Back from Pinhotti

[DavidR]

This was my first time hiking the Pinhotti. I had read a bit about it but didn’t really know what to expect. Starting at Bulls Gap I wasn’t sure where to park. At first I headed up USFS 600 in my Volvo. It wasn’t long before I was putting it in reverse…lol. I ended up leaving the car at the main road. I hiked about 2.2 miles on USFS 600 before I realized that the trail was off to the West. I picked it up at the 1st powerlines. The trail is very well marked and maintained. The ridge was shrouded in mist as I walked. It was a very unusual sight for me.

Within a few hours I saw the reason the trail got its name. There was a good bit of wild turkey in the area past the “birding tree.” I didn’t know those guys could fly so far! The trail alternates continually from deciduous leaf covered terrain to evergreen loblolly pines and rocky ridges covered in turquoise moss to moist auburn grass and lush green moss.

Heath Cliffs was the first amazing view I came upon. You can stand at the ledge like a giant towering above the miniature trees and see for miles.  Does anyone know the story of this marker? Farther North around 8.5 miles was the 1st camp site I saw. The steep terrain doesn’t yield many flat areas for camping. Knowing that I was in for heavy rain sometime early Tuesday, I wanted to get into a good bluff or shelter. My first thought was to head to “Kenny’s Camp” on my map, but I didn’t want to pass Horn Mntn without seeing what the Fire Tower was all about.

Opting to follow the road up the mountain to save time I followed its winding path south. Once I reached the top at 2000+ elevation I was glad I did. The fire tower is a giant steel structure towering like a sentinel over the mountain. Judging by the chin link, barbed wire, and “Stay Out” signs I deduced that I shouldn’t attempt climbing this. In front of the tower is a wonderful shelter that has two benches and plenty of room under it. There are cement park tables here and there as well as an outhouse. I must say that I wouldn’t use this out house, but it is there. The area has some old rock walls that resemble fortress cannon bays to the west. There are cement footings where something was once mounted in them. Does anyone know anything about what these were?  

I had to make a decision, stay here despite the water limitations or head to Kenny’s Camp not sure of what I’d find there. I reasoned that I knew what was at Horn Mountain and it was good, so I stayed. I found water as fresh drainage off Horn Mountain that I filtered with my Sweetwater. I simply filtered a gallon and carried it back to camp. I had ample time to gather from the plentiful dead wood in the area and prepare for the night. Sitting by the fire enjoying coca I watched the sun set and the mist envelope the mountain behind the silhouette of all the leafless trees. The stars opened there twinkling eyes one at a time to adorn the tower like an ancient spire. The wind roared throughout the night like the base of a large waterfall. What a magical place!

It had started to rain when I awoke Tuesday morning. My first opportunity to try out my rain gear! I put on my rain coat over my other coat and draped my pack cover over my pack. Good to go! I headed back down the mountain and through a large section of a controlled burn. One thing that kind of bothered me about the Bulls Gap section is that the USFS roads run within visual distance of the trail most of the way. That makes the trail too accessible to everyone IMO. That sentiment was only strengthened when I made it to Wormy’s Pulpit. The entire area was vandalized with graffiti. I’ve noticed that the easier a natural place of beauty is to get to, the more likely it is to be destroyed by us benevolent humans.

Hiking in the rain wasn’t bad at all. My rain gear really did it’s job. When I reached Kenny’s Camp I was very glad that I hadn’t risked running out of day light and abandoned Horn Mountain. Kenny’s Camp site looks to be a private hunting camp site. It is surrounded by a chain link fence. That would have been a good thing to mention on the map I was using.

Despite the wet and cold temperature, I found myself sweating and having to vent to cool down pretty often. The inclines and declines are a lot of work with a heavy pack. I forgot to mention that I had planned on a 5 day hike and was packed for it. My gear weighed in at 40 lbs. One thing I’d advise bringing is water. There wasn’t much to be found EASILY except certain areas. One such was Scott Lake. There were a few camp sites on the NE side. It looks like a good fishing spot too. I found a carved tree around the lake near the cascades. Not sure what it says. Any ideas?

I never saw the white turkey feet until I made it past Porter’s Gap. By then my back, shoulders, quads, and calves were on fire! I pushed on through the increasing rain through the rocky top and across the Talladega Bridge. To the West of the trail after the bridge is a cool camp area right on the creek called Red Wagon Retreat. There is an outhouse although I didn’t look at it. The guy that owns and runs it is called Trig (for Trigonometry) and lives in the house to the right, right before crossing the bridge.

