Horn-Rebecca Info

[Mountain Dog]

I went out for a couple of nights and hiked Horn, Rebeca, and about 1/2+ of the Chinabee/Skyway loop last weekend 9 April.  FYI,

Horn is in the best shape I've seen.  The trail was clear, blazes were abundant, and Scott Lake was flowing freely.  I had to wade the creek but for those with more faith in their jumping ability, a jump from the big tree roots at the base of the cascade is doable.  

The old road along the spine of Rebeca is clear, almost no brush to wade.  A blue blaze trail around the northern tower exists.  The trail base has not been developed.  You basically bushwhack between blazes.  I guess there is good reason to take you off the spine but it does cut the scenery in half.  The 30 to 45 minutes of hiking from the southern trailhead north bears careful scrutiny as you hike that section.  The trail meanders around new growth forest and the blazes can be confusing.  The trail takes abrupt turns without warning and it is not unusual to see additional blazes going off the trail.  If I had to guess I'd guess the trail has been rerouted and all the old blazes were not removed.  The trail base is not always clear but since I made it you can also.  Just be deliberate as you follow the blazes.  The creek about 45 minutes north of the southern trailhead was flowing nicely.  There are flat sections alongside the creek for camping.  

There were tons of people around and on the Chinnabee Silent.  There were probably 15-20 cars in the parking area near Turnipseed and on the dirt road about 1/2 mile from the shelter/falls.  All but a couple were just there for the day.  The shelter was occupied.  I camped up the hill from the falls on the turnipseed side.  The water was low enough that wading was not required to cross at the falls.  The official creek crossing where the Skyway departs the Chinabee was deep.  I'd guess about knee high wading would be required to cross there.  But, go down stream about 10 yards and you can do a dry crossing.  There is a rough trail beside the creek that connects the Skyway and this drier crossing.  Water was everywhere along the Skyway, but not so much that any creeks were hard to cross.  

The weather was absolutely beautiful, the stars were brilliant at night, the sound of running water at night was peaceful, Sasquatch behaved himself, and all was well with the world out there.

[Cuffs]

Some of the blazing on Rebecca is from the horse users out there, could that have been what you were getting crossed with?

[Mountain Dog]

I do not think so.  I've seen their damage and some red blazing.  The blue color is consistant with the Pinhoti.  It seemed that the questionable blazes were older than others.

[jaybird]

Mountain Dog, I know exactly the blazes you are speaking of.  When the Pinhoti Challenge group hiked that section back in late October, we found several sets of blue blazes that ran off the trail.  We stood there arguing with each other because each of us had blue blazed in their sites headed in directions that were at least 90 degrees different.  We thought that maybe the trail got a re-route, or someone go happy with the blue paint.  At any rate, we were not that far from the FS603A trailhead, so we knew we couldn't go too wrong by taking either one.  Most times, as you said, when these things mysterious blazes would happen, the "real" trail would take a sharp turn to the right (we were headed from Bull Gap to FS603A) and the "fake" blue blazes would lead us to the left.  We were maybe 1/2 mile from the FS603A parking lot.

[Bahen]

The way I heard it was that these blue blazes were put up over the top of Rebecca Mountain before the Forest Service could finish their biological survey of the proposed trail.  The blazes were supposed to be covered up with brown paint until the route is okayed (if it is okayed) by the biologists.

[Mountain Dog]

Might be but these blazes were not on top of Rebecca. They were off the mountain between the trail head and where the trail was graded on the southern slope of Rebecca.  There were a lot of Blazes overall so I just worked out the puzzle by trying to find at least two going in a similar direction and went after them.  The strange blazes seemed to be at sharp turns and then only one would out of place, meaning I did not see two trying to take me in the wrong direction.  I get lost driving to the grocery store so if I made it anyone can.  Just take time and think it out when the trail seems to disappear.

[Rigormortis]

The Forrest Service placed blue paint spots on trees where they wanted the trail to go three or four years ago up to the two sections that was privately owned, they could not go any further because this was private property, three of us marked (Blue Blazed) the trail up to this point last fall.  After they (The Forrest Service) acquired the two sections they have not been back except to reroute the trail away form the north microwave tower, this is where the confusion comes in.  We tried to remove the old blue blazes to going toward the tower with digging tools but that did not work very well.  A Eagle Scout from Anniston organized a work day in which he had about thirty people working on the trail a couple of months ago, this project began where the cut trail stopped, he got about two miles raked and some digging done.  Maybe more work can be done this fall if we can get the two new sections marked by the Forrest Service.  

[Mountain Dog]

Does not seem to be the same location where I found mysterous blazes.  The only place I was confused was from about 5 minutes to 30 minutes north of the Southern Trail head or about 10 minutes south of the Forest service road that parallels the creek on the southern end of Rebecca.  This part of the trail has not been raked in a long time.  A significant amount of the section that confused me does not show a trail base.  The trail going up the mountain from the south and all the way to hwy 148 is easy to follow. 

[ednotmilkman]

The westernmost part of the trail , before it starts climbing the north side of the ridge, was raked last spring. One troop of scouts from Selma helped a few of us and a forest service leader cut in a bit of that trail, but IMHO, it was a "busywork" job for the kids as it was flat enough not to need much cutting.

 I'll try to paste my gps track of that part of the trail here -  although I'm not good at web tricks.

The trail follows the contour, that's what the FS wanted, so that's why it's,.....   like ..... twice as long as it could have been before it meets that first old road.  One raking per year is not enough to maintain a trail of course, especially with no cut in path.

[Mountain Dog]

Thanks a lot for the map and the reasoning for the trails path.  I always wondered where 606b went.  I figured it would take me back near the TH or at least the locked gate.  Now I know.  FS 606b and FS 675 appear to be really well used.  I guess that area raked being flat and with all the trees obliviated all the hard work of raking.  The area is smooth enough that the leaves really did not cause a problem.  It was the occasional wild blaze that was confusing.  If it were not for those you could almost run the course because there are plenty of blazes to not worry about seeing a trail base.  Again I do not want to scare people away from the trail in that area.  There are not many out of place blazes and they become obvious when you go to one and then cannot find the second one.  Just pay more attention to where the blazes are located in relation to other blazes around you.