| Dan Bedore | www.bedore.org | danshike@yahoo.com |
Hometown and Travel to Pinhoti
I grew up in San Diego, California, and live in Flagstaff, Arizona. A couple of times a year I travel to Alabama to visit the Pinhoti People and the Pinhoti Trail for a few weeks. During those visits I usually stay with John Calhoun in Leeds, Alabama, and travel with him on daily volunteer Pinhoti work trips.
My Hiking Background
In the mid 1970s I was old enough to start backpacking with my dad. To him, the point of backpacking was to reach a remote and lonely lake high in the Sierra Nevada and to camp and fish in peace for a few days. In the early 1990s I had finished engineering school and begun working. I hatched a plan to hike about 120 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail east of my hometown of San Diego. What I wanted to do was to see how the ecosystems changed from desert to scrub to oak to pine as elevations changed. My dad and I worked at hiking that stretch through the 90s, never quite finishing it. In 2003, I walked 2,600+ miles from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail.
Finding the Pinhoti
In early 2004, I started working at Lockheed in Marietta, Georgia. Some co workers suggested that I hike the developing Silver Comet Bike Path. (Alabama's portion is known as the Chief Ladiga Trail, with the two totaling almost 100 miles.) I walked west in day / section hikes. Each hike was fast, easy, and long in miles, because it was a paved, flat path. I proceeded west quickly. A few parts were not built, and were just old rail bed. Proceeding west from the Georgia - Alabama line on the Chief Ladiga Trail was such a section. The bridge over Terrapin Creek had no deck then, just giant beams and rotten rail ties.
Researching the Pinhoti
Before and after the bridge I saw signs for the Pinhoti Trail. They were nothing special, wood from someone's garage lettered in blue. The trail didn't look well used or maintained either, it was lightly overgrown. But somehow I knew that what I had found was important. I went home and researched this Pinhoti on the internet. I bought the 5 paper USFS Pinhoti Maps. I asked an email ring of 2003 PCT hikers if anyone knew of this Pinhoti Trail. Only one person responded, Roni From Israel, saying that the Pinhoti absolutely sucked, and that he had chosen to walk the highways to avoid it. This did not dissuade me. In my internet research, I found a Pinhoti work trip and signed up.
Trail Maintenance and the AHTS
So it was that in autumn of 2005, I found myself on a crew working north from the Cheaha / Leafgate parking lot. (Before the Leaf Gate was built, I think.) I met Rick Guhse, who was the president of the Alabama Hiking Trail Society, and whose great strength was organizing people and events. After we had talked a while, he asked me to speak on my thru hike of the Pacific Crest Trail at an upcoming hiking conference. I accepted. I had heard of clubs and meetings of hikers, but had never participated. After all, why sit around talking about hiking instead of going out hiking? What's to learn? Why does it need to be discussed? Just go wander around and look at birds, rocks, flowers, etcetera!!!! That's all that hiking is...
Pinhoti Meetings
But I learned quite a lot. I recall with particular fondness a presentation by a lady who knew every possible thing about Alabama's wildflowers. She had the thickest, most awesome Alabama accent I've ever heard. I recall wondering whether her son was too old to be coming to such conferences, while she seemed old enough to have helped Noah with the ark. I heard many other excellent presentations. And the questions I was asked during my presentation made me understand that that I really could help people develop their hiking skills. A book editor / publisher even asked me about writing a book for them, knowing me only from listening to the presentation. So it was that I started attending many Pinhoti conferences, as well as the Gatherings of the Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association, sometimes speaking.
