A Walk in the Woods - April 2010

I teach a high school class in epistimology and, in the course of our discussions, happened to mention that I occasionally go backpacking in North Alabama. After several weeks, I was approached by some of the guys in the class who expressed a desire to go with me to the Sipsey Wilderness sometime. I said, yeah, when the weather warmed up some, we could probably arrange that. It wasn't long before some of the female students said they wanted to go, too. I said, sorry, but I didn't have the skill set to teach females how to do some of the things they needed to do in the woods. Had they been experienced backpackers, I wouldn't have had a problem, but the first time out, they needed a mentor. I told them that if they could find a female to go with us, they could be included. Resourceful as they are, they immediately went to one of our other teachers who grew up camping in the Sipsey Wilderness and occasionally still goes there with her own family. She also teaches at the high school.

After several starts and stops, we planned for the third weekend in April--if the weather was not a torrential downpour. The weather was wonderful and we met the weekend prior to check everyone's equipment and see that everyone had at least a sleeping bag, a sleeping pad, and a pack. Tents were also scrounged up and, after talking about food, we were set for the following weekend.

The 8 students and 3 adults met in the parking lot about 7:00 AM figuring that it would take us a little more than two hours to get to the trailhead. We stopped once in Haleyville for a last visit to the porcelain facilities and arrived 10-ish for the trail. We gathered for a "before" picture and warned about watching where we stepped and what we brushed against. The weather is getting warm enough for snakes and the poison ivy is beginning to leaf. We headed in at the Thompson Creek TH and crossed the bridge for an adventure guaranteed to be remembered by students and teachers alike. The pace of the hike was not too fast for an old man and we made a couple of stops to adjust straps and waist belts. With borrowed packs, one doesn't get a tailored fit and hot spots develop sometimes.

When we got to the Auburn Falls jaunt on the trail, everyone took off their packs and began to explore. One of the students was standing on a small ledge near the bottom of the falls and suddenly looked down and jumped off quickly. I went over to see a 3-foot copperhead trying to hide up in a crack on the ledge. We took some pictures. When I looked where the young lady had been standing on the ledge, I saw not a pile of leaves she had seen, but another coiled copperhead, only slightly smaller than his friend. Fortunately, both snakes were still cold and docile, barely able to move in the shade on the chilly rock. We figured that the young lady had either been standing with her foot right up against the coiled snake or maybe on top of him. Nevertheless, he was too cold to move to defend himself and just lay there trying to see what was going on. After everyone in the group had a look at the snakes to see that nature had correctly colored them for camouflage, we put our packs back on and moved on toward Ship Rock.
There had been a dozen cars at the trailhead, so I wasn't sure we were going to get to pitch our tents at the Ship Rock campground--always a good first backpacking trip place to stay when it's dry--but, our luck held, and we found the campground vacant. The kids excitedly pitched tents--some quickly found poles and flys to be confusing--but all shared snacks and then went exploring. I warned again about putting their hands on ledges they couldn't see, and they remembered the Auburn Falls critters and heeded the warning.

We climbed through the Eye of the Needle and went down to the riffles in the Sipsey. The adults filled water bottles while the kids helped each other across the shallow rapids and explored the rocks and pools. The kids found a fish trap with a couple of small fish in it and a couple of the braver kids decided to get in the water. Now everyone was thinking swimming, so we headed back around the end of The Rock to find a sandy spot on the shore to swim. Most had water shoes and, after changing some shorts, we all headed back to a sand spot along the Sipsey.
The swimming was fun to watch. All of the guys and one girl all took a couple of steps and jumped in at the same time. The water was cold! They played around for 20 minutes or so and then got out blue and shivering. After warming up we hiked down the trail in a southward direction to where FT 209 comes down from FT 201 and crosses the Sipsey. Then we turned and retraced our path back to our campsite. Most of us lazed around and sat around and chatted; some climbed rocks and explored.

Supper was fun. Most of the females had purchased one of my freeze-dried meals and fixed those. They guys had thought freeze-dried was too easy and had brought all sorts of stuff. The microwave meals were the funniest. They tried to boil them in pots, or roast over the fire someway ... most of the guys ended up eating the left-overs from the girls. One of the girls had a freeze dried blueberry cheesecake, which she fixed and shared with everyone ... pretty good!
I had asked everyone to bring a poem, essay, book, song, or something they had written to share with the group around the campfire. It was an amazing event. The stuff they brought was touching, meaningful, funny, insightful, and wonderful. The read poems they had chosed, shared books they had written, adapted movie scenes for the occasion, and shared favorite children's books. It was a touching time. For me there haven't been many more memorable campfires in a long, long time. It did this old man's heart good! After the campfire, everyone began to get ready for bed ... but many lingered by the fire to chat with a friend, to tell stories, recount memories, or just to listen. And, of course, one of our group went up by the rocks to howl at the moon ... or whatever ...

