Conecuh Trail, Lower Alabama

“I am considering a trip, but I have a large concern.....sleeping on the ground in an area that has alligators...should this be a concern???...anyone hiked there before???...”

“...ain't the only critters that'll eat ya on the trail thar little missy.....Har Har Har.......”

“Morning Super!!!.....”

“