Cheaha Wilderness (Alabama) Backpacking - March 2021

[Applause] i get your food for a trip don't worry you're going most important part of the trip don't forget the doggies oh right baby borrowed a different car the old saab is getting a little old and has a few too many quirks that sounds like me you just gotta love apple car play you got the old the ways up on the display here and the warnings are playing through the car audio hello i'm david gray and uh the dogs and i are heading out on our second backpacking trip of the 2021 season we're heading down to alabama where we're going to meet up with carl and travis and we're going to be doing a three day two night 20 mile or so hike in the chia wilderness which is east of birmingham a little southwest of atlanta i think fairly close to the city of talladega which is where they run the nascar race down there the chia wilderness is not a new area for me in fact i was planning on doing a hike down there in april of 2018 the rather famous pin chin sky loop but the weather was going to be really bad for the days i was going to be hiking down there and i decided the drive was a little longer than i'd like and i ended up doing the red river gorge instead it's march 3rd which technically makes this another winter trip for me the second of the 2021 season but weather-wise it's not definitely not going to feel like a wintertime trip we've got highs in the mid 60s or so and upper 60s tomorrow lows in the 30s and we're gonna have tons of sunshine each day with just a really small chance of rain on the last day we'll be hiking and with that let's get going on this long seven hour drive down to fort payne alabama hometown of the band alabama get this hike started [Music] [Music] what do you think bailey are you ready to get out i think you are and i know jaden is too but we're getting there got about a half an hour to go we have arrived at the quality inn in fort payne alabama oh the doggies are happy to be out of the car yeah here's the equality in and we're we're going in the side door this is awesome for the dogs got a picnic table a nice grassy area come on jaden jim come on let's go find our room let's find our room oh that's nice it's not bad for 66 so there it is that is the quality end in fort payne alabama we have arrived well we made it to the hotel this is in the back of the hotel it's kind of a cool little spot secluded away from everything perfect spot for the doggies to hang out i'm just trying to get them to settle down there's a kind of nice little hills in the background i think that's kind of somewhat like what we're going to be hiking in starting tomorrow although we're in fort payne alabama the chia wilderness is about probably an hour and 45 minutes south of here so we still have quite a ways south to go to get to where the the trailhead is going to be but i mean it is spectacular right now it's probably uh 68 degrees and obviously a gorgeous gorgeous day and this is pretty much exactly what it's going to be like tomorrow maybe even a little warmer because we're going to be a little bit south of here yeah this is like perfect hiking conditions even maybe a little bit too warm based on what the dogs and i are used to but i'm not gonna be complaining now this is my idea of winter backpacking heading to uh downtown fort payne oh the pain i pro so if you are ever planning to travel to fort payne alabama this is downtown fort payne alabama and it is very much like an old style town that hasn't been destroyed by a walmart with all the little mountaintop shops and the theater and pretty darn cool i'm just kind of out exploring before travis shows up we head out to get some dinner yeah that is uh i don't know if you can read the sign sally's smoking butt barbecue can't make this stuff up when you get out to these kind of towns you always got to tie in some sort of adventure with the trip and this is our adventure tonight i'm actually out exploring travis isn't here yet but i just want to make sure they were open and kind of do a scope of it to see if they were letting people in or how it was actually working but this is it so we'll be back i just wanted to make sure they were open because it's a couple miles south of town what this camera doesn't do is smell-o-vision but man the smell of that was smoking this is my kind of barbecue place dinner the night before backpacking sally's smoking butt barbecue well that's what carl was talking about a little tribute to the band alabama who's from fort payne met up with travis travis and i have made our way back to the smoking well they do have picnic tables [Music] you're getting a plate yeah and sliced fried potatoes okay any hot water yeah up oh man what a cool place i would like the combo plate please with um pulled pork and brisket and what would you recommend for the other side what do you what are your favorite sides baked beans and slaw is the two favorites other than the sliced fried potatoes i'll do the baked beans we should get a t-shirt trailer that's pretty cool you don't look like a sally i don't feel much [Laughter] i'll tell you why this place the smell outside is like you need smell-o-vision for your camera yes so you do we uh we