I had brought my hammock, a bivy sack, and my sleeping bag, so I put those together and slept like a baby. The sleeping pad in my bivy sack kept me from rolling off; not that I would have had anywhere to roll in the hammock. It was the first time for trying that combination, and it all worked well. I was toasty in a 40 degree night.
Sunday morning's sounds were of someone getting the fire started back up. By about 8, most of the crew was up and beginning to gather around the fire. The talked about how they had slept ... most didn't sleep as solidly as they do in their beds, and some slept fitfully because they were cold or couldn't get comfortable on the hard ground. I had warned them that camping was not a theme park, and nights are one of the times when that awareness is most evident. After breakfast and a mass brushing of teeth, I asked them if they wanted to go up on The Rock ... of course, they did ... so off we went.
There is one seam where one can climb up the back side of The Rock. We pushed, pulled, shoved, and otherwise got everyone up that seam and up on top of The Rock. They loved the height and the view (although summertime is not nearly as good a view as winter when the leaves are all gone). The drop around the edge was at least 300 ft, so they posed for pictures near the edge -- not dangerously near, but near enough to feel brave.

The talk for the rest of the morning was how trying to figure out how to stay out in the woods and not go back to school the next day ... some wanted to stay the week. Of course, reality is reality, and we began to pack up for the hike back to the parking area. A brief respite was taken when another adult and her son came walking into camp. She had been one of our chauffeurs, but had not spent the night with us. The crew took her out to show her where we had played and explored, even climbing back up on the top of The Rock. She got a workout before we hiked out.

The ride back was uneventful ... except for the recounting stories and tales -- some of which got better and better with the telling. It was a good trip and I am happy because, as one of the young men wrote me, "now I understand why you love to go to the woods all of the time." Indeed I do ...

Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge

Went to the Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge on Good Friday. I hate to admit that I had never been out there before. The morning was finally clear and the sun cut through the small grove of cypress trees at the first walkway. I read an article in the Commercial Dispatch supplement about Larry Box and a bunch of folks from Starkville who volunteer there. Larry's been going out there since he was a youngster. I made my first trip as an oldster. After checking out the walkway to the edge of the cypress grove, we walked down the opposite side of the road on a path that said Beaver Dam. We probably walked a mile and a half down the trail through the low country -- didn't ever find the beaver dam, but did see the largest cypress tree I have ever seen and a lot of animal tracks, deer and raccoon.

We were following the rather muddy trail when it crossed a slew that was too wide to jump across and too muddy to slog through without tracking a lot of mud back to the car. The little stream working its way through the forest seemed to be an outlet stream from the lake, but I couldn't swear about that. The area was a low area that obviously flooded when the lake was high and after a long, hard rain, but this was early spring and the mosquitoes weren't out in full force.

Retracing our steps we worked our way back through a large cane patch back to the car. The cane patch was the large Asian-type cane, reminding me of the large canes I used to split and cut to make troughs for my grandfather's artesian well in south Mississippi. One summer when I was about 12 or so, I had time on my hands and made cane troughs all over the yard for the water to run ... I must have been studying mill races or something, because I tried to make a water wheel along the way, but couldn't seem to get the wheel loose enough to spin freely. I had probably been attracted to mill races since seeing the old working mill in Cades Cove in the GSMNP.
You see a lot of bamboo cane along the roads all over Mississippi, but you don't see a lot of the canes four or so inches in diameter.
Returning to the car we drove down to the fork in the road and I stopped to get a picture of a flowing crab--actually, that's a guess. It was a beautiful flowing fruit tree, but I'm not positive that it was a flowering crab apple. The honey bees were loaded from the flowers. I got very close to one for a picture and she wasn't concerned about me, just concentrating on loading the pollen.
After visiting the facilities, we headed down the road to the Woodpecker Trail. The woodpeckers in this area are red cockaded woodpeckers--an endangered species with which I was not familiar. These woodpeckers bore into tall loblolly pines about 40 feet from the ground. The people of the wildlife refuge have been cutting into the trees and putting a box-type insertion in which the woodpeckers can nest. One can see where the nest boxes are located because the pine trees pour sap all around the hole and the area turns greyish-white around the nest. However the nesting trees are easy to find because the wildlife people have painted a wide band around the trees.
As we were looking at the boxes, we noticed one tree on which an artificial nesting box had not been inserted, a large (3-1/2 to 4 feet) snake was hanging on about six feet below the hole waiting for a young bird to emerge. I don't think I have ever seen a snake that far up a tree. Remember these are big loblolly pines and don't have limbs on which the snake can rest. He just has to climb straight up the bark and hang on with his stomach muscles. Don't know how he is able to hang on, but he was doing it well. I would like to see the kill to know how he moved quickly enough to grab a bird.

What a great way to spend a morning in the woods of Mississippi.