Trig told me that people come from all over to get water from the outlet called Chandler Spring located to up the dirt road heading to the north after crossing the bridge. He said it runs year round. If you’re hiking the trail stop by and chat with him a while he’s a cool guy and has an interesting life story as well as an awesome Alaskan / Wolf dog.

After crossing the bridge I wound my way down the hills to a campsite marked on my map. The rain wasn’t too bad and I was able to set up camp before the bottom fell out, and it did fall out! No sooner had I set up camp did it come a monsoon. I was so exhausted from the hike. I strung up a cloths line in my vestibule and put on some dry cloths. I dozed off to the percussion of the rain around 4:00PM and wasn’t able to leave the tent for the next 15 hours.

When I woke up my intentions were to dry my shoes at least and move on. I went about the area gathering all the hanging and standing dead I could find. I made a platform above the wet firepit and mounded up smaller to large kindling. I widdled down some sticks to get the wet outer bark off and made a pile of shavings for tender as well as some hardwood leaves. With my fuel wood ready I ignited a fire stick to get things going. Immediately the rain started back! I thought….ok I’m done with this.

I was able to get a call out for pick up and began my hike back to Skyline Drive. I knew I had weathered the worst, but I was tired and wet and had nothing to prove. Pinhotti will have to wait for another day.

Back from Pinhotti

Back from Pinhotti

Back from Pinhotti

 

Back from Pinhotti

Back from Pinhotti

Back from Pinhotti

More Pics Here: http://www.alatrails.com/.../thumbnails.php?album=115

Back from Pinhotti

Back from Pinhotti

[dogwood]

Great trip report!  That's a beautiful area to hike.  Haven't tried it in the rain, though...

[DavidR]

Haha. Thanks. Yeah, I wouldn't advise adding rain to the hiking plan.

[Haveuseen1]

Sounds like a memorable trip.

A couple of questions.

Which map were you using?
Did you log any GPS waypoints?


This section is notorious for the lack of water.  In your opinion how far from Bulls Gap was your first reliable water source?

[DavidR]

I used the Nat Geo maps. 18 pages. Yes, I have tracks and very good waypoints. PM me your email if you'd like a copy. You can see them in my post above. There were some pretty strong streams around 12.5 miles in. I marked them with the faucet icon on my tracks. I'd say carry enough water in for one day of hiking and cooking (2L?) and restock at known points unless you feel like you can locate and use alternate water sources such as standing puddles or drainage. I only carry 1L at any time unless I HAVE to carry more. Another option might be to set up camp and explore farther down the elevation off the trail. There is likely water at the bottom of the ridges somewhere, there has to be. I just didn't find it necessary to do so. 

[JC785]

Thanks for the report, I always enjoy them!

[SmokeDiver]

I'm digging the pics bro! The mist really makes the forest look mysterious.

[DavidR]

Yeah, it's wild walking through it. The forest looks like a unicorn could run out any minute...lol.

[Mountain Dog]

Good Report.  Thanks.

You hiked up the wrong road to start.  There are two roads entering hwy 148 really close together.  You used the one to the east.  The one to the west is where the trail starts or crosses.. There is also a small parking area within sight of the highway.  As to water, you should generally not plan on finding water between Bull and Scotts lake.  That said,  I've found it in fairly dry weather down the hill from the radio tower.  If you are headed north, you'll see a spit of land taking off to your right about 3/4 of the way around the tower.  It is a sizable amount of land level with the trail.  When facing the land, look to your right and you'll notice that where that spit of land decends it causes a "V" where it meets another finger of land.  There is usually water where the "V" is formed.  It is not close to the trail but I've walked much further to marked water while on the AT.

[Mountain Dog]

It has been a few years since I hiked that section and at that time, there was no Kenny's Camp.  In fact, there was no map showing exactly where the trail was located.  I looked at Mr Parkeys maps and it appears someone has since made a camp site on the spit of land I described above.  The water I have found before is south by south west from where Kenny's camp is shown on Parkey's map.  The dryer the weather the further you'll need to do down the wet weather creek bed to find good water.  I flagged a route one time but I doubt the flags are still there.

