I was hoping to get this done while on trail, but editing video and being completely exhausted took over. From here on out, I plan to do weekly updates. For now this is Pinhoti Trail Day 1 – 7.
Day 1: Southern Terminus to Bones Bend Campsite
The climb to Flagg Mountain was no joke, glad we had our husbands carry our packs to the top. It was nice getting to spend some time with them at the tower before we headed off. The hike today wasn’t too bad at all. We did have our first road walk, which kinda sucked. However, we got to take a break in the shade behind a church with a water spigot for hikers to use. It was nice to relax. We were pretty exhausted by the time we made it to camp. Even though we are both from very humid places, we learned Alabama humid is an entirely different monster! Man, the humidity was just completely draining! Once at camp, I set up my tent as quickly as possible and passed the heck out…without dinner LMAO.
Day 2: Bones Bend Campsite to Terrapin Hill
Holy Moly, what a day! We started off pretty good. Then, around lunchtime, things took a wrong turn…literally! The trail isn’t marked too well when you get down to around mile 13 and we ended up going straight instead of turning left. We probably did an extra mile in total. However, once we returned to where we took the wrong turn, we saw Inch and Blue Sky, who said, “There’s the girls.” They apparently almost did the same thing. The weird part was that they were walking towards us. Turns out Blue Sky tripped over a root and broke his arm. Inch was carrying his backpack, and they were backtracking to meet the ambulance. We continued on, and found a good late lunch spot to rest at. We were getting tired and still had a big (to us and the Pinhoti) climb. Our goal was to reach the road and go back to the POC for the night, but Terrapin Hill completely kicked our butts, and there was a bench at the top. We decided it looked like a great place to rest for the night.
Day 3: Terrapin Hill to CR56 Parking
Not a bad day of hiking today. I am glad we stopped; I don’t think we could have pushed up some of these other hills that we did today. The humidity is so draining. Not much to report. We made it to CR56 parking where Chuck, with the POC, picked us up. Tomorrow, we start the first major road walk of the Pinhoti. There are supposed to be aggressive dogs. That will be fun.
Day 4: CR56 Parking to Mile 25.8
The road walk wasn’t as bad as we thought, especially since we slackpacked it. We made pretty good time. The dogs left us alone for the most part, but it did start getting hot towards the end, and I started regretting that I sent my trekking umbrella back home with Sir Fartsalot. There is a Dollar General at about the halfway point. We stopped to have lunch there and also do a light resupply.
Day 5: Miles 25.8 to FS 675 Camp
Today was pretty easy, incline-wise, anyway; it was so easy that we got into camp way earlier than expected. We could have easily kept going, but we decided an early camp day when we weren’t exhausted was in order. We did have a TON of blowdowns to contend with today and, at one point, had to completely make our own trail as there was absolutely no way to go over the blowdowns. We did have another road walk to do today as well that we weren’t aware of. I hate road walking!
Day 6: FS 675 to Mile 41.4
Did a long water carry today. We each carried 4L of water, which made our packs heavy. Had a nice first-of-the-morning climb to get out of the way. Thankfully, Alabama has finally learned what switchbacks are, and it wasn’t a straight up climb. We finally got a breeze for the first time, which made hiking a lot nicer! We had a couple of what the hecks today. The guide said there should be a cell tower, and we have seen it in other videos, but when we got there, there was no cell tower. There were some workers up there and we couldn’t tell if they were replacing it or taking it down completely. Once we made it to camp, it was a steep downhill to get water, which means a steep uphill bringing it back up lol. Otherwise, it was a great camp area.
Day 7: Mile 41.4 to Bulls Gap
Easy two miles to the road where we were picked up by the POC. We had a GREAT view today! The best one so far. Easy peasy day.
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