sprinkle dust around in the parking lot oh man you can't make up places like this so cool five or six months uh we did have a little trailer next to our house down the road just a little ways i'd come in friday afternoon get out of my truck and i'd go smoking and cooking food and we'd open one day a week my dispatcher got to where she would dispatch me towards wisconsin on monday a lot of times i could bring him some food up there and she was like i've got a perfect spot in my yard you work six months out of the year because it's too cold to do it any other time work six months out here and i guarantee you make more money than you will in a year's time in 14 alabama and she's probably right because man you turn loose there's smoke in it i mean those people just drawing grounds they don't get them getting yeah that's cool so how long has this place been open we've been here ten years living here ten years in your tenure and just fell on to this place this place always i always thought it would make one heck of a barbecue place but they had antiques in here originally it was that gas station yeah that taxi car okay that was the original i would love i'd give anything if i had a texas sign in it cheers there's carl was here then we have to share you guys like the barbecue that's sally smoking butt barbecue heartily recommended if you're ever in for pain sally's smoking buck's pretty good good morning welcome to uh day number two of the trip and uh it is cold in northern alabama i don't know what it is but there's definitely frost on the ground and this probably in the low 30s which i think is about what we can expect uh the next couple days but it's going to warm up to almost 70 today absolutely gorgeous day just letting the dogs out to do their little morning thing out here they've got a little continental your standard little continental breakfast sort of thing here which will probably be what breakfast is this morning as opposed to like the waffle house or anything like that i didn't see one around here but we'll make do with what the hotel has and then get on the road by about eight o'clock and then we are going to meet travis and the trailhead the chia trailhead about 10 o'clock so it's about a two hour two hours from here we're rolling on day number two we're going to be doing some hiking today now we decided against the uh continental breakfast at the hotel we're doing jacks whatever that is i read the jacks but they have a chocolate gravy biscuit that does not sound good at all right now but they have other good breakfast biscuits as well that's not bad that'll work just fine jack's a bacon egg and cheese biscuits [Music] well we're getting on something that on the map is called the skyway midway mtw not sure what that is but we're closing in on it nine miles to go i think i've kind of figured out that the uh skyway midway that right there is the skyway mountain way we are definitely on top of some sort of mountain here if you thought alabama in this area is flat it is anything but we have arrived chia state park i didn't realize it i guess carl mentioned it this is the highest point in alabama and that's the trailhead we'll be coming back there but that's where we start the hike from but we're gonna head up to the uh the state park itself which is just apparently another quarter mile or so up here and we are gonna have a really nice state park store so we're gonna get anything that we may have forgotten meet up there and then head back down to that trailhead we have arrived at the chia state park we're here probably won't be here too long i barely remember yeah welcome to alabama guys man it's beautiful yeah got to be quick he takes it nice we made it to the trailhead this is the chia trailhead for the pinpotty trail on a rather spectacular day in alabama last minute prep and we'll be walking here in a couple minutes baby's ready to hike she's all geared up where are we going when are we going i'm ready i'm ready it doesn't like me to make fun of all right this should be all right interesting 49.6 no no 36.6 i said 37. that's pretty good guess that's pretty darn good now we all know that i am not an ultra light backpacker but on this trip i've got the drone and i've got spam and i got tons of extra water for the doggies i'll use that as my excuse 33.3 i got three liters of water i don't know i got two things of bourbon priorities 33 points okay all right we're not too bad almost geared up and ready to go it takes us a while carl's carl's nice walmart bag always adds to the sophisticated hiker look here we are hiking get this height going but the packs are happy with all the stuff we got we're on it now oh this is pretty cool entrance thing look at this where are we going over here okay okay we're going to get over on the penn hote trail head south to mcdill point hang out there for a while maybe lunch and then we can go from there on down and look for a campsite somewhere down here this is going to be silent trail so we won't go that far probably okay so anyway up in here okay i think there's some water spots according to gut hooks okay too so no water up here i don't think yeah plane crashes up here which would be cool so here's what