We left this morning around 10:30 and drove to Lineville, AL to have lunch before we embarked on our short backpacking trip we stopped at Jack’s. I got a chicken sandwich. It was literally one of the best chicken sandwiches I’ve ever had. It just needed to be spicier. Jack’s is a favorite of Thomas’s so that’s why we went there.

After what my cardiologist would call an abomination, we went to the Cheaha trailhead and we hiked south on the Pinhoti for approximately 2 miles and we went to Hernandez peak and went to the overlooks around there. We took a extensive break and then spoke to another family who were hiking for the day. The camp site I wanted to stay at for the evening is on a trail that really only connects other trails. So we turned around and headed back down the mountain to our car and drove from Cheaha trailhead to Adams gap trailhead.

It’s almost all downhill from Cheaha, the highest point in the state, to Adams Gap. My car actually increased its SOC by almost 2%!! Once at Adams gap we headed southbound on the Pinhoti until it connected up with the Skyway Loop Trail. We took it north for about 2 miles until we reached one of my favorite campsites in Cheaha. It had recently flooded and so the campsite itself isn’t quite as pristine as I remember it, but still very much the same.
There were two women already with their camp set up in hammocks and a dog whose name was Hawkeye
Thomas and I set up our tent and then we began to collect firewood and we did all of that over the course of the next about 45 minutes. I was very clever and packed a couple of beers with me from Adam‘s gap to the campsite knowing that there would be a creek and I put them in the creek to chill and had them with dinner which was absolutely lovely.

Thomas has been a really good companion on this trip, he isn’t quite ready for a full length backpacking trip by any means, but I think he would be able to do some of the one night trips with the scouts. I think he’s gotten a lot of confidence from this, but I could tell when we were doing the ascent up to Hernandez peak that he wasn’t having a great time. we need to get him a backpack that fits him properly, but he’s at the in between phase of being in a big kids pack and a young adult pack so for now he’s been using my old Osprey pack. It is comically large on him, but I didn’t put too much weight in it so he’s been doing OK.

We ate like kings (for the backcountry). We had a mountain house meal. I gave him the option of having really good food that I would’ve prepped and put into foil packs and made into the fire or traditional backpacking meals, which are freeze dried… and I already had some mountain house meals in storage so we ate a chicken and dumplings meal and some mashed potatoes and we got to talk next to a fire and it was quite memorable.

He has just gone off to bed. It’s about 9 PM. We have absolutely zero signal where I am. I was able to send a satellite message (!!) to Erika to let her know where I was and tell her that we were OK and other than that I’m gonna enjoy this fire for about another 30 minutes and then I will be going to bed.

Day two

It rained overnight about two or three in the morning. The rain didn’t last for a very long time maybe 30 to 45 minutes, but there was a very intense line inside of it with lots of wind and healthy amount of rainfall, no thunderstorms though nothing severe.

When we woke up, Thomas and I looked at each other and then over to the ladies that were hammock camping and I noticed that neither of their hammocks had a ridge line or a tarp pulled over it. I’m not sure that they didn’t just get rained on, but they looked fairly happy in the morning, so maybe they already took that down… I hope.

We ate some breakfast. I had some coffee and we said our goodbyes to our campsite mates and Hawkeye.

With the weather came a cold front the previous day we had enjoyed temperatures in the 70° range and this morning we woke up in the low 40s high 30s and hiked back up the 2 miles to the trailhead with winds whipping and the temperatures never really getting above 50°

I almost forgot one of the things that happened that made me think that Thomas, although maybe not physically quite ready to do longer backpacking trips, he shows real trail ingenuity… He was missing a steak or he couldn’t find it in his bag and he used his trekking pole as a stake didn’t ask me for help didn’t ask if I had another steak any of that he just put it up and it survived the night and the weather which I thought was really cool.

As we made it back to the car, I was freezing. We were getting back up to a less protected part of the mountain, and the winds were whipping really quickly. The cold air was just biting through the clothing that I had on. I chose to forget my puffy jacket and shell because I knew once I was on the trail that morning, I would warm up but in those last 15 to 20 minutes I really wish I had them on.

We did make it back to the car got all of our items packed back in and as is tradition, we went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch, and it turns out that Oxford Alabama also has a DC fast charger.

I genuinely had a really fun time doing that trip and of course that was from getting to share new experiences with my son, but also something about the reduced pressure of knowing the mileage was going to be a little bit less knowing that I have been on these trails several times before gave me a sense of confidence that I was able to carry through and model for him.