Home and Pinhoti People

Pinhoti People: John Calhoun

John Calhoun / Mother Nature's Son trailjournals.com link
John Calhoun is a Triple Crown, 15,000 Mile + Hiker and a Pinhoti Personality. He lives in Leeds, Alabama, and more days than not, he drives an hour or two, works on the Pinhoti, and drives back, with the total trip occupying six hours. (He used to work more and longer days on the Pinhoti, but he's 70+...) He buys nearly all the tools, gas, etcetera himself for this volunteer work. This article is based on my 23 March 2020 interview with him, and on our deep friendship since 2003.

John first visited the Pinhoti 16-17 July 1977 with Kim Allman of Springville, Alabama. They hiked from near Shoal Church southbound past Laurel Shelter, but believing that to be only for hunters, continued south and camped in sight of Sweetwater Lake. The swam in the lake, and John discovered an engorged, bloody leech on his butt the next morning.

For about 15 years, John mostly hiked in the Sipsey Wilderness, and does not remember visiting the Pinhoti. He hiked with his dogs Garth or King, and camped without tents under the ledges which are common in the Sipsey. Around July & August 1992, he quit drinking, and eventually lost about 100 pounds.

Between 30 November 1994 and 29 June 1995 he hiked all of the then 108 mile Alabama Pinhoti, much shorter than today's approximately 175 miles. It did not reach as far north as Dugger Mountain and did not extend south beyond Talladega Creek (Northbound from current Porter Gap, south of Talladega (City.)) Most hikes were in and out, so double mileage.

After 1995, John often stopped in a ranger stations for information, and in doing so became aware when each new extension of the Pinhoti was to open. He would use the old paper series of USFS Pinhoti Maps. He had a goal of finishing the entire Pinhoti when the Pinhoti was not yet complete, so he hiked each new section as soon as it existed. More recently, the Horn Mountain Section opened in 2005-6, and the Rebecca Mountain Section in 2012. John and I have worked together building Indian/Flag Mountain Sections north of the Georgia Line, and the not yet complete sections between Trammell and Weogufka.

In the fall of 2012, Solo closed the Horn Mountain Trail Club and in January 2013 O Kenny closed the Appalachian trail Club of Alabama.

John Thru Hiked the Alabama Pinhoti with Roni from Israel, and Hatman and Happyfeet, in 2004, and again with me / Fashionplate Dan, Dick / Tin Cup, George, and Neil in 2011, and perhaps a dozen times per year he hikes with one of many local hiking or trail maintaining groups.

Around 1996, John did his first Pinhoti Trail Maintenance. He had noticed that the trail was in terrible condition from Dugger Mountain Road 500 to the north. It took him six hours to clear the trail from the North Dugger Trailhead ¼ mile to the ridge where the Dugger Mountain Shelter is now located, and six minutes to walk back to his car. He used whatever rusty old loppers that were laying around his house, but today he's pretty particular about what loppers he'll buy and how they should be sharpened and lubricated.

In 1998, Nimblewill Nomad thru hiked the Eastern Continental Trail. The Pinhoti just stopped at the Georgia border, and he bushwhacked to Old Jackson Chapel Road, then road walked to Cave Springs.

In 2001, after through hiking the Appalachian Trail, on a hike over Davis Mountain, John ran into an Alabama Trail Association work crew installing the first bridge over Hurricane Creek. The group gave him a ride to US278. He returned with later work parties to complete the bridge. The ATA built the trail from US278 over Davis Mountain, and John helped build the Davis Mountain Shelter and Hawkins Hollow Shelter.

3 Hurricane Creek Bridges
First: Concrete stepping stones, still nearby.
Second: Suspension Bridge. The anchor on the south side was too close to the bridge, causing early failure.
Third: Current deck on beam bridge with wire rope railing.

In 2003, after he and I separately thru hiked the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail, we both joined the Alabama Hiking Trail Society, and began maintaining the Pinhoti Trail. The AHTS advocated for long trails in Alabama which connected various long trails in other states, doing our part to create and maintain a vast network of interconnected trails between the eastern states. He eventually joined all groups advocating for and maintaining the Pinhoti, and worked with any crew available. By 2014, he was a full time volunteer, working six or seven days a week, by himself when no crew was scheduled. I joined him quite often. When we started in 2003, we might work from dawn to dusk a few days in a row, recovering grossly overgrown trail and making it easily hikeable. As he and his wife has grown older, we have reduced our work efforts.

If it's not raining, and he has no other appointments, he heads for the Pinhoti after breakfast, works until he's a little late for lunch, and has a burger on the way home. Typically he volunteers 4 or so days a week. He usually works with a pair of loppers, a slingblade, and a folding saw. Sometimes he uses a gas powered weed cutter. He used to carry a chain saw through fairly often, but usually leaves that for others now. Occasionally he offers a long distance hiker a resupply and rest stay at his home. Taru and German Tourist were two examples. He was an officer of the Alabama Hiking Trail Society only briefly, as the Vice President of Trails.

By far the greatest benefit John derives from working on the Pinhoti is the quiet, peaceful time he spends in the woods.

Some major past highlights of the Pinhoti were its completion north to the Georgia Line and then to Cave Springs, (but not thru Georgia to the Benton MacKaye Trail, The Appalachian Trail, and the vast network of trails south through east of the Great Smoky Mountains) and it's near completion to Flagg Mountain in the south. John and lots of the hikers he's spoken with have said that one of the greatest things about the Alabama Pinhoti is the solitude and peace one can easily find.

The most important issues to be addressed today are keeping the briars, brush, face swatting limbs, and blowdowns cleared off the trail. Litter must be picked up, and structures such as trail retaining walls, shelters, signs, and kiosks must be fixed as needed.

The most important long term goal for the Pinhoti is to extend it until it connects the Florida Trail to the Benton MacKaye Trail, the Appalachian Trail and the vast network of nearby trails.

John doesn't care whether the trail remains named Pinhoti, or is subsumed by the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, or is named something else, so long as it gradually lengthens to eventually connect the Florida National Scenic Trail with the many long distance routes which diverge in northwest Georgia.

In the same period, John drove 22,719 miles and spent 1,735 hours on 85 trips to clean up after hurricanes or similar disasters.

Home and Pinhoti People