the first part of the hike looks like beautiful day in the woods for hiking we need to go this way oh wow so we got we're on the wrong trail travis is this faster or slower than when you went to land between the likes pretty much the same it was about the same start we had there that's where we were supposed to go up the hill even further and that's the natural way the trail goes there is not a marking or a sign to be had anywhere you need to know where you are going keep following we're using the gut hook app which is really really nice got hook gut hook app with the pin hottie trail well the good news is we're on the right trail bad news is it's way more uphill than the other one was then like this all the way from that junction this right here is the blaze of the pin hottie a little turkey foot and those are the double blue blazes which tell us we're hanging left and going this way i believe i guess right here you can also see we're up on top of everything here how's this for a campsite with a nice view well we are on top of everything up here that's incredible taking advantage of the photo op here does it take you right to springer mountain right now the pin hottie yeah no that's the 80 it says the alabama's link to the appalachian trailer it goes to the application up the near springer and now well it hooks up right there oh you're right it does it goes i didn't realize that if you wanted to do more than the 2504 miles of the at yeah i guess that's what dixie did that's with the pin hottie second chance hikers to see i don't know nice little spot not making much progress mile wise but we're sure enjoying it just to give a little perspective to what it's become here probably hard to see into the sun but right above jayden's head is a blue blaze so they are definitely on the right trail that's where we came from i already had a perspective on it but that's all uphill too hopefully we'll get to the top and i think we're at the top of some spur here help me bailey need a need an escalator for that bad boy now this is my kind of trail we got to the top of that gnarly little climb back there and as i suspected i think we got to the top of at least this one so it's been flat and less less rocky than it had been up to here so this is actually very pleasant hiking let you kind of catch your breath a little bit before the next one first little rest spot about two miles into the hike a third of the way for the day i think and it's nice this time of year when there's no foliage on the trees because you basically have this constant sort of view temperatures are perfect for hiking it's probably still in the 60s and there's a constant breeze when you get exposed to you know the stuff over there not too hot not too cold for me or the dogs but absolutely no water up here so the whole stretch i think all the way to where we're going to camp for the most part there's no i don't think there's any reliable water until we get to about six miles so keep that in mind if you start at the chia wilderness trailhead but man is it pretty well this is one of those areas i say i don't think i would have wanted to be up here whenever whatever did this came through kind of like clear-cut the whole top here might be tough to see with this 20-millimeter lens but way off in the distance is some sort of force fire you can certainly see everything from up here this also makes me feel very fortunate that somebody came out and did a lot of maintenance or this would have been really tough to get through mcdill overlook i think that's where the plane crash is so we're gonna head out that way oh wow check this out this is a plane crash heading now to the macdill oh my god look at this yeah it was on 12 31 1972. he departed saint petersburg florida headed for tuskegee michigan petoskey potassius michigan there were four in the plain the weather was a low ceiling fog he was not ifr instrument certified okay he's only visual he ended up getting into ifr conditions basically ran right flew into terrain they call it controlled flight into terrain and this is the outcome i take it all four died yeah oh that kind of gives you a creepy feeling about this guy it's kind of hard to see with this 20 millimeter lens through these trees but all this white rock over there that is mcdill point and the plane crash probably you know kind of in this area we never went all the way to that point you can see what we've done is this horseshoe shape thing all down that valley and then back up this ridge decided to stop and have a little lunch break and get the doggies a little bit of water i'm guessing at 70 degrees which is about 60 degrees warmer than where he's liking him actually very pleasant but the doggies especially bailey she's she soaks up a lot of the heat when i put the brown sugar on it and then it tastes like candy i'm with you guys it looks really good from down here you wanna go off the fish and try it sure just a little tiny piece so that's what it does oh man that was good have a great tuna creations thai chili style going back to what works no don't steal it till i get it they're patiently waiting not real patiently i don't know how long they'll wait and tapatio you're drooling