Weekend in Alabama

[Buffalo Skipper]

Doug, was that second photo taken on the overlook just before you reach the McDill Point sidetrail? I was just wondering if you saw this:

Actually, we missed it. I knew exactly where it was (another friend took a waypoint less than 3 months ago). We were a little focused on making the miles to Cheaha Falls after starting an hour later than we had originally hoped. We took some great shots at McDill, but drove on quickly afterward. We were probably close to ½ mile past the wreck when I remembered it. By then we were too far to backtrack.

Thanks for the pics. We will look for that the next time we are up there.

[Firedog]

Good report, We're glad you had a great visit to our neck of the woods. Squidbilly & myself are still trying to plan a Skyway reblazing weekend. How was the blazes on Skyway by the way. They were getting pretty faded. We have 3"x5" metal reflective plates to install if we can get the ok from the FS. Still waiting on theat one. Locks like painting for now though. Y'all hurry back soon.

[Buffalo Skipper]

There are blazes on the Skyway? Didn't see them.

Sounds like a really great project long overdue.

For the record, with all the leaves on the trails, blazes/trail marking is extremely important, especially over rocky areas where the rut of the trail is not obvious. We found that the Skyway was fairly easy to follow without blazes (we really liked the Skyway!), as there are few rocks and the rut is obvious. The Chinnabee Trail, especially the first downhill mile over rock, is not always intuitive to follow, though we did not get lost. Better marking, especially at the top, would be nice. The Cave Creek trail was also poorly marked, but was not rocky and fairly obvious. There are, however, several unmarked side trails with sufficient wear that it sometimes took a minute to figure which was the real trail.

We made it with only 3 or 4 glances at the GPS, and never actually had to pull out the map. But better markings on these 3 trails would be nice. The Pinhoti was, for the most part, clearly marked, which was reassuring, especially when going up the stairway and just above (north) the Chinnabee, where it was both rocky and leaf covered.

Good luck on the Skyway. Markings would make that a near perfect trail.