Introduction
One of the great things about the Pinhoti People is that there are many smart, ambitious people who don't agree on many details, but who work together anyway and achieve great things.
I am of the opinion that parts of trails that are not yet in wild places, or that are currently on busy or paved roads, are simply not finished. We need to acquire a wild corridor and place those sections in quiet hiking terrain.
I can find plenty of people who agree with me, but it's also easy to find those who vehemently disagree. This page is meant to explain my position and theirs.
To me, hiking is often walking without paying much attention to my surroundings. A quiet and safe walking place allows me to enter a state of contemplation or meditation. I don't lose track of my surroundings enough to become lost, and if I reach an intersection, I can set aside my contemplation of other things and make whatever navigation decision is required. When walking on paved highways, it is not safe to enter such a state. One must pay attention to traffic at all times. Margins of roads may not be cleared of brush or level enough to walk on, forcing one to walk near traffic. It is not possible or safe to enjoy this type of walking on paved highways.
Hiking is often observing wildlife or scenery. Wildlife acts differently in quiet woods than it does around traffic or noisy people. Wildlife observation from roads is not usually as enjoyable in the woods.
However, sometimes wildlife becomes so inured to traffic that one can observe it more closely than in wild settings. Furthermore, highway bridges are great places to watch aquatic and riparian life, and again, the citizens of nature don't seem troubled by your presence so long as you remain on the bridge.
Sleeping is difficult when camping along highways. After months of camping alone in wild settings, each passing car seems to wake me.
Litter, vandalism, and environmental damage along roads are impossible to not observe, and detract from my feeling of peace. Traffic does not induce a peaceful feeling either.
Earl Shaffer, the famous 1948 and 1965 AT thru Hiker, after his third AT thru hike in 1998, said that the new routes over the mountains were much more difficult and less enjoyable than the country road walks he had enjoyed. Views were better on the roads than in the green tunnel of today's Appalachian Trail.
In his 1979 book A Walk Across America, Peter Jenkins said that he had tried walking on the Appalachian Trail, but that the people there were not living normal lives, and therefore were not the type of people he needed to meet. What he wanted to do on his walk was to meet normal people dealing with the problems of normal life, to prepare him for his coming life as a minister. He not only sought to meet and talk to random people as he walked along, but also stopped and lived in communities to really experience what they dealt with every day. He utterly rejected walking on the AT as not being satisfying to him.
In Jon Krakauer's 1996 book Into the Wild, and in the 2007 Sean Penn movie of the same name, Christopher McCandless tried walking on the Pacific Crest Trail, but also rejected that as not being the experience he wanted. His journey at first consisted of living and sometimes working in various communities around the United States. He died in his later attempt to live alone in the Alaskan Wilderness.
Talking to Random People is Enjoyable.
Hikers on trails in the wild talk with each others, but they have in common at least the fact that they have chosen to walk out into the woods. It is entirely a different thing to speak with those in gas station stores and diners. Maybe they saw you on the road, or maybe not, but either way, most are polite and kind, and many are interested in either stories or in learning how hikers deal with the details of life: Finding one's way, finding water, avoiding predatory animals, etcetera. And their stories of family, work, life in small towns, etcetera are interesting too.
To Understand America, One Must Leave the Trails.
Trails are often sanitized so that hikers can enjoy nature the way they expect nature to be. For example, people clean up the litter, the airplane and car wrecks, etcetera. Trails are not routed near garbage dumps, open pit mines, or slums. If you want to know what America (or whatever country you're in) is like, you need to see not just what people want to see, but also what people would rather forget. It doesn't need to be endlessly depressing. Pipeline Tank and Pump Yards and Electrical Substations are often sited amongst miles of farms or other more pleasant scenery. And generally, these uglier things are needed for our society to function. If you need to see the underbelly of America, you won't find it on the trails we brag most about.
I think that most trails should have a wild option. That is, the builders of trails should find a wild corridor and build trails in the woods all the way through. Hikers who want to gain the benefits of road walking would leave the trail, and walk the roads through the farms and small towns for part or all of their journeys.
It is possible for too many people to do a certain road walk. Let's take the current Alabama Road Walk from the Conecuh National Forest to the Coosa Wildlife Management Area as an example. There are many combinations of roads that hikers could possibly take, but one way or another, certain routes become standard. The Alabama Hiking Trail Society has made great efforts to locate a pleasant route, and advertise it by marking it by blazes and providing route descriptions. Many people are walking this route each year. Some advantages of having many people walk it are that they can provide feedback to improve the route or give advice to future walkers. The residents along this route over time can chose to meet many hikers. This is good when residents who chose to meet hikers accumulate experience and know how to meet or help the hikers, and good when those who chose not to meet the walkers at least know they mean no harm and are simply passing through. But the fact that everyone knows about the hikers makes the experience of meeting them fundamentally different from meeting someone who knows nothing about people who walk all the way across America. Perhaps hikers who want to meet townsfolk who don't know about hikers should pick a route they have never heard of. Having a well defined and often travelled road walk may defeat the purpose of road walking.
The Appalachian Trail offers a great example of local people who know all about the trail and its hikers. When an AT hiker hitchhikes off the trail to resupply in towns, most of the drivers who might pick them up know more about where hikers resupply than the hikers do. This makes for an efficient resupply stop, but for more predictable and less enlightening conversations.
The Appalachian Trail also offers a lesson for hikers who want to see things that are not on the main route. There is a prevailing attitude that a hiker who exclusively follows the main Appalachian Trail route, and who hikes every single inch of it, is somehow superior. Some hikers disdain those who hike a spur trail down to see a waterfall as some kind of scummy "Blue Blazer." A hiker who chooses to walk a quiet road through beautiful farm country to resupply in some town is regarded as the lowest of the low, a "Yellow Blazer." Why a hiker who chooses to experience nothing but the Appalachian Trail, a "White Blazer," would be considered superior, I simply don't know. I sincerely believe that hikers ought to make their own choices, and I often find those who have chosen to follow a different route than most have excellent and interesting reasons for doing so.
I'm in favor of those who choose to road walk picking a route and road walking. I'm also in favor of developing in the wild trails for the entire length of the Pinhoti at its present length, and south beyond Flagg Mountain to the Florida Trail.