like a faucet we're here in the big junction that we're talking about is right here there's chinese silent trail odom scout trail and hodi all that comes together right here the water is right past the junction right in gut hooks so you got water right past this junction so you're saying stay on this track yes just looking for a spot where i could mention that this isn't the easiest trail to hike and this kind of gives you some perspective on it endless non-stop rocks you got to concentrate and make sure your feet are in the right place and tilty and twisty and just slow going and exhausting both mentally and physically you know you see way in the background there but i don't see any end inside got to work our way through it but it's slow going and a little sketchy both me and the donkeys and the rocks go on this is some really hard hiking it just looks like a bunch of rocks but what you don't see or maybe you can is they're all at like angles like this or that deep holes for the dog so we're having to help the dogs up over bigger rocks and out of holes and this is absolutely exhausting it's been going on for what seems like forever and there's no end in sight retiring well we finally came out of those rocks for the most part and this is what we're hiking in you know i'd like to say there was about a mile of those rocks almost nonstop from when we left travis i'm guessing it was probably more like a half mile it was just our progress was so slow through there just got to be patient through that kind of stuff best advice i could give you you have a tendency because you're going so slow to want to get impatient and getting impatient leads to injury and if you think it's bad going through there when you're under injured try it with an injury stay away from the edge bailey bailey bailey come here paid a heavy price for it but pretty nice view whatever that is i assume that some sort of forest fire is still going nicely man you can see for like a hundred miles up here i do not want the doggies getting near the edge there we have finally made it to the junction with what's it called it's gonna be gonna be it shouldn't be silent trail all the other trails which means the water source is probably within about a hundred feet but i think this campsite you can see the blue blaze there that big down tree there's a really nice campsite on the other side so i don't think this is where we're going to be hanging out if you ever come this way this intersection there appears to be like endless numbers of campsites because it's the only water because like all the animals in the sahara congregate to wherever the water is the same concept here here's where the water is here's where the campsites are bailey certainly heard that sound that is one happy dog i think i got a thirsty doggie probably sound like a little bit of a broken record but that was a lot harder than i thought it was going to be holy smokes man have you never hiked on rocks like that for any significant amount of time it is really hard and exhausting hiking and didn't get much easier after that a lot of train a lot more terrain than we thought six three quarters mile close to seven miles [Applause] so well i'm putting that aqua mira sanitized water to good use with a little much needed in durax r4 and advil that should help in a bit there's actually some skeeters around here i can assure you we didn't have to worry about any skeeters on the land believing between the lakes feels good to be in camp so you get it that a hot dog skewer yeah a little thick to be one to try to trim it down a little bit better cooking nine hot dogs right no ten yeah i brought nine buns that's what jaden's going what do you mean i don't get a bun i always got a bun before and he had the socks to fit the sandals that show who did yeah he bought them uh they're they're like japanese yeah they laid the toe to fit the sandals yeah i think he got some on amazon he said just search toe cut socks for sandals or something time for the cheddar cheese packet gourmet cheddar cheese bread rehydration moment first cheddar cheese moment a rehydration moment of the 2021 season how the butthole you can see the dogs are extremely excited about the cheddar cheesecake well jaden is he's coming back to life oh [Applause] we'll go for an hour or so about an hour and we'll be doing a cheddar cheese spread with ritz crackers thank you thank you yeah we're at the intersection of like four they call it conjunction john four different trails right here one of my things i always want to do with the bush plane all right doggies it's cheddar cheese spread time are you hungry go take it nice take it take a knife that was not nice for reference that was not nice and oh and i needed to give it to the good dog first that was my problem i've been waiting two hours dad whoops that mine all right that's a sign i need to switch to the bourbon jaden what are you out here doggie that that is nice don't you pass that one down to travis thank you enjoy bailey thank you getting all the shreds this looks a little too soon a little too much water for reference for everybody out there the only thing better with cheddar cheese spread is hot dogs on the fire