Learning Trail Maintenance Strategy
I also began maintaining the Pinhoti Trail, at first with the Alabama Hiking Trail Society. Some of the ideas were crazy. I remember mowing the steep and rocky slope on the uphill side of the trail with a plain old lawn mower. It was quite a trick to keep the mower from sliding down the hill, and the mower blade suffered horribly from hitting rocks every few seconds. In later years and later (always volunteer) work trips, I both decided I would never use the lawn mowers myself and also spent a lot of evenings in the Cheaha State Park Campground sharpening the mower blades and other tools with metal files or whet stones, often disassembling them and C - clamping the blades to the picnic tables as work benches. A couple of times a year, typically before their meetings, AHTS would gather, camping usually in the Cheaha State Park Campground for most of a week, and working various parts of the trail each day. AHTS sponsored the Pinhoti from Porter Gap to Clairmont Gap and from Adams Gap through Cheaha Wilderness and Park to CR24. A few times I walked the whole 24 miles in the weekends before the work trip to identify what tools and how much time were needed on each sub - section, as well as which sections had the highest priority or worst problems. As I hiked or worked, I took notes on broken or missing signs, trail problems, vandalized shelters, etcetera. I developed my own work preferences, avoiding big crews which worked mostly near their cars, and instead setting up shuttles so I or a few people could walk miles of trails, removing overgrown brush and fallen logs. I found other people loved working with gas brush cutters and chain saws, while I liked the silence and hard exercise of working with loppers and hands. Although I had worked on other trails before the Pinhoti, here I really had time to observe and study the maintenance the trail needs as plants grow and fall. I also had many conversations with others who knew plenty about how trails are built and maintained.
John Calhoun
Here I must introduce John Calhoun. Although I had briefly met him on in Agua Dulce (northeast of Los Angeles) on my 2003 PCT thru hike, our friendship really began on the autumn 2004 work trip discussed earlier. We both lived within a couple hour's drive of most of the Pinhoti Trail. We emailed frequently, and coordinated many hiking and trail work trips. We discovered that while trail crews were great places to meet people and hang out, many kinds of trail work were much easier and faster to do with one or two people. As long distance hikers, we could hike miles to a work site and begin without much rest, and we could camp with little equipment and few luxuries. John joined every club that maintained any part of the Pinhoti, and hence was aware of every trail work trip anywhere along the Alabama Pinhoti. We worked at many of these events, so I met many fascinating Pinhoti People over the years. I heard many short and incomplete tales of the Pinhoti from these folks. These stories piqued my interest and I was always ready to hear more...
Johns Archive
John kept meticulous records, of every day of work and every section of trail worked on, what work was done, how long it took, who he met, and with photos of people and work done. He squirrelled away every Pinhoti related document, regardless of how obscure or obsolete it might seem to others. His archive, if you can find your way through it, answers all sorts of Pinhoti questions few would think to ask.
Shelter Brooms and Logbooks
Early in my Pinhoti days, John would often mention that a certain shelter was missing a broom, or that the log book was full or missing. When I suggested that a new broom would be just a few dollars, while a spiral bound notebook would be about a buck, so I could just buy a few of each and keep them handy in my truck or pack, John told me that replacing these thing could only be done by certain people who had been appointed by some mysterious process. I protested that no sane person could be mad that we were buying brooms and books and hauling them out to the shelters, and that so long as we delivered the filled books to whoever archived them, we were unlikely to cause any real trouble. I think we delivered the first few books to someone, but John eventually became the archivist of moldy old logbooks by the mysterious process. Curiously, it was never necessary to archive the old brooms, because people steal them from the shelters. It seems hard to me to believe that a cheap broom I paid two bucks for new would seem worth carrying back to one's car when covered with bird shit and spider webs, but we replace them endlessly... When someone eventually opens a Pinhoti museum, it will be tough to locate a genuine old Pinhoti shelter broom.
I was always welcome to stay at John and Sale's place, partly because if I was there he and I would accomplish a great deal on the Pinhoti, but mostly because they are great people.
