on the right side of the road (look for kiosk with big sign right after war memorial and pavilion) just before right turn onto Meriwether Rd., CR 40.  Trailhead parking area is well off the road and has flush toilet and sink.
Follow PIKE ROAD NATURAL TRAIL Right at Meriwether Rd.
4.0 miles to end of PIKE ROAD NATURAL TRAIL at trailhead well off the road with flush toilet, electric light, and sink with cold running water.  Continue straight on Meriwether Road from trailhead entrance.
0.2 miles to sharp Left on US 231, a high speed four lane divided highway.
1.0 miles to Right on Trotman Rd., CR 22
2.5 miles to Right on Woodley Rd., CR 38
1.2 miles to Left on Snowdoun-Chambers Rd., CR 18
5.4 miles to Left on Hobbs Rd. with convenience store in view.
0.1 miles to cross US 331, town of Snowdoun.  Cross highway and continue on Butler Mill Road, crossing railroad tracks and bearing left, resuming the 'official' route of the trail as previously published by others.

South to North directions.

Where Butler Mill Rd crosses Railroad Tracks and intersects US 331, do not turn left on 331, but cross highway, road becomes Hobbs Road.  Immediately bear left onto Snowdoun-Chambers Rd., CR 18, before the church on the left.
5.4 miles to right on Woodley Rd.
1.2 miles to Left on Trotman Rd.
2.5 miles to left on US 231
1.0 miles to sharp right onto Meriwether Road - sign says 'Pike Road' referring to the town
0.2 miles to big PIKE ROAD NATURAL TRAIL TRAILHEAD parking on right,  Continue straight on PIKE ROAD NATURAL TRAIL paralleling Meriwether Rd.
4.0 miles to Left on Pike Road (the road) at the town of Pike Rd.
5.1 miles, past a red light at CR 110 to flashing red light, frontage road near I-85
0.3 miles to I-85 overpass and intersection with north side frontage road, continue straight, road is now called Wares Ferry Rd. (left on frontage road to many services)
4.4 miles to right on Emerald Mountain Expressway past Creek Indian casino and golf course
2.1 miles to Left on Rifle Range Road
0.5 miles to Right on Dozier Rd.
4.8 miles to stop sign, cross Redland Rd, continue straight, road now called Firetower Rd.
3.8 miles to Right on GA 14
0.8 miles to left on Old Tallassee Rd., just after New Style Methodist Church
0.9 miles to bear left on Old Georgia Plank Rd.
0.4 miles to Right on Georgia Rd, highway 63
0.5 miles to Left on Williams Rd.
1.1 miles to cross GA 9, continue straight on Williams Rd.
1.3 miles to Right on Trace Rd.
2.4 miles to Left on Fortner Rd.
1.2 miles to Right on Grier Rd.
Immediately bear Left onto Nobles Rd.
1.0 miles to Left on Blake Rd.
1.2 miles to Right on Weoka Rd.
1.6 miles to Left on Rea Rd.
0.9 miles to Left on Laurel Creek Rd.
0.2 miles to Right on Bowden Rd.
2.0 miles to Left on Bradley Rd.
0.3 miles to cross CR 21, road name becomes New Home Rd. Continue Straight
0.8 miles to Right on Buyck Rd.
4.2 miles to county line, Road becomes CR 31, Continue Straight
2.7 miles to Right on CR 29
5.9 miles to Hatchett Creek bridge, Left into Coosa Trailhead parking area, resume 'official' route by hiking the Coosa Trail.

Below is a map of the route I hiked.  It differs from the turn-by-turn directions in the northern part (hiked before I decided to seek a Montgomery Bypass) and in the vicinity of I-85 where I headed west for two miles to find services and to stay at a motel for a zero day.  But the rest of it follows my designated route.  There are links to a whole bunch of additional photos of ponds and other interesting sights along the way--far too much stuff to put in this blog post, but worth a look.  Check it out:





Pike Road Natural Trail and a Montgomery bypass at EveryTrail
EveryTrail - Find the best Hiking in Alabama

The Coosa Trail - Intense

Follow the yellow blazes through this loblolly plantation, because the blazes are your guide..  In places like this there was no detectable trail.

"Florida or Bust" - Days 35 and 36

The Coosa Trail was opened just a couple years ago and it's a great addition to the long-distance route between the Florida Trail and the Pinhoti.  But it's not for the feint-at-heart.  This 11-mile off-road route is intense in many ways.

First of all the terrain is severe and rugged.  It runs through a large tract of Wildlife management land on the north shore of Mitchell Lake.  Elevations range only between 350 and 650 feet, but the topography is riddled with steep sided ravines--intense terrain.  And the trail makes no apologies about going right up those steep sides when it's necessary.   There are often switch-backs, but even those are steep.

And the difference between the ridge tops, an example of which is shown above, and the ravines is intense too.  Down in the shadiest of them the trail plunges into rhododendron tunnels reminiscent of the Appalachian Trail in the south and mid-Atlantic.

The intensity of the plant-life includes some of the biggest leaves I've seen on the aptly named big-leaf Magnolia (here shown with size XL shirt number 23, hat and size 12 volt-green Crocs for size comparison).

The intensity of the scenery ranged from barren scrub to almost tundra-like in clear-cut areas where longleaf pine is being restored ...

... to lake-side hardwood forest going through its intense fall color change.

There's even a new shelter beside Lake Mitchell, apparently installed just this summer, with a killer view.

The trail register at the adjacent campsite had only six entries, and two of those were written by people who came in by boat.  The trail is intensely lonely.  My entry was the first one in five months.