coming up nice nice that was a little better didn't get any skin that time if you need more whoa yeah that's what i've been using really lightweight yeah the gold fire yeah and they work really good too that's what we got the uh still fires going you just like the little package i put two in and i got a fire going every night wow that oh you guys we gotta break up a hot this is well you gotta wait till some coals get going yeah this is like nirvana i mean they they suffered on the trail today but they weren't the only ones when they when they think of their whole life and have memories of their whole life this is what they're going to be thinking about there's no dog in the world wants to think of its life at the end when it's on his deathbed and say hey i wish i had a laid around the house tomorrow they want to be out here did you bring the bean salad chips and hot dogs and buns that's all i can do i'm saying that is absolutely plenty you could do like six of them at a time on that carl you think that's really inefficient for an operations all right the wood piece would be a bad recipe because i know it there you go oh man bar closes it that was so good man i never thought i'd be having hot dogs on the top of a mountain in alabama i have an audience you got retrievers on you you are the duck thanks girls that was better for all that in there all right we're hanging the food bags here carl i got two behind you here two of them that one in the doggy baggie that'll be high enough right oh you keep going till it stops i gotta say this this to me for the mileage is one of the more difficult trails i've done just the rocks pretty rough it's pretty rough the rock stuff was tough but if you hop on the trail it's got a lot of obstacles and rocks and stuff that you got to climb it slows you down a lot a little under a mile an hour i was not very fast i think we were yeah maybe about that yeah you guys were better than a mile an hour but i was right at about a mile an hour i always feel good when i got a water source close by if i don't have it you better know but think of david with the two dogs yeah that's hard um you ready get up are you ready to get up good morning welcome to uh day number three of the whole trip day number two of hiking uh plan today is i don't know all the trail names but we're not going to go back we originally thought about going back on the same trail the pin hottie trail because the views are so spectacular but that whole stretch with the rocks has decided made us decide to go back a different way there's another trail that basically goes back to the cars on the other side of the ridge and there used to be an old shelter there which is probably a place where there's going to be a good water source we think about halfway back so plan is today a little shorter mileage day keep it a little easier get about halfway back or wherever back to the cars the sun's just coming up over the ridge looks like it's going to be absolutely spectacular it's warming up very quickly now that the sun's up head over and get some dunkin donuts coffee and get this second day of hiking started [Applause] [Applause] nope anybody wanting mustard this morning it doesn't go good on granola but 16 ounces on this one i was just saying it would gosh it fit right in the pack nice and compact so it could come off easily dunkin donuts coffee on a very cold but not nearly as cold morning as we had land between the lakes and the kia wilderness from alabama little dunkin donuts coffee will go a long ways towards uh getting rid of those chills it was a lot colder night than i think any of us expected but we made it through and breakfast this morning is a peak refuel strawberry premium premium strawberry granola jason wish turned me on to this brand of uh dehydrated meal so we'll see if he swears by him so we're gonna give it a try i don't know if you can see that really well but the big chunks of strawberries and big chunks of granola that looks pretty good pour some water in wait five minutes and we'll uh eat breakfast here that smells pretty good i gotta start bringing bacon yeah that's smelling pretty i think david and travis are gonna be a jaden and bailey here we got the bacon steer going on four of [Laughter] them oh man that's really good that's better than the mountain house though you kind of become the cold breakfast guy um it's a lot better than what i got you know the strawberries get kind of mushy i mean it tastes good but they're like little heat snails or something not that i've ever had a nail all right baby [Laughter] oh you're sharing they're not cooked that well but that pan so thin it doesn't eat evenly oh thank you oh wow perfect oh man i got to do that like a hot dog the pleasures of uh backpacking that's my dog hit the spot oh that was really getting some you're not getting a lot all right there you go oh i'm sorry right here bailey bailey okay there's bailey's there you go [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] well we are geared up and ready to go for the second day of hiking another crappy day in the chia wilderness of alabama actually it's about perfect i think it's probably in the upper 50s and gonna go up in low 60s