Interstate Trail Network Establishment Strategy
In the same 17 years I spent working on and exploring the Pinhoti, I hiked tens of thousands of miles on America's other Long Distance Routes. Some of these hikes were on well developed and official trails like the Pacific Crest, Arizona, Continental Divide, Appalachian, Chesapeake & Ohio / Potomac Heritage, and Florida National Scenic Trails, while others were on tough, incomplete, developing trails like the Grand Enchantment and Great Eastern Trails. I also often walked cross country, without the benefit of any trail, and found the undisturbed country to be very different and intriguing where no trail was affecting it. And I read everything I could get my hands on to learn about these trails, including the official documents to propose, establish, and manage the various National Scenic Trails. So I was aware of how other trails develop and are managed, and I was aware of the Pinhoti's place in the network of trails connecting the far corners of the eastern United States. For example, one can start walking from the Florida's Key West, join the Florida National Scenic Trail west of Miami for a couple of months to Pensacola, walk highways, join the Pinhoti near Weogufka, and follow it into northwest Georgia. It is here that the choices get really interesting. If one leaves the Pinhoti north of Cave Springs, or northwest of Rome, Georgia, one can either follow a route including the Sheltowee Trace or the Great Eastern Trail north and connect to long trails in Canada. Or by finishing the Pinhoti Trail east of Dalton and Chatsworth, Georgia, one can follow the Benton MacKaye or Appalachian Trails north, and using the Eastern Continental and International Appalachian Trail routing, walk far into Canada. Or trending eastward, one could follow a vast network of trails in the National Forests south through east of the Great Smokies, eventually following the Palmetto or Mountains to Sea Trail to the Atlantic Ocean.
Pinhoti Thru Hikes
I have thru hiked the Alabama & Georgia Pinhoti twice, in sections finishing winter 2005 / 2006 and in 2017 as part of my (mostly) Great Eastern Trail (2,340 tough miles) hike. Since I've hiked the Florida and Appalachian National Scenic Trails, I've also hiked much of the Eastern Continental Trail. Many sections of the Pinhoti I've hiked or maintained so many times that I wouldn't dare to guess a number.
Alabama Hiking Trail Society Strategy
In my Pinhoti work, I hung out mostly with Alabama Hiking Trail Society folks. The purpose of the Alabama Hiking Trail Society was to develop long hiking (and canoeing) routes and trails entirely crossing the state of Alabama, and to connect to similar routes in adjacent states, or to do Alabama's part in developing this interstate hiking trail network. The goal was certainly audacious and perhaps impossible, but well worth pursuing.
Being an Effective Trail Worker
Long ago, I had run sections of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in San Diego, Seattle, and Atlanta, each with over 1000 members. And I had run submarine races and water rocket contests to educate college engineering students and kids. The most valuable people who worked for me were the sort of folks who would talk with me just a few minutes, and with just a few comments on what work needed to be done, would come back in a few weeks not only having completed the necessary work, but with all sorts of other valuable observations and comments. On the Pinhoti, I tried to be the kind of worker I had appreciated so much. Untold hours and miles of lopping and dragging fallen logs to keep the Pinhoti clear often seem to have come to nothing when someone just bitches about the rocks on the trail or demands I clean up the trash and vandalism from yet another group of drunken morons at some shelter. Despair!!! But the work that I and hundreds of other very dedicated volunteers kept the the Pinhoti in an excellent state for years, which in turn has inspired others to become our replacements. Wherever I turn on the Pinhoti, it is obvious that others have worked hard and accomplished much.
Past, Present, and Future Accomplishments of the Pinhoti Trail
It is a major accomplishment that the Pinhoti has developed from an idea for a trail within the Talladega National Forest in the 1970s to a trail in two states and several hundred miles long, in less than 50 years. Thousands of people motivated themselves to build and maintain it, and to coordinate with the others. I've been among them for 17 years. I'm always amazed that whenever a few get tired or more are needed, more than a few stand up. I'm proud of the current state of the Pinhoti Trail and its supporters. I hope the Pinhoti will continue to stretch southward and eventually connect to the Florida National Scenic Trail. And I hope that the already existing portions of the trail will just keep getting better. I know that I and many others will invest the sweat equity to make it so.
Should the Pinhoti Trail be Subsumed by the Appalachian NST?
There are those who hope the Pinhoti Trail will one day be called the Appalachian Trail. I am not one of them. Alabama's portion of the Pinhoti Trail is mostly deep in the woods. One can easily find solitude and peace. The woods seem undisturbed, so wildlife acts naturally, and bushes and flowers are not crushed and killed. It's rare to see toilet paper flapping in the breeze. (Road crossings and shelters are the obvious exceptions, with much litter and vandalism.) Georgia's Pinhoti is not nearly as nice as Alabama's section, but I believe the in the woods sections will become nicer over time, and perhaps better solutions will develop for the long road walks. If the Appalachian Trail were expanded by subsuming the Pinhoti, it would be very hard to find peace or solitude on Alabama's formerly great Pinhoti Trail. One would meet hundreds of hikers per day. These hundreds of hikers would crush the bushes and flowers adjacent to the trail as they rested or allowed others to pass. One would see toilet paper and trash in the woods all along the trail. A backpack campsite would not provide a quiet afternoon and evening, but one of endless noise from radios, clicking hiking poles, and shouting from hiker to hiker. Alabama's Pinhoti Trail is much, much nicer than the Appalachian Trail, and the best way to keep it that way is to keep calling it the Pinhoti Trail, and to keep bragging that Alabama's hiking is much better than walking the Appalachian Trail.
