Getting to The Pinhoti Trail

The Never Ending Sea of Planning Section Hikes

I forget how stressful it can be to set up a quick weekend. With a thru-hike or even a LASH(long ass section hike), you ideally get ready once. Past that, the trail somewhat guides your plans from there. With a section hike, you plan your miles, set up shuttles and parking, shop for groceries, pack your pack, confirm time off work, and anxiously monitor the weather because this is the only weekend you have to do this.

The added stress of quickly dropping your off-trail life to drive 4-5 hours after work makes you forgetful. You forget things like your plan to pack everything in the car before picking your partner up from work. You also forget you need to buy more SmartWater bottles because you forgot to wash your old ones. Now, they are a science experiment showcasing how old LMNT residue can create new life in the dark, humid environment of a hiker box.

If you’re saying to yourself, “This is oddly specific,” then your intuition is correct. This was the mess that was leaving for our first section hike of the Pinhoti. After picking my partner up from work early and seeing her “You forgot the plan again” face, we rushed back home, threw our gear into the back of our CR-V, and set our GPS to the Pinhoti Outdoor Center and the indigenous lands of the Mvskoke (Muscogee Creek).

This picture was taken right before our first backpacking trip in 2024.

A Trail Angel Spam Call

The drive was like any other on this highway—uneventful and filled with aggressive semi trucks. It allowed our brains to turn off work mode and get excited for the trail ahead. We normally take this time to catch up on a podcast like this backpacker radio episode. Pro tip: Don’t listen to scary podcasts before going into the wilderness. It is tough enough to fall asleep the first night or two on the trail. Don’t make it more difficult by having your imagination fighting off cryptids with every leaf that hits your tent.

Our cheerful 40-pound American Dingo, Phoebe, would be joining us during this first section. She’s a weekend warrior with us and loves the trail, but she spends most of her life as a soft girl sleeping on the sofa. Because of this, we don’t take her out for more than a couple of days at a time.

About an hour from the POC, in stop-and-go traffic outside of Birmingham, we got a call that I thought was spam. I was content to let it ring, but as a joke, my partner answered it. My off-guard greeting was a timid mumble, but I was not greeted by someone asking me about my car’s extended warranty. Instead, it was the cheery voice of Tigger, a well-known trail angel, confirming that we were being picked up at the POC at 7:30 a.m. the next morning. Thank god for pranks.

Arriving at a Big Blue Blaze

With the night in full swing, we took a left onto a slightly hidden gravel road off Highway 280. We wondered if Google had taken us to the right place or was trying to kill us until we saw a giant blue blaze in our headlights. We knew we were hiking before the spring bubble, but we didn’t think we would be the only ones here. A vacant frozen meadow was in front of us as we pulled up. The dark building to the left indicated that we were among the few crazies who preferred to hike cold and sleep colder. 

We decided to camp rather than stay in a bunk. We needed one last test of our new winter setup. If it didn’t work tonight, we would have to bail or choose to be extra cold. Fortunately, Nathan and Kimm of the POC kindly allowed us to hang out in the hostel. Normally, this would mean a flushing toilet, but the recent Arctic blast froze the pipes. We prayed that our bowels would allow us to make it til morning. Digging a cat hole in the frozen ground is near impossible. However, we did take full advantage of the space heater and huddled around it until it was time to go to sleep. The temperature was a frigid 22 degrees.

“Sardining” Into an X-mid 2 

We set up camp underneath their boot tree in a cove sheltered from the wind. (For non-backpackers, this is a tree that has shoes and boots hanging from it from previous hikers who either gave up their hike, gave up on their shoes, or finished their hike and threw them up in celebration.) Though I’ve taken the Durston X-mid on previous adventures, I still struggle with the pitch. A few expletives fly out of my frosted mouth before my partner calms me down. She assures me that this is all about practice.“Practice my ass” I thought as I bent one of my stakes in the petrified ground. The pinpoint force nearly punctured the sole of my trail runners. Eventually, after rewatching pitch videos on my phone in my shaking hand, I fixed the problem. I then went back into the POC to warm up while my partner made our beds.

It’s about 9 pm when we settle in and start to warm up our Katabatic quilts. Phoebe nestled in one of the corners of the tent while both my partner and I slept with the inner mesh inches from our noses. This is the problem with bringing a dog while trying to be ultralight. We were aggressively lulled to sleep by the intermittent wooshing and engine breaking of semis on the highway 100 yards from the tent. The berm did nothing to save our ears. Our sleep felt more like a series of naps, but we were grateful to have a safe place to camp in an unfamiliar environment.

Seeing a Glimpse Of Our Future

We woke up groaning to the sound of my iPhone alarm at 6 am with a thick layer of fancy salt-flake frost coating the inside of the fly. Our quilts, cheap Naturehike down pants, and puffy jackets shielded us from the harsh cold. The only thing pushing us out of our cocoons was knowing that Tigger was coming. 

After packing, unpacking to double-check things, repacking only to forget to pack something, then unpacking and repacking again (my favorite pre-trail anxiety dance), we climbed into Tigger’s minivan. The drive to the trailhead was filled with conversation about the area, concerns over the infamous Pinhoti dogs, hopes for the future of the trail, and eager questions from us about Tigger’s Appalachian Trail experience.

As the conversation grew, my partner and I started drawing a lot of similarities between her life and the life we dreamed for ourselves. My conversations with my therapist sometimes focused on my fear that I was using backpacking as a form of escapism. But as I sat here listening to Tigger’s life, it dawned on me that my anxiety was lying to me.

The capitalist world surrounding me wants me to think that dropping everything is irresponsible. It wants me and my time to be tethered and owned by someone else – like a corrupt rudder steering towards a waterfall while I look in the other direction because that’s what I was told was right.

This wasn’t escapism. This was a form of rebellion and a chance to reclaim my time and value.

The Beginning of the Appalachians

Before we knew it, we were taking a family picture at the southern terminus and saying our goodbyes. With a friendly tip that the first blue blaze was in front of the pavilion and not at the information board, Tigger waved goodbye, and we were off. Well, we were off all of a couple hundred feet until I stopped to read a couple of signs and plaques. If you ever hike with me, you need to know that I love a good plaque. But after a small mental detour, we started down the leaf-ridden path of the Pinhoti Trail.