today sunny lots of sunshine so we get rolling day number two here we go going on a trail somewhere probably start off on the wrong one but we want to get going on the right trail today here we go our little caravan this is what we've been hiking in right out of camp it was straight up we're on the flat part now first part of it about a quarter mile not long but a great way to get your heart beating first thing in the morning good day to be out in the woods this is the high fall straw head okay i think that's also where those scout what are we going on here we're going this one which i think is still the open scout trail odom scout we came from the pin hottie high falls trail head that way we'll actually start in edmond creek right here i think okay that's where we came from that's the not steep portion of the climb the steep part was right out of camp but you can kind of see that low area behind travis there that's where our camp was about a mile into it it was all uphill this holds the promise of not so much uphill at least for a little while this is an area they call parker high point see what we've been hiking it hasn't been as smooth and easy but not as rocky as yesterday so that's kind of nice well we don't have the rocks from yesterday but this is what we do have a lot of boundaries and no sign of a trail and certainly no sign of any trail maintenance we're going by gps right now cut out all those downed trees trails a lot nicer yeah i can't see the views all that well but they're there nice little camp spot pretty typical i see a bunch of these around but as you can see there's no water but on the downhill i don't can't hard to see the high point in the background but we've just been nothing but down for a while here kind of nice going down but the downside is our car is parked adjacent to the highest point in alabama do the math we're going to have to go up somewhere because even even that ridge back there which i think where we hiked yesterday well that's not even the highest point in alabama so we spoke too soon about that campsite up there it's only about 100 yards behind me there's definitely water and good water doggies are loving it [Applause] what do we got here we're working on uh over four miles tomorrow if we camp up here at the intersection of nubbin creek cave creek is this the last year's uh i don't know possibly we're here little candy head is here yeah and then i don't know if there's water up at this area it makes it look there's a blue line like this creek no that's my route oh got it sorry i should make it red yeah first of all it's a really neat area and second there's a bunch of trail junctions right here that one goes straight up and over that ridge to the pin hottie trail we're on the nubbin creek trail you're on the odom scout trail from out of camp we're gonna be heading this way there's no water around here though so did uh look on the gaya gps and uh at least the map that i'm using shows a tre a creek up here somewhere it wasn't showing on carl's map i don't know if it's there or not but this looks like an area where you might run into some water short day number two i think we're probably already looking for camp if we find one we're about three miles into it for the day probably about four miles from the car so it'll make for a nice shorter day tomorrow but i'm just gonna hang here take a little break and wait for the guys to catch up we have decided to press on forward there were no good options down the nubbin creek trail there was a little water the map shows a little up here at cave creek we cross cave creek and what a couple miles about two miles two miles and then uh map shows there might be some water there so that's what we're hoping for that's plan a right now if we get there and there's no water we'll figure out plan b so we're pressing on trails going gradually uphill but we're heading up here to cave creek i don't know if there's water i don't know if there's campsites but it's all part of it sometimes when you come to an area you've never been before why it's sometimes nice to scope it out and come back when you do know everything about it makes it a little more relaxing we're gonna scope it out up here and see what we find and then take it from there but we need water those two people rather fortuitous encounter for us came at a very nice time because we hadn't seen anybody since those day hikers at the beginning of hike and we ran into those people coming from the opposite direction and they have confirmed that there is water in cave creek lots of it and there's a really nice camp spot just past it like they say the trail provides when you need it most sometimes to get a little help like that we got our plan for the night feels a lot better now this is basically what it's been all the way from the intersection down at the bottom looks almost flat but it's actually been angling slightly up pretty nice views on a pretty nice day you can actually see them because there's no foliage yet on the trees now that i know we have a plan i kind of get a little more of a smile a little less worry about what are we gonna do i mean i had lots of different options but now we know the option we're gonna use