9 am sharp at the Outpost I met Janice. I made a clutch decision to grab a box of cheezits out of my truck. We drove up the slope leading into the Bankhead, discussing the hundreds of semis that thundered through this stretch in excess of 60 miles an hour, fully loaded with wood chips for the sawmill to the south. The night prior I listened to them from my campsite all through the night. Just passing into the forest boundary we pulled off onto a rutted driveway-the home of Barb (Bob), the leader of today's hike, and her husband Jim, a tall, thick man who introduced himself with the confidence of stubborn wisdom, pronouncing his full name. At the terminus of their driveway were several vehicles, boats and canoes. An old shed was tucked under some oaks next to, of all things, a faded Kerry/Edwards roadside banner. There I was introduced to Bob, Jim and Ted and we were promptly on our way. Jim stayed home with their 3 month old boxer puppy.
I learned quickly that these folks rarely hiked in the Sipsey wilderness, and for that matter, rarely hiked on a trail. Today we would be bushwacking, following a number of draws, as Bob called them, (creeks) into several canyons, and eventually to the Sispsey river where a couple miles upstream another car was left as a shuttle.
Waiting for Bob and another hiker to complete the shuttle we poked around the roadside. Janice found the first of many musclodine vines, and went haywire upon their discovery. Musclodines are like purple grapes in appearance. They have a stiff skin that you squeeze to pop the gelatenous insides into your mouth. Their flavor reminds me of the taste all commercial grape products try to emulate but fall short. They surpass any other excuse for a grape. I was impressed. As we picked them I looked down and noticed a spider the size of which I haven't seen in years.
It was a Cave spider about the size of an egg yolk, black, with hearty legs. I bent down to snap a picture and it scuttled into its tunnel where its legs can barely be seen. You can imagine how it hunts. Makes me happy I'm not an insect.
Bob arrived with another hiker Kathy and her labradoodle Ponchy. We promptly dropped into the woods with hardly a hello and were pushing through brush down toward the first canyon rim. Little did I know these were the first steps of an epic dayhike. Soon we were scouting a way into a canyon, looking for a slope. The reward was immediate. A curving, undercut wall looking as if it never saw a footstep.
Janice on the left, Bob in the bandanna. A word on Bob. This picture was toward the beginning of the hike, one of the only times Bob looked at her map. Later as the hike took some swings and confusing turns I wrongly questioned to myself whether we were following her into eternity. I said nothing being a greenhorn and later listened to Janice tell of how Bob used to have Jim drop her off in the forest for a week at a time with only a small backpack. That was all I needed to hear.
We collectively made a decision that would define the hike, about whether to cross a ridge to access some canyons none of them had explored or simply follow the present draw to the Sipsey river. We chose the ridge. I must say that this was not the kind of guided hike you hear about birders taking or that your run of the mill conservation club sponsors. There was no planned narrative, no one person that did the talking. We all conversed about a variety of things. Janice explained things I had little knowledge of, such as carvings in ancient beech trees by native Americans, called arborglyphs, scattered in the Bankhead. She explained the increase in looting up under the overhangs where the majority of artifacts are found. Bob pointed out roads that were probably old wagon roads as they were deeply rutted and the trees growing in them were older. I got the sense, an idea stoked by Vince the day before, that in these people is a history largely unknown. The thought of losing such knowledge gained by experience and exploration is troubling. Vince had mentioned how the Forest Service had let go some of the local archeologists working in Southern National Forests, instead contracting out replacements to save money. He painfully recounted the unretrievable knowledge the forest service lost with such a short sighted maneuver.
The hike was saturated with information only the experienced can deliver. Crossing the ridge we passed the hanging nest of a migrating hooded warbler. We pushed through tangles of briars, and musclodines that always stalled the party. At points we came across beech and hickory glades, Tulip poplars the natives called Sipsey's, white and chinkapin oak, red maple, sassafrass and black walnut. Small plants of rattlesnake plantain and pipssissiwah (they said it was a Cherokee or Chickisaw name for "breaking into little pieces") Apparently natives used it to break up kidney stones.
We came up to the rim of a large canyon and had a hell of a time trying to descend into it, thinking perhaps we made the wrong choice. Bob did find a spot to slide down in, literally. We got a footing right where this beech grew around the bluff.
The canyon we had just dropped into was very remote. Everyone agreed that they were surprised to not see one sign of looting anywhere. This area had not been touched in some time.
It was here, just after we had stopped for a snack, that Janice called me to come quickly. She had startled a copperhead snake that was slowly inching away along the base of the bluff. This same area was riddled with holes of animals that had burrowed in the ground. Bob saw a box turtle under a bluff. In short it was remote and rich with wildlife unlike the compacted soils of Bee Branch.
A wall of spider webs.
The hike continued for what seemed to Bob as much longer than it should have without reaching the Sipsey River. We eventually descended into a brushy floodplain and came out into a small meadow someone was maintaining for deer hunting. Crossing the meadow Ponchy ran ahead and nearly stepped on a large timber rattlesnake that was instantly annoyed and rattling continuously. I managed to get close as I felt was needed.
Some more trudging and we finally reached the Sipsey River. What we realized at this point was that somewhere along the ridgetop shortcut we were turned around and ended up coming out several miles downstream from the car. With no trail, that was a considerable distance. From here on out I thanked myself for taking the cheezits and plenty of water. I was exhausted and on the river stretch I barely took the camera back out. It was getting near dark when we finally reached an old Civilian Conservation Corps trail and came across this specie of stinging caterpillar: a packsaddle. As Jamie said seeing the picture-"It screams don't touch me."
A four to six hour hike became ten. Yet despite my tired limbs and the ticks, it was worth every step. I knew I had to get to a motel tonight. I just had to. Janice was kind enough to invite me over for a dinner of "leftovers." We picked kale from the garden and steamed it with onions and garlic, she reheated butternut squash casserole, made a fresh batch of biscuits and popped the seal on some of Bob's simply unbelievable musclodine Jam. I could not have asked for a better down home Alabaman dinner. To top off the days experience I was fumbling with my keys in the dark, trying to unlock the bed of the truck when I felt a tingling on my toes that quickly progressed into a burning, stinging fury. Fireants. We had passed their mounds of sawdust like dirt all day. They got me at long last.
