Starting Alabama: Conecuh National Forest (ECT Day 62)

• Hiked Today: 24.6 miles
  • Alabama Connector (3.8 – 28.4)
• Total Hiked: 1,342.9 miles
• Total Paddled: 99.5 miles

Weather: 38-70°F, overcast in am, turned sunny and clear blue skies in afternoon.

Burned Spot to Hog Foot Creek (Day 62)

My posts may take on a slightly different character during this Alabama section. Rather than the typical daily rundown, I might try to summarize more since in all honesty it’s just not too exciting walking along the road. I imagine there will still be some interesting encounters and events that take place though, so we’ll see how this all comes together.

To start, I thought I’d write as if my audience were someone wanting to hike this Alabama section. If anyone ever reads through this blog for information to help on their own ECT attempt, please reach out! I’d love to help in whatever way I can!

The pink line is what I covered today.

Going north from the Florida/Alabama border there is about 28 miles through Conecuh National Forest. This is quite similar to what parts of Florida were like and most of it is open to tenting. This wasn’t unknown to me, but if you have the idea of “Alabama road walk” in your head, you might think it immediately turns to paved road. That’s not so.

If you come through in February, check hunting season regulations because this area seems to be very popular for that. In March , as far as I know, it’s now out of season. There’s also some private land mixed in throughout that you should pay attention to. I am using CalTopo for my map app since FarOut doesn’t have this section. It shows the private parcels. Gaia GPS is another option that should work too.

There’s quite a bit of burned area and smoldering, so finding a tenting area that hasn’t been charred might take a little more flexibility. And as far as water sources, there were plenty of creeks crossing under the roads via culverts, etc… I never carried more than 1 liter, except maybe at the end of the day when looking for a spot to camp.

Where did I get information for this section? Lots of sources, really. One major help was reaching out to staff at the Pinhoti Outdoor Center. I got good vibes from them right away. They seem to be looking out for hikers coming through the area and sent me the GPS track of a suggested route. I plan to follow this path for the most part and only veer off occasionally if something catches my fancy.

Other sources of info. available are other hikers that have gone before! Early on I viewed YouTube videos created by Harmonica and the Masochist Hikes guy, listened to podcasts, and found some other blogs out there too. There’s also those that might be ahead of you on trail. Pepper is a few days ahead of me, so he’s able to give me intel and likewise, I can text Iceman and Specs behind. And on top of that, Google Maps is a big help just doing your own research.

Today’s Hike

As I mentioned, it was two track forest walking the majority of the day. The two exceptions to this were a brief paved section and a brief bit of trail! That’s right, maybe a mile or so of nice trail in there.

A few sections were smoldering again, one area that got me concerned slightly because the haze was so bad. Thankfully, it was just a short time of highly concentrated smoke.

Alabama trail! I guess this is a small chunk of something called the Conecuh Trail?

I wondered if this was what I saw a few days ago on “The Creeks Day?” Although, I did hear through the grapevine that my friend Steve back home believed it was a “Rat” snake? Hmmm maybe we’ll never know.

Towards the end of the day, I was scanning for potential spots to tent. My hope was to go as close to the boundary of the National Forest as possible to set me up nicely for tomorrow. It worked out great. There was a bridge over the clear-watered Hog Foot Creek where I filled up my bottles.

Looking under the bridge, I saw a nice sandy point bar that I contemplated setting up my tent on. Would’ve been a quirky spot. In Michigan, if you live in the Lower Peninsula like me, below Mackinaw Bridge, you’re considered a “Troll,” so maybe it was fitting. Alas, I wasn’t very keen on the idea of cars or trucks or anything really driving over in the night, even if it seemed super remote. My luck there’d be a whole parade wanting to cross on this particular evening.

Instead, I backtracked slightly and cut into the woods a ways getting out my of sight from the road. I managed to find a nice flat spot in some crinkly leaves. It was only around 4:00 pm, so I got to take it easy, which was a nice change. I even sewed my Dirty Girl Gaiters back together since the buckle had come undone a week back.

As darkness fell, there were lots of noises. Some really close owls doing there hooting thing, as well as plenty of dogs, and some far off coyotes yipping away. I did hear a few vehicles go by too and was happy not to have gone for the under the bridge camp!

Album of the Day:

“The Velvet Underground & Nico” by The Velvet Underground, Nico (1967)