And there were places where it was evident that nobody had hiked through since spring.  A full summer's growth was crowding in, untrampled.  The general lack of use made the trail extremely hard to follow in places.  Finding the next blaze required intense concentration.  A couple dozen times I would lose the blazes and have to backtrack or stand at the last blaze in sight and look every which way to find the next one.  The turns were sometimes abrupt and counter-intuitive.

There was one place where I had to forge ahead blindly before I spotted the next blaze buried in the midst of a swale overgrown with blackberry thorns.  Leaving the last blaze behind, there seemed a more obvious route following a semi-cleared fire break, but since I saw no blazes up that route I started looking in other directions until I spotted the dead tree in the brush with the blaze.  Can you see it.

The trail had made two turns - onto the fire break and then off it after a hundred yards, and neither of these turns was marked.  Worst of all for future hikers is that the dead tree that the blaze in the picture above sits on is so rotten that it nearly fell over when I tapped on it.  By spring it will by lying useless on the ground.  Unless the dedicated maintainers from the Alabama Trail Hiking Society can work some magic, hikers are going to get lost.  The GPS Coordinates of the above photo are  32.8747° N, 86.3704° W.

I've made a big commotion about one blaze in order to give it the attention it needs, but that was only one blaze out of what was surely a thousand or more.  I want to repeat that the trail is excellently blazed and ready to hike.  Footpath on steep side-hills has been graded in most places, and there are hiker signs with arrows at road intersections and crossings and significant turns.

The thing this trail needs is some hikers!  A little more trampling and everything will be fine.  And I urge hikers to try it.  The Coosa Trail is well worth the extra time it takes to negotiate.  I averaged 1.3 miles per hour, but I wasn't hurrying--I set aside an entire day to do this eleven miles.  If the intensity gets too extreme, just pause and genuflect before this "Christ the Redeemer (as in Rio de Janeiro)" look-alike, naturally crafted by fire:

A little prayer never hurts, right?

The road walk from West trailhead of the Coosa Trail up to Flagg Mountain has an intensity to its rural beauty as well.  Old Alabama was on display

And if you keep your eyes open as you walk up CC Camp Road, about a mile up from CR16, you can spot the tower on top of Flagg Mountain.

It's there, readily seen by the naked eye, but only for a moment as you pass this spot.  And here's the 40x zoom telephoto shot, taken from the same position to prove it.  The tower is not open to the public yet, so this is the best view you can expect.

But blink and you'll miss it, as you will the next blaze on the Coosa Trail itself.  Be Intense.  Think Intense.  Here is a trail where it pays to have every sensory and mental faculty on "max" - Live Intense!  And enjoy!

Here's a map of this wonderfully intense hike - including, as always, links to many more photos:


The Coosa Trail at EveryTrail
EveryTrail - Find the best Hiking in Alabama

Finished the Pinhoti Trail

"Florida or Bust" - Days 32, 33, and 34

Big milestone!  I've now hiked the Pinhoti Trail end-to-end, all 335 miles of it.

It went by too fast.

It was so much fun that I want more.

If that's not endorsement enough, let me spell it out:  The Pinhoti is first class hiker trail.  I highly recommend it as an extension of the Appalachian Trail, whether it is formally named part of the AT or not.  I recommend that hikers who have the time, particularly early in the season, start their AT trek in, say, early February by hiking the Pinhoti.  Consider it a warm-up.  By the time you hit the AT in mid-late March, you'll be a seasoned veteran and already in shape.  You'll have a distinct advantage over those nobo newbies and thru-hiker wannabes.

But the Pinhoti is more than a preamble or a warm-up for the AT.  It has a distinct personality of its own.  It's far less traveled.  It would be a shame to see it trampled the way the Georgia AT is.  It has those quirky turkey track blazes, and it passes through some different ecosystems--particularly the distinctive, fire-dependent longleaf pine savanna.  It's an Appalachian experience that the AT doesn't provide.

On my completion day I hiked just five miles--the newly opened trail around Flagg Mountain.  The land for this piece of trail was just purchased in 2011 by the State of Alabama through its 'Forever Wild' program.  But the local hiker enthusiasts of the Alabama Hiking Trail Society have been a busy bunch.  The trail is already up and running and open for business.  The southern terminus trailhead has that big sign and a bigger pavilion, the edge of which can be seen in the photo above, and they've already established a primitive campsite and built a cute little shelter that sleeps two comfortably.

The shelter register only dates back to May 2015.  There were just six pages of entries. 

The entry before mine mentions hanging up an antlered deer skull over the door.  They didn't mention the resident insect patrol, but he was on duty on the rainy day that I stopped in.

Also along this five miles of trail I passed through a grove of Piedmont Rhododendron--first time I've been aware of this species, though I might have missed it because it's easy to mistake for the much more common Mountain Laurel.

There was a short section of fine old rock work--this bit of trail must have been an old CCC trail.

And I finally saw some real turkey tracks.  Mind you, I saw dozens of wild turkeys, but it's been bone dry and tracks left in dust don't 'take' well and generally don't last long.

I continued playing with shirts and hats.  You've already seen the message on Shirt number twenty-one up top.  Here's my message on Shirts number eighteen and nineteen.

Eighteen was on display on Rebecca Mountain where the trail follows the last of the linear ridges.  But on the following day the road walk down to Weogufka (north side of Flagg Mountain) found me walking beside a line of low hills, visible behind the shirt.

The road walk also took me past a friendly horse, a disrespected witch, a diminutive yellow flower, a viney brilliant red one, and the first of the Great Eastern Trail yellow blazes that I've seen.

So that was a bit of a picture show.  I take lots of photos and generally post only a selected few here.  The best of the rest of the crop can be seen by following the links on the map below.  EveryTrail, don't fail me now!




Pinhoti Trail - Bulls Gap to southern Terminus at EveryTrail
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