The Alabama Pinhoti Trail Guide

Pinhoti is Creek Indian for "Turkey Home," and true to the name, hikers can expect to see wild turkey on the trail. Deer are also common and there is the occasional snake, turtle, squirrel, and armadillo to keep the hike interesting. The Alabama Pinhoti is currently 136.9 miles long, running from Bull Gap in the south to the Georgia state line near Flag Mountain in the north. Most of the trail is in the Talladega National Forest, with 12.8 more miles have been added to the north section, outside of the national forest by the Alabama Trail Association. The Georgia Pinhot then continues on the other side of the boarder, conncecting to the Appalacian Trail via hiking trail, multiuse trail, road walks, and the Beynton MayKay Trail.  This is a very intimate trail, it goes through dells, alongside streams, and over rolling hills. Many sections of the trail go through long leaf pine groves, these pines give the hills and forests a soft, fluffy appearance and invite you to lay down on beds of soft pine needles. There are few majestic views along the trail but you often can see out over the mountains through windows in the trees and into the many valleys. For me the most appealing thing about the Pinhoti is the solitude.  Of the many days I've spent on the trail, less than half of them have I seen other hikers or backpackers, I've always camped alone.

As there are good maps available for most of the trail published by the US Forest Service, this guide is intended to be used as a supplement to the maps. The set of 5 modified 1:24000 topo maps with the trail and some side trails drawn in can be bought from Alabama Outdoors or High Country Outfitters in Birmingham. The forest service will also send you the whole set of maps for about $25, call 256 362-2909. I strongly suggest the use of these maps as this site is built around them. Also, while the trail is well built, in many places it is overgrown and I have completely lost the trail a few times. I'll try to point out these areas, but if you do lose the trail you'll be very glad for the map.

Thank you for visiting my site, I hope you enjoy the Pinhoti as much as I do. Please respect the trail, and the other visitors by following Leave No Trace Guidelines. If you should happen to see me on the trail stop to say "hi."

A bit of history about the author and this trial guide.

Most of the writing here is by M. Lee Van Horn, now a faculty member at the University of South Carolina, but when I wrote this a graduate student at UAB. The trail has changed a bit in the 10 years since I wrote the guide, increasing in size by about 25 miles, and changing location in some spots. The hiking community in Alabama has changed much more dramatically, when I began there was only 1 active hiking club working on the Pinhoti, now there are 6 clubs that contribute to the maintanence of the trail. I also now only occasaionally get to hike in Alabama, typically spending my summers treking in teh Pacific Northwest (or this year in Australia). Thus, I'm relying on feedback from others revising this guide, and will list them as authors whereever they contribute.

A bit about sections.

When I am hiking, my map is how I plan my life. Thus, all my hikes center around maps. I originally wrote this guide such that sections would be refered to by the section numbers on the Forest Service maps. Because of this orientation I'm going to keep it that way, however, Solo, over at the Pinhoti Trail Aliance, makes a good point that this numbering system takes away from seeing the trail as part of the larger entity which will eventually connect from Flagg Mountain in the south to the Appalacian Trail. He has proposed a new numbering system which starts at Flagg Mountain and continues to the AT, sections ending at trailheads. In order to keep my reader on board, I'll refer to map sections as "Pinhoti Map Section" and to Solo's section numbering as "Pinhoti #."