On 27 March 2020, I was driving south along Scenic Drive 281 a few miles north of Cheaha State Park. I saw a couple of trucks with Pinhoti Stickers, Gas Cans, etcetera. I figured these must be Pinhoti Maintainers and I ought to stop and say hi. They were actually turkey hunters, finished with morning hunting, and packing up before heading home. But they were talkative, and had excellent questions and comments on the Pinhoti.
Willy & Dennis were hunting the the ridge on which the Pinhoti now runs before there was a Pinhoti. They live in Oxford and Wedowee.
They said that Old Man Greenleaf had owned much land north and south of Rabbittown Road 55, but that bad times came and the USFS had bought the land in county tax sales around 1942. Still, Pinky and his mother were allowed to live on the land which is now the Pinky Burns Trailhead until they both died. Pinky earned a nickle a day hauling water up Dugger Mountain to the lumber operation, mostly to fill troughs for the oxen who were hauling logs down off the mountain. Following the road just west of Pinky's north, upstream, past the ford, to the right, over the creek, are many piles of stones. This was Pinky's corn field, which he plowed with a mule. Also beyond the road ford of the creek, an old steep road departs to the west. Following this 200 yards and looking up and to the right, is a house size rock. This is known locally as House Rock or The Cave. There is enough space under the stone for people to shelter from a rainstorm, have a fire, etcetera. The roof is blackened, and the rock has probably been used as a shelter for many thousands of years. Atop Dugger Mountain, not far below the Pinhoti, east of the crest of the trail, in a shallow gully, is a boxed, piped spring which always runs. The pipe used to run some distance but has rusted away so water drips right at the spring box.
Before the Pinhoti crossed Dugger Mountain, they heard about it from then law enforcement ranger Clint McGuffy. They had used the area for remote hunting since the late 60s and immediately realized that the Pinhoti would deeply affect their hunting grounds. There was a guy from California actually building the trail over Dugger. Clint moved on to Alaska, and then to Montana. In the Talladega NF, he was replaced by Derek Adams.
We discussed new laminated cardboard signs at every road crossing of the Pinhoti prohibiting use of firearms within 150 yards of the Pinhoti. Neither they nor I knew of any recent incident or issue prompting the placement of these signs. They related many recent incidents of anti hunting people harassing them as they walked to and from their hunting grounds using trails or parking areas, including some incidents where they were falsely accused of crimes and harassed by law enforcement. It is also an issue that as hunters, they are allowed to camp in only certain areas, while hikers are allowed to camp almost anywhere.
These incidents of interference with legal hunting have increased over the years and with the increase in numbers of people visiting the woods, even to the point that when they hear others approaching on the trails, they sometimes go off trail and wait for the others to pass to avoid unpleasant encounters.
We discussed some death monuments, and I need to check out a cross northbound a few hundred yards from the Odum Scout Trail on the Cave / Nubbin Creek Trails. There are many such memorials near Wormy's Pulpit.
The Number 1 complaint of theirs was that the turkey foot blazes had been replaced by the blue dollar sized rectangular blazes. The turkey foot blazes were more aesthetically pleasing in that they blended in with the woods when viewed from far away, and more practical in that the turkey blaze could only be interpreted as being on the Pinhoti Trail, whereas the blue rectangular blazes might be on any trail, might denote a boundary, or might be there for many other reasons. There are some places way more blazes than are required for most hikers to stay on trail. The blue rectangles are so big, and are of a bright color that matches nothing naturally occurring in the woods, that a lover of nature cannot help but be distracted by line of blue blazes fading into the distance.
One related a couple of strange incidents they witnessed in the Cheaha Wilderness. First, south of Big Caney Head, where many campsites line the cliffs,from far off, he heard loud music, like a radio at high volume. He approached to where he could observe, and watched a naked guy sitting on a rock, playing a guitar, and singing. They find turkey hunting to be best early in the morning, and in the second incident, he was hunting on the inclined plateau which runs from High Falls up towards the junction of the Odum Scout, Cave Creek, and Nubbin Creek before sunrise. He heard loud chanting, spoiling his hunting for the day. He found a guy chanting to the rising sun on one of the east facing pulpits, and they talked for a while. The guy was sorry to ruin his day of hunting, but felt spiritually compelled to chant to the rising sun in remote places.
They related two incidents in which ATVs had been driven into the Dugger and Cheaha Wildernesses for non-emergency purposes. In one incident, an airplane had crashed west of the summit of Dugger. They had no problem with using whatever means necessary to rescue the crash victims, but perhaps a month later, one was hunting on Dugger and witnessed a half dozen ATVs ascend into the Dugger Wilderness from the northeast on old, closed roads off Highway 9 to the ridgeline, and then drive the ATVs up the Pinhoti Trail to access the crash site, and take the valuable components such as the engines and avionics. They also cut down a large circle of trees. In the other incident, one of them had witnessed a helicopter rescue of a crash victim who had walked from a crash site to the area of the many campsites south of Big Caney Head. The day was windy and turbulent, and several helicopters were unable to land or hover. Eventually one helicopter was able to hold position with one skid on a rock while the victim was loaded into the side basket. The helicopter then flew down and through Adams Gap and off to a hospital wherever. Similarly, a month later ATVs came into the wilderness and the crash site, and took the engines and avionics. They have heard of county search and rescue teams gathering up the valuable components for the insurance companies for small donations, perhaps $1000. Such work is certainly not an emergency and any exemption search and rescue teams have for legitimate emergencies should not extend to simple profit seeking trips. For any given event, they couldn't really be sure whether the engines and avionics had been taken by the search and rescue teams or by other profit seeking individuals, but they felt sure the teams abused their privileges in some of these incidents, and these ATV incursions were doing significant and long lasting damage to the wilderness areas.