it's a nice feeling just gotta walk to get there i don't know if you can hear that but that's i thought it was wind at first but that's water so we're getting close well this is cave creek really nice little screen nice water nice flow look at that spot for doing a little water gathering the other thing that means is we are really close to a campsite they said it was about well two-tenths of a mile she said up the hill a little bit after the creek so we're after the creek now and we're gonna work our way up this hill and i think we'll find our home for the night pretty quick i think we have found our home for the night got a nice sitting log got some actual rock chairs like dolly sods very nice and uh check out that view seems like we're gonna have a little more of a breeze up here it's kind of windy but oh well we made it home for the night the making of the spam stick this is a very important camp duty this evening whatever it takes for good spam respect the spam it's still not really late i think it's about five o'clock maybe but we're getting the fire going because it is really cold nice little stack of wood here for the night i can't even describe the cold it reminds me of the cold i had when i was in glacier in 2018 the humidity came in and the temperature dropped so you've got this kind of like cold wet air it feels like it's 20 degrees so we all kind of have all of our our clothes on and we're still cold and there's a breeze we're on this ridge top here and there's just a steady constant cold wet breeze that's just keeping us a lot colder than you would think from the temperature opening of the spam maybe oh that looks so good lick the lid no it'll cut his tongue i know how did we get this i had that same problem how'd you get it out we cut i think we used the knife to like pry it out oh there you go like some of that's for me right i'm sure you'll get some when would you ever think something like that could look so good and be so highly anticipated we got a crowd bailey's so intense james like looks pretty good to me there you go okay all right perhaps i'll have more a minute i think that's perfect it won't take much thank you thank you there you go round two [Music] enjoy well you got it you know what i can throw it from here you bruised it perfect are you guys actually putting the bags up there right now well no i'm just getting ready without any utensils here you want to dump them on this plate yeah they'd probably be good yeah i think they're all pretty much ready just like slide them off there okay oh that's hot kind of a cross between ham and bacon and sausage it is smoking hot there you go what about you watch your fingers [Laughter] you got three of them it's like a frog going to a fly one more time let's see if i can bailey take it nice nice you're chicken not chicken down i had a choice to go about like an hour and a half out of the way because great fire that's awesome it was close all the difference in the world we needed it it was just cold there's nothing like camping if you don't have a fire and i'm not a great guy at making it a good one good morning and welcome to uh day number four total for the trip third day of hiking last day hiking we got about two miles to go back to the car if we don't praise to death first man oh man i can't even describe that night i don't know if you can hear it over jaden snoring here in the background but it was a constant maybe 15 mile an hour wind straight over this ridge and straight through my tent so despite the fact it was only got down to about 40 it feels like it got down to about 20 and it was relentless it was not the most restful night's sleep to say the very least and the last thing in the world i want to do is get out of this tent and start getting ready for the day i'm gonna have to do that pretty soon the good news is um we've only got i think less than two miles back to the car now pretty soon we'll go fire up a cup of dunkin donuts coffee and i know that'll definitely warm me up but here we are start a day number three i can't quite describe how cold it feels right now this wind is just like constant and it is just icy icy cold so i have a feeling we're not going to be spending too much time linking around camp this morning we don't have a fire we used up all the wood i guess we could get one going but i think it's going to be a pretty quick pack up this morning get on the trail try to get warm because there's no break from it right now it's just a constant constant like 15 mile an hour wind and it is very very cold yeah the sun's out they're coming out but i can tell you it ain't providing any warmth sure is pretty with the view and everything but i'm gonna get going on some dunkin donuts coffee and get some warm liquid inside me i think that'll help a lot but a little bit of warmth makes a huge difference don't have to worry about the handles getting too hot oh yeah i often say this is just what i need to get the day going but i think in this particular case it's one of the times i've needed it the most dunkin donuts coffee in a shockingly cold chia wilderness in alabama i just definitely need it some today on the inside oh this feels good in the hand i'm just gonna