A Year Section Hiking the Pinhoti Trail

A Numb Butt and a Head Full of Dreams

I’m sitting on my Nemo Switchback in my homely office attempting to train my body to like sleeping and sitting on the ground. My left ass-cheek is numb and I’m constantly shifting my weight around to divvy up the numbness.  This attempt at backpacking cosplay manifests my restlessness and eagerness. My partner and I are officially a year out from the start of our Appalachian Trail Thru-Hike which will end with us moving our lives from Tennessee to the Pacific Northwest in search of something new.

We both grew up in the South.  I grew up in Texas near the lesser-known long trail: The Lone Star Hiking Trail. She grew up in rural West Tennessee. Before we met our lives were about getting away from where we grew up to see and experience the world. At 17, she flew on her first plane to New York City for an internship. At 18,  I moved to Tennessee to pursue a career as a professional drummer.

The more time we spent away from the South the more we began to feel that we were outgrowing it. We were growing tired of the inauthentic care misunderstood as “Southern hospitality”. The increase in division and aggression towards anything considered non-traditional was starting to get exhausting. The lack of “third places” combined with transient jobs was making hanging out a rare occasion. After over a decade of inconsistency, we are ready for something steady and rhythmic. 

How Post-Therapy Doom Cleaning Led to Backpacking

Backpacking came into this equation via a conversation with my therapist. I’ve spent my life conforming to fit the desires of others. It is a symptom of my past religious experience as well as a career that demands constant availability. But after choosing to leave that religion and set boundaries with my musical counterparts, it left me struggling to answer the question “What do I want?”

My therapist had been helping me wrestle with this question for months. I grew up being shown that the best way to live your life was to fulfill other people’s wants for you. My career as a drummer held my free time captive waiting for the next tour. 

In my best attempt at avoiding a self-contemplation doom spiral post-therapy, I started cleaning my guest bedroom. It was then that I kicked the hip belt of my old Kelty backpack. When my parents bought it for me in the early 2000’s it was the best internal frame backpack you could get at Academy Sports and Outdoors. It had a “high-tech” internal frame, a cavernous body, and at least 20 different straps. I had used it for hundreds of miles when I was in the scouts and somehow it made it through every move in my twenties.

Like a time capsule, I opened it up and the smell of ancient mildew turned to dust and assaulted my nose and eyes. It was like a curse from an Egyptian tomb. I cradled my old JetBoil and dependable plastic Ozark spork. It reminded me of the uncomfortable crunch of a dehydrated meal despite my best efforts to mix the far corners of the bag. I remembered the fear of having a bear in my camp and having to scare it away. I was terrified of becoming a bear burrito because my tent-mate decided he wanted to have a midnight pop-tart in the tent. Nostalgia was swift and reminded me of the camaraderie that came from sleeping on the ground and shitting in the woods. It was a stinky hug that wrapped me in the peace the wilderness brings. 

Our First Trip Sponsored by Murphy’s Law

This trip with my partner was to the Fiery Gizzard Trail on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee. Our packs were an REI fever dream. They were crammed with 5-pound synthetic mummy bags and a 6-pound tent. We had multiple changes of clothes and the best freeze-dried meals the REI credit card could buy.

The first morning camping at the trailhead my partner pulled something in her back. Five miles in a new unpublished reroute added 1000 feet of elevation gain. When we finally made it to our fully-booked campsite it was empty. This led to a sleepless first night in the backcountry with every leaf falling setting off mental alarms. On the second day, we were greeted with yellow jackets swarming our tent and a perfectly fine-looking tree falling on the tent pad next to us. On the last day, we hiked back to our car tired, sore, and out of toilet paper. I had even made a backcountry bidet by stabbing a hole in our water bottle in a macgyver effort to save our asses.

We were silent on the way home and mentally licking our wounds. But over a burger and beer, we looked at each other and said, “When are we going to do this again?” I didn’t plan on ruining our lives, but we were hooked and started planning trips for the rest of the year. it was clear that we wanted to be more than just weekend warriors. We wanted to be thru-hikers.

A Long Goodbye to the South

At first, the views and promise of low humidity of the Pacific Crest Trail had our attention. We had always wanted to move out west so what better way to decide where to land than to walk through it? But as we ruminated about our choices and hiked more in the Southeast, the Appalachian Trail started to pull at us. We knew that once we moved West we wouldn’t come back to this part of the country often. This would make hiking the AT logistically difficult and expensive to start. We were also saying goodbye to the place where we grew up with a bitter taste in our mouths. This didn’t feel right.

Slowly, we began to think about an AT thru-hike like a long goodbye. It can be a chance to reconcile some of the hurt we experienced. It will give us time to reflect on the good times and celebrate our growth in the region. The AT is offering us closure. With this in mind, we made our date: February 2026. That is when we would go on our first thru-hike of many and start saying goodbye.

Deciding to Train by Section Hiking the Pinhoti

Sometimes our minds will make up arbitrary rules that we have to follow. For my partner and I, that superstition is that if we touched any part of the AT before our thru-hike we would fail. This is more my superstition, but she generously plays along. This ruled out any prep hikes in the next year that involved sections of the AT. We also wanted to start logging miles as soon as we could so the start of our hiking year needed to be on trails in more southern states. To top it off, we also needed the trails to be within driving distance for weekend trips to help us save money for the trail.

Did you know that Alabama has a lot of great hiking? I didn’t, but there I was staring at the narrow Google results that would determine our hiking year. The Pinhoti Trail was perfect. Section hiking this trail would hit all the marks to help us prepare for our thru-hike. We would get to coordinate shuttles with trail angels and deal with water caches. It would allow us to stay in hostels and become familiar with the rugged terrain that the Appalachian Mountains are famous for. The Pinhoti felt like a small taste of what the AT has to offer. 

Why I’m Blogging 

I know that selling everything before the AT will be more painful for me than for my partner. I want to defend my sentimentality because if I wouldn’t have held on to that Kelty backpack I wouldn’t be writing this today, but I know we need to get rid of a lot. Because of this, I decided to write about our experience regardless of platform sponsorship. I wanted a place to reflect and record our journey so I could have a written time capsule to look back on. I also wanted the blog to serve a greater purpose. Writing in a public space can offer insight to future hikers. It also helps my partner and I connect with this new community in a long-form format and I’m sure our friends and family will love to laugh at our expense.

So, thank you for following along as my partner and I attempt to hike the Pinhoti and some other bonus trails this year. We are excited to make mistakes and memories while preparing for our next chapter. I hope your trails are soft, your water sources are clear, and trail magic is near.

Cheers!