Long Distance Traffic on the Pinhoti
This approach is already working very well. Every spring, perhaps a dozen people walk the entire length of the Pinhoti, having started on Key West, Florida, and intending to walk to the northern tier of US States, or on into Canada. And every autumn, a dozen of their southbound counterparts come thru. Many people have thru hiked the Pinhoti, some before or after the the Appalachian or other National Scenic Trails. The Pinhoti has been walked by many of America's most elite and accomplished hikers. And still it is beautiful and unspoiled.
Origin of the Pinhoti Phenomenon Book Project
In late fall of 2018, I was hanging out in John's living room when he became very angry. His email archive was so large that his service required him to purge gigabytes of old emails before he could send or receive more. This cut him off from the world, which for a guy as social as John was quite a penalty. I'm sure my advice was entirely too insensitive: "Why not trash all these old status reports, each with several megabyte sized pictures of people and blowdowns that anyone else would have long since forgotten?" I deserved a much angrier reply, but John's answer was totally sensible and mind opening. "Because these emails contain the entire history of the development of the Pinhoti Trail!"
Development of the Pinhoti Phenomenon Book
In the space of time it takes to speak one simple sentence, I realized that I and a hundred other dedicated Pinhoti Volunteers each had a very advanced understanding of what does and does not work on the Pinhoti, and of what we do and do not want. But we only know this because we have worked and talked for many thousands of hours. A few people have written their own stories about their own involvement with the Pinhoti, but there is not any book or any website where the expertise, opinions, and desires of the many types of Pinhoti People are explained so anyone can understand in a reasonable amount of time what the others want and need, and why they want or need it. So in winter of 2018 / 19, I edited and wrote multiple web pages just to harvest the data in John's email archive. And in winter 2019 / 20, I wrote a page on the history one can witness along the Pinhoti Trail, and transcribed a 6 inch stack of musty old shelter logbooks from John's basement. The goal is to produce a book, perhaps residing on my website, or perhaps a coffee table book with excellent photos and maps, which tells all the tales of the Pinhoti. I feel that Solo's Guide is excellent, and that the USFS Map is excellent, and that people seem happy with the Guthook app, so I really don't need to write a hiking guide or map to hike long distances on the Pinhoti. But everything else about the Pinhoti needs telling. And I'll be trying to write it over the next few winters.
Trail Angels
In the world of long distance hiking there are people known as trail angels. Often Trail Angels have never taken a long hike, and never intend to. A narrow Trail Angel definition would include those who travel to the trail and pass out free food and water, and those who invite hikers to stay in their homes, or perhaps camp on their property. But the widest definition might include everyone who helps hikers without expecting fair compensation. By that measure, those who thought up the trail or organized support are angels, as are those who build or maintain it. Those who pick up hikers and drive them to town for resupply, those who post maps or information on the internet, those who share a friendly conversation and some useful advice, and hikers who try and help other hikers are all Trail Angels. A hostel operator who charges too little to make a profit is an angel. Since I've hiked 30,000 + miles, I have certainly benefited greatly from the efforts of these folks. I offer my infinite thanks to them. Lopping bushes and branches, and dragging fallen logs off untold miles of trails, is certainly a service I provided to future hikers. Writing about the Pinhoti, giving presentations and advice, cleaning up trash, giving rides, etcetera, were all (hopefully) of benefit to hikers. By my compensation has been fair as it included endless days and miles of indescribable beauty, deep silence and peace, wonderful friendships, and awe inspiring wildlife encounters. I'm not sure whether I would qualify as a trail angel...