Day 8, Cheaha Mountain to Jackson Creek

When we finally left camp around 8:30 a.m., Tengo was still wearing his puffy jacket, and I was wearing a wind shirt over my sun hoody. The sun had been up for more than two hours, but we weren't yet feeling much warmth from it.

The first two-tenths of a mile were the last part of a descent on the slope of Cheaha Mountain. There was a shallow, almost dry stream near the bottom before the trail began to climb.

The climb went up 270 feet in the next four-tenths of a mile. Along the way up, we passed a side trail leading to Blue Mountain Shelter. We didn’t have a reason to stop there, so we kept going.

The top of the climb was wooded, but there was a bit of a view. This is where the trail left the boundary of Cheaha State Park and re-entered Talladega National Forest.

From there, the trail began a gradual descent. This section was nearly five miles long and took us around Blue Mountain as it gradually descended. Sometimes, the route seemed flat instead of descending.

Once we got past the mountain, there were several small stream crossings. We also had to walk through a large patch of poison ivy that grew on both sides of the trail. The trail was narrow along here, forcing me to take extra care to avoid brushing against the itch-inducing leaves.

There were also some wildflowers on this stretch, though not a lot. They included bluets and mayapples.

The mayapple's leaves provide a shady canopy for a single flower. Although a small "apple" will form from the flower, that will happen in the summer and not in May. In some parts of the U.S., the flower blooms in early May, which is how the plant got its name. Clearly, they were blooming a little earlier than that today.

The mayapple is also known as hog apple, mandrake, and wild lemon. Its flower is said to be unpleasantly scented. The plant is poisonous and so is the apple until it ripens.

We had to cross a couple more streams at the lower part of the long descent. These were also seasonal. The FarOut app said this section of the trail was in Zulu Canyon.

The canyon's unusual name supposedly comes from the word used in the military alphabet for Z because the stream followed a zigzag direction. This seemed like a stretch to me because it neither zigged nor zagged that much.

We stopped to collect some water at the first stream crossing in the canyon. Later, we had to cross Hillabee Creek, which was much wider. We stopped there for lunch.

A collection of Muscogee villages stood along the creek before the Trail of Tears Indian removals of the 1830s. The people who lived here were known as the Hillabee. The name comes from a Muscogee word for quick or swift, which probably referred to the creek.

Many of the warriors from the villages in this area fought General Andrew Jackson's troops in 1813. After suffering heavy losses, the Hillabee negotiated a peaceful settlement. One day later, soldiers commanded by General William Cocke attacked two of the Hillabee villages. Cocke was unaware of the peace agreement made the day before.

The surprise massacre killed 64 Indians and wounded 29 more. Another 237 were taken captive and removed to a fort more than 40 miles away.

Our walk after lunch started with more minor ups and downs. This was a pleasant section of trail with no obstacles and comfortable weather.

I stopped to collect and filter some water around 3 p.m. I also took two ibuprofen for my feet. They weren't sore like before, and only ached a little. Maybe this was an improvement, I wondered.

About thirty minutes later, I saw some of my favorite Appalachian flowers, mountain laurel blossoms. By this time, I had already forgotten about my feet.

I crossed County Road 24 at 3:45 p.m. The road was far from any towns, so it was not surprising no cars went by when I crossed.

An hour and a half later, I came to another stream crossing. There had been an unusually large number of them today. Here, a large log spanned the stream, and although it looked safe to use as a bridge, I decided to look around first and found a way to rock-hop across.

I've never fallen from a log during a stream crossing, including an unstable one that bounced with each step I took. Still, I’m not inclined to take a risk when it’s not necessary. I’ve made enough falls on trails without taking risks. My trail name isn't Gravity for nothing.

As if to prove that, I didn’t get far after crossing the stream when I stumbled and fell, landing on my hip.

The trail next went past Little Hillabee Falls. I had a chuckle when I noticed the 50-foot-long cascade was incorrectly labeled as "Little Hillbillie" in the FarOut app. It seemed too much like a stereotype for Alabama.

The time was 5:15 p.m. when I walked past the falls. It had been at least a couple of hours since I last saw Tengo, and I wondered if maybe he would stop soon. There was a campsite marked in the app a short distance away from the falls. I didn't see him, though, when I went past the spot.

The trail resumed the pattern I saw this morning, with so little elevation change it was almost like walking on a flat footpath. I cruised along without thinking about my feet. They continued to give me no trouble.

I stopped when I saw longleaf pine trees for the first time. This species is notable because of its distinctive characteristics and importance to the region, but its numbers have severely declined. Longleaf pines live longer than other pines in the south. Some have lived more than 150 years. Their needles will grow from eight to 17 inches long, and their cones are usually five to 12 inches in length.

For all of the years before European settlers moved into the southeast, the longleaf pine was a dominant tree species of the region. That changed as demand for construction and ship-building materials increased in the U.S. during the 1880s and 1890s. These pines became some of the most sought-after timber trees. Additionally, the sap of longleafs was tapped for the production of tar, pitch, turpentine, and rosin.

The demand for the timber drove a frenzy of clear-cutting, but the lumbermen were careless, leaving behind large piles of highly flammable branches and debris. That resulted in large wildfires that also destroyed large swaths of the forests.

Before white settlers arrived, there were an estimated 90 million acres of longleaf pines. Only about two million acres of the trees can be found today, and most of them are scattered in second-growth patches.

My guess turned out to be correct. He said he had just arrived five to six minutes before me. I also learned I wasn't the only one who fell today. He also fell, but his fall was worse than mine. As he did it, he broke one of his trekking poles. He was fortunate that he doesn't use a tent that requires trekking poles to set it up like mine.

I didn't mind that the time was 7:15 p.m. when I arrived, and it didn't matter that I had to cook my dinner in the dark. I felt good about the day. We walked 16.4 miles, which was the farthest we've hiked in a day so far. We had also completed more than 100 miles.

The best thing to happen today, however, was my feet didn't hurt like they did the last few days. Maybe, just maybe, I had worked through the problems with my shoes.