Day 13, Oakey Mountain Shelter to Hawkins Hollow Shelter

The day started with a 1.5-mile descent to where the Pinhoti turned to join the Chief Ladiga Trail. This was a flat, paved walking and biking path on an abandoned rail line.

The Pinhoti only stayed on the Chief Ladiga Trail for a half mile. The entire trail is 33 miles long, connecting Anniston with the Georgia state line. From there, the path continues on the same rail line under a different name, the Silver Comet Trail. That trail extends another 61.5 miles, and there are ambitions to connect it to more trails in the Atlanta area.

Chief Ladiga was the leader of the Muscogee tribe in the 1820s and 1830s. In 1832, he signed a treaty that gave up the tribe's claim to the remaining land they owned in northeast Alabama.

The trail took us across Terrapin Creek, the same creek we crossed yesterday. As Tengo Hambre often does when he sees a body of water nearby, he stopped on the bridge and tried to spot fish swimming in the creek.

If we had wanted drinking water, this wouldn’t have been a suitable place to get it. The creek was low and murky, and reaching it would have been difficult because of a steep, overgrown slope to the water.

When we left the Chief Ladiga Trail, the Pinhoti became a single-track footpath again. After crossing a narrow county road, we found a spring less than a half mile up the trail. There wasn't a lot of water here, but it was sufficient for what we needed.

The temperature was quickly rising, and we knew we would need plenty of water today. Thankfully, after we left the Chief Ladiga Trail, the trail was shaded. We were able to walk at a fast pace.

The trail crossed another county road at Maxwell Gap. From there, we had to start a 700-foot climb to the top of Augusta Mine Ridge.

The mine that lent its name to the ridge wasn't adjacent to the trail. A manganese oxide mineral was dug from the mine at various times from 1918 until it closed for good in 1972.

I found a little relief from the heat while walking along the ridge, but pesky gnats forced me to put on my bug net. I only kept it on my head for a short time because it was too warm to wear.

There were signs of recent trail maintenance work on the ridge. We stopped for lunch and more water after descending from the ridge. The temperature continued to climb.

Tengo and I arrived at U.S. Highway 278 at 2:20 p.m. Several cars went by in both directions. We had to walk across the road and then follow it for three-tenths of a mile.

A sign and a bronze plaque stood where the trail left the highway and re-entered the woods. The sign said we were 10.1 miles to the state line. The Alabama portion of the Pinhoti Trail is divided into 13 segments for day hikers and section hikers, which are numbered from south to north. U.S. 278 was the start of the last one.

The plaque next to the sign was nearly 20 years old. It said, "The Pinhoti Trail from here to the Georgia line was built and is maintained by the Alabama Trails Association on an easement donated by the Gerald Willis family of Piedmont, Alabama and on land purchased by the Alabama Forever Wild Land Trust."

No mention was given here that we would be crossing the middle of Indian Mountain ATV Park, which is 4,700 acres used by off-road vehicle enthusiasts. If that sounds to you like a less-than-ideal place to walk, you would be correct.

The next two miles weren’t bad, but they included two climbs of about the same distance. Each went up 250 feet. The sun beat down on us as we went up.

I knew a stream crossed the trail before the start of the second climb, and I intended to stop to collect more water. Foolishly, when I got there, I stepped over the stream and kept walking. I didn't realize what I had done until I reached the top, where there was no water source.

Davis Mountain Shelter stood at the top of the second climb. We got there at 3:30 p.m. As I began to look around, I was relieved we didn't intend to camp there. A large number of bees had taken up residence in the shelter, but that wasn't the worst thing about this place.

The entire area around the shelter was unpleasant, with a broken-down picnic table, an old grill, and trash in a fire ring. There was also an open trash barrel, which would likely tempt any critter looking for a free meal to stop by. The least surprising of the mess we found here were the ATV tracks that circled everywhere. The shelter was a popular stopping spot for ATV riders.

Before we left the shelter, Tengo mentioned he had found several ticks. I quickly pulled out my bug spray and sprayed my legs again.

A sign posted on the side of the shelter said the next 7.8 miles crossed private land. This was a reminder that the Pinhoti was on an easement, but again, there was no mention of ATV trails.

Tengo and I soon discovered that ATV trails criss-crossed the Pinhoti in several places. To make matters worse, it was difficult to figure out which was the hiking trail and which was an ATV trail. I took a wrong turn at least once, and that was despite a sign supposedly pointing in the correct direction. Based on the comments posted in FarOut, I was not the only one who did this.

If there was an attempt made to keep ATVs off the Pinhoti and avoid possibly dangerous encounters between vehicles and hikers, I didn't see it.

Eventually, we passed the last of the ATV trails. Two hours after leaving the shelter on Davis Mountain, we reached a footbridge over Hurricane Creek. I was now running low on water after missing my chance to get some before the climb to the shelter, but I decided not to stop now. I knew the next shelter wasn't far, which is where Tengo and I planned to camp. A stream flowed near that shelter.

Bridges across this creek haven't faired well over the years. One was stolen. A replacement was damaged more than once by trees when the creek flooded. The bridge I crossed was the third one constructed for the trail.

On the other side of the creek was an area where iron ore mining started in the late 1880s. The center of this activity was less than a mile from the trail in a boomtown called Bluffton. It quickly grew to be a community of 8,000 residents with two churches, several businesses, a school, and a post office. The town's hotel was said to be the first building in the county with electric lights. Author, poet, and adventurer Rudyard Kipling stayed there during one of his travels in the 1890s.

Bluffton was growing so fast that plans were drawn up for a university. Before construction started, however, mine investors decided the iron ore deposits weren't as large as they hoped and began shutting down operations.

Just as quickly as the town grew, townspeople moved away to cities like Birmingham. There's not much left of Bluffton now except for a church and a cemetery.

After crossing the bridge at Hurricane Creek, we had to cross a road, before going less than a mile more to reach Hawkins Hollow Shelter. There was one minor obstacle on the way. We had to descend a ladder down a rocky dropoff of about 20 feet.

We arrived at the shelter at 5:45 p.m. It wasn't trashed like the one at Davis Mountain, but we decided we didn't want to sleep in it. The weather was too hot and muggy for that.

A small stream flowed next to the trail. There were no spots to pitch a tent at the shelter, but 100 yards or so upstream were a couple of wooden platforms for tents.

Although we didn’t see any evidence of ATV riders hanging out here, some FarOut commenters complained of seeing or hearing riders nearby when they stayed here.

The platforms were partially rotted and in need of upkeep. More than one tent would fit on a platform, but my tent isn't easy to pitch on one of those. Unlike Tengo's tent, which is free-standing, mine is held up by stakes and my trekking poles. Eventually, I worked out a way to pitch it on the ground next to the platform. The space was a tight squeeze between the platform and large rocks.

Before I did that, though, I needed to muster some energy after this long, hot, tiring, and occasionally unpleasant day. I sat on the platform for several minutes and drank water to cool down.

We will leave Alabama tomorrow to complete the rest of the Pinhoti in Georgia. I’m hoping we’ll find better trail conditions there.