Bartram Trail (Tuskegee)

[luke724]

I hiked out and back 4 miles on the northern section of it Sunday. The trail is in really good condition and the scenery is nice, you do hear alot of road noise at times. Apparently, there is a shooting range really close to the trail. After about an hour of hiking I started hearing gunshots. Not like single rifle shots, these guys were shooting submachine guns for over four hours. I never heard any ricochet bullets, but it sounds as if you are maybe 100 yards from the range. Not really a peaceful experience, I may go back after hunting season. The land is really swampy on the southern four miles, so I will surely do this section before the bugs are out.

[Pathfinder]

I think you'll discover that you prefer the scenery on the southern portion whenever you get a chance to tackle that section.

[luke724]

I hiked about three miles in and out a couple of weekends ago, most of the wood bridges are damaged and you have to walk through alot of swampy stinky areas. The creek beaches are nice, I went past the creek for a mile or so until I came upon a deer stand roughly thirty feet off trail.

[calicojack]

the tuskegee national forest shooting range is right in that area. and no they weren't shooting submachine guns. come on man. maybe some ar15s or aks, but i guarantee you they were all semi-auto. i tend to hike armed..

[luke724]

I was just kidding about the submachine gun bit, but there were times that there were probably more than one person shooting at a time. You are right it sounded like Ak's and prolly a 38 or 44 magnum at times. My AR-15 isn't nearly as throaty as my paratrooper model AK.

[Rigormortis]

 I live 20 to 30 minutes from this place and never had a desire to go in there.  Does anybody know who maintains the trail in there?.

[Joshua Szulecki]

Thanks for the trail report!

One time I was birdwatching at the TVA Guntersville North site, which is close to a local private shooting range, and the random
popping of small arms was interrupted by an actual CANNON. Since the birds there are surprisingly used to it, and so are the birdwatchers, it didn't interrupt anything, but it certainly cracked everybody up. We spent several hours listing to pop, pop, pop, and then suddenly, BOOOOOOM!!! Amazingly, the local birds were totally unfazed. Then again, the sirens for the water release were even louder, so... Some locals were able to confirm that a local Civil War buff was either the owner of the property, or at least left his cannon there.

[luke724]

I think I will have a better experience after hunting season ends. I'll most likely go on the weekday, probably less people sighting there guns in and playing. I encountered a group of yellow finches(?) while in a bottom, they were very observant. They followed me for about 100 feet.

[calicojack]

that range is usually active year round. when it starts getting warmer you'll actually see MORE people going up there.

[todd150hp]

I'm glad you brought this up Luke. I live down this way (near Smiths Station) and since I have hiked all that there is to hike over at Pine Mountain in GA am in need of some place different to hike when I don't feel like driving too far. I rode my mountain bike on this trail a few years ago, see the link to my post in the MB forum if interested. I have never hiked it though.

http://www.alatrails.com/forum/index.php/topic,901.0.html

[WolfVanZandt]

Y'know, there's a huge chuck of Alabama that must have some interesting trails that are never mentioned. For instance, I know of several urban trails that, while not so interesting for people that are just interested in rural landscape offer a lot of interesting points for people interested in ecology. The trail up Pea Ridge from the college in Montevallo is almost solely known by the students there but is actually a decent trail with a lot for interesting features. If they can manage to extend it to Davis Falls, as they would like, it would be a really nice trail.

Near Smith Station are the trails at Chewacla, Tuskegee, Auburn, and the urban trail in Valley and probably more that I don't know about.

There needs to be some effort toward identifying and developing trails in other parts of the state than Pinhoti andf Bankhead.