[todd150hp]

Thanks for posting the pictures. I particularly was interested in how you fared in the wet weather. I've been thinking about redoing that hike and finishing the trek up to the Cheaha trailhead while I have some time off during the Christmas Holidays. I had the last week of October off but my wife & kids did not so I thought it would be a good time to hike from Bulls Gap up to the Cheaha trail head. I did manage to make the trip in October from Bull  Gap to Porter Gap In October but to make a long story short the weather forecast went from great to questionable to lots of rain, my wife had some commitment at her job that were going to conflict with some of our kids commitments at their school and one of the kids with asthma had a nasty cold that was causing some wheezing and someone was going to have to take him to the doctor. IOW real life intruded. So when I woke up in the morning after my first night, (I camped at the fire tower,too and yes it got very windy during the night) I went ahead and called for extraction when I reached Porters Gap on Highway 77. I had good cell phone coverage at the fire tower and I knew from previous experience cell phone coverage is real spotty at Porters Gap and really nonexistent once you start down that side of the mountain. I had to make a decision before I set out that morning and make the arrangements for pickup while I still had cell phone coverage.

I felt bad about not finishing the hike that I set out to do thus why I never posted a trip report. It did come a soaking all day rain but I could have weathered that, but the severe weather they forecasted when I made the decision to get picked up never happened. My son got over his cold without going to the doctor, and all the commitments my wife and kids had got rained out. So really I could have finished and everything would have worked out but I had no way of knowing that the morning up by the fire tower.

There was no fence around what I thought was Kenny's camp when I was there in October. The only fence I remember seeing was around the Microwave tower. I had planned on camping at Kenny's camp the first night but by the time I got someone to follow me up to the Cheaha trailhead drop off my car, buy them brunch, then drop me off at the Bull Gap trail head it was around 1:00 in the afternoon. The leaves on the ground made the trail a little hard to follow in a few places. There are lots of blue blazes on the trees but a few places they were a little spaced out. I had to do some zig zagging and bush whacking a few times to pick the trail back up. Around the area known as Sherman Cliffs they painted the blue blazes on the rocks, I think some leaves must have been covering some of them up and I completely lost the trail. I zigged and zagged only to find myself on the downhill side of the cliffs, big mistake. Lost some time there and expended alot of energy finding the trail again. When I finally made it to the Fire Tower, and after climbing that hill on the way up to the Fire Tower there was just enough daylight left to make camp so there I stayed.

The graffiti and trash at Wormy's pulpit is a pitiful shame. such a lovely spot ruined by a few selfish individuals. The leaves were turning while I was up there and it was awesome. I'll post a link to my pictures. I'm not real handy with a camera so they really don't do the scenery justice. Since I got a late start on the first day I was kind of in a hurry trying to make Kenny's Camp so did not take many pictures the first day, took plenty on the second day. However, one week later on Nov. 1, I drove back up there with just my camera and hiked in from the Bull Gap trailhead about 1 mile just to take the pictures I had wanted take the week before. The leaves were even better so I'm glad it worked out that way.

Here is the link to the pictures if your interested
 http://www.flickr.com/pho...p/sets/72157622860599401/

I carried approx. 4.5 liters of water. Yes, it made my pack heavy (50lbs) but I knew I wasn't going to come to any reliable water until the middle of the second day. I don't like stopping to filter water and really don't like running up and down the sides of mountains looking for runoff after a hard day of hiking. On the ridgetop Pinhoti hikes I generally fill up a 3 liter camel back with watered down Gatorade for hydration and 2 liters of water in Nalgene bottles. That's enough for cooking dinner and breakfast, coffee in the morning, and brushing my teeth. The weather forecast was really unsettled and I wasn't sure when I packed if it was going to rain or not, if it was going to be cold or not, so I had to be prepared for anything. I planned on doing 10 - 12 miles a day to cover the 46 miles so I had 5 days of food. Did I mention my pack was heavy.

Thanks again for your report its always fun to compare notes.

[DavidR]

The leaves on the ground made the trail a little hard to follow in a few places. There are lots of blue blazes on the trees but a few places they were a little spaced out. I had to do some zig zagging and bush whacking a few times to pick the trail back up. Around the area known as Sherman Cliffs they painted the blue blazes on the rocks, I think some leaves must have been covering some of them up and I completely lost the trail. I zigged and zagged only to find myself on the downhill side of the cliffs, big mistake. Lost some time there and expended alot of energy finding the trail again. When I finally made it to the Fire Tower, and after climbing that hill on the way up to the Fire Tower there was just enough daylight left to make camp so there I stayed.

I lost the trail in the same area. I chose to go to the East and picked it back up on the East side of the ridge. Thanks for the input. It is sharing info like this that makes for better trips for everyone equipped with knowledge.