say that's a that stove just the heat coming off that stove like a little mini fire i just found a good handle on that hot water and oatmeal oh yeah you have to hold it yeah well hot coffee and a titanium cup works pretty well too that's the last chip for this not doing it huh not even boiling with that so what do they call that the jetboil stash gear review one of my only gear reviews don't get the jetboil stash you'll regret it it looks really cool it's a lot more compact than the old jetboil but you lose all of the features of the original jetboil the little snap lighter thing and the quick boil and everything and it's basically just a standard old stove and it's 129 dollars at rei so that's an expensive stove breakfast this morning is ice cold granola with milk and blueberries with some very chilly chia wilderness water but still pretty good and not a bad backdrop for eating your breakfast even on a pretty chilly morning i think the dogs like my breakfast skillet better than i do the sun's starting to get high enough up in the sky that you can actually feel a little bit of warmth from it which is quite nice and it's actually looks pretty good too nice view getting ready to hike on day number three and i think we're all looking forward to it just to warm up a little bit you ready go your pack's empty you can't hit i'm ready to go we're going we're going we are packed up here ready to go ready to get warm we're heading up that way a few ashes in the fire pit there but other than that kind of left it the way we found it actually cleaned up some glass broken glass so we left it a little better than we found it we're hiking day number three up the hill to the cars here we go does feel good i had to hike like 100 feet to get that nice little view to start the morning and some sunshine this is kind of what we've been hiking in and went up to a lot of camp now we've been gradually going downhill one thing that's different has been a lot a lot of downed trees some you had to go around somebody go over so let me go through get that cranberry wilderness feel to it a little bit start of the hike here but we kind of stumbled upon looks like some sort of a cave or something we thought about going down there but that's kind of steep and would require work and there might be a bear down there let's get some videos i think travis should go scope it out and see if there's a bear in there what do you think bailey you want to go check for a bear i just want to keep walking pretty much what we've had the whole third day here down trees a few rocks but for the most part pretty pleasant trail hot a lot of grade it probably looks a little warmer than it is it is not warm fortunately when you go kind of in to the uh whoa i'll show you this that's kind of what we've been seeing a lot of on this day and then sometimes you have a little side trail like this one there and sometimes you don't as i look around i don't know if we're going we're going to the highest point in alabama or about 100 yards from it maybe it's up there maybe it's up there but i know it's going to be higher than where we are right here significant milestone here at where bailey's standing that's where we missed the turn on the first day we went up that way eventually but we came down this way for a while so that tells us we are very close to the trailhead parking lot and the cars uh no matter how many times you do it that is always a great site with that cool little entryway there chia trail trailhead i made it back to the cars so there you have it the second hike of the 2021 season the second winter hike of the 2021 season is in the books the chia wilderness has an awful lot of variety a lot of things to offer we had three different trails that we were thinking about hiking chose the one that we did the loop with the pin hottie trail but we could have done the pinchinski which is a famous one down here or a linear hike from one end to the other all on the pinati trail if you've got some shuttle cars but it was a fantastic first day with the views and the overlooks and the plane crash site and those fun little gnarly rocks that we went through for about a mile and then that first campsite with the fires and the stream right there the second day with the very pleasant hiking it was a nice trail no rocks and nice grade up and down and then that a little chilly but magnificent campsite last night with the stream right next to it and today just a short bat hike back out to the car less than an hour with some more views so it's a great couple of days of hiking a chill wilderness it's been on my bucket list of destinations i'd like to get to for quite a few years and i'm finally able to check it off and it was also a great height do [Music] do [Music] you

Channel: David Gray

Views: 15,862

Rating: 4.9528303 out of 5

Keywords: backpacking, hiking, camping, Alabama, David Gray, davidgrayin, Cheaha Wilderness, Pinhoti Trail, Zpacks, Dunkin Donuts, Odum Scout Trail, Nubbin Creek Trail, Pin-Chin-Sky, Pin-Chin-Sky Trail, Pin-Chin-Sky Loop, Fort Payne, Sally's Smokin Butt BBQ, Cheaha State Park

Id: TejMHRdUeyA

Length: 58min 30sec (3510 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 22 2021