I've been ready to do another longish distance hike since finishing 40 miles on the GA AT in August of 2016. While I had originally wanted to go back to the GA AT and try to complete it, I recently took my first trip on the Pinhoti in AL (where I live) and was blown away at the trail that is within a 2 hours drive from my front door. I'm currently in the planning stages for anywhere from a 3 night - 6 night trip on the Pinhoti. First I have to decide if I want to do the first 2 sections with 15+ miles of road walking or if I want to start at section 3. Tough stuff, lol. Anyways I plan to share my planning throughout the next few months, if for nothing else, just to bounce my ideas of those of you with Pinhoti experience. I guess I'll ask a few questions and if anybody is able to give answers then I'd greatly appreciate that.
1. How boring is the road walk?
2. What are the best months to semi-rely on the "seasonal water" sources mentioned on the etrail guide at the Pinhoti Trail Alliance? (I'm initially thinking about the last week of May since I'll already have memorial day off)
3. Has anybody camped in the first section? (If I do the road walk I'll possibly plan on trying to hang in this section close to the start of the road walk to try and knock it out in one day)
4. What is a good expectation of miles per day? (When on the AT I did 12-13 miles each day)
Guess that's about it for the questions. Now I'll share what my planning has involved so far. I've been working on a spreadsheet to compress the etrail info. I'll show it here:
etrail spreadsheet.JPG
And the rough fist plan is outlined here:
plan 1.JPG
Lastly I started a Vlog of my daily hikes today and will probably try and do one each week if possible. I'm participating in a weight loss challenge at work, as well as getting ready for my longer hike. I've pretty much put on about 3/4 of my pack weight since my hike on the AT. So, to accomplish that I'm trying to get out each day to walk between 3 and 5 miles; and may transition into a little bit of trail running/jogging at some point as I begin to recondition. Thanks to my Sister I've been able to discover a couple of nature preserves really close to my house where I can get this walking in on trails without having to get my feet on that dreaded concrete. Plus, I find it so much easier to walk farther in the woods than I do in circles on pavement. Long story short I'll share my Vlogs here as I go if that's OK. If you read this far, Thanks and ENJOY THE HIKE!!
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks