After walking across the parking lot, the trail soon entered Dugger Mountain Wilderness. The bill to designate these 8,947 acres as a wilderness area was signed by President Bill Clinton the month after Pinky Burns died. The Pinhoti extends about eight miles through the wilderness area.
Dugger Mountain stands 2,140 feet above sea level and is Alabama's second-highest peak. The name comes from Thomas Dugger, who lived on 40 acres at the mountain's base after serving in the Civil War.
More than one description of Dugger's ownership of the land repeats the phrase "40 acres and a mule," as if he was awarded the land because of his service in the Civil War. This claim can't be true and must be based on the coincidence that Dugger owned 40 acres. Land wasn't given to Civil War veterans. It was given to freed slaves, and only in a limited area of coastal South Carolina and Georgia.
Like so much of Alabama and the rest of the southeast, nearly all of the trees on this land were cut down in the early 1900s. A few small areas weren’t cleared, however, because the slope was too steep.
Starting from the wilderness area's boundary, the trail went sharply up a slope of Red Mountain, climbing 360 feet in eight-tenths of a mile. Later, the trail passed through a "green tunnel" of mountain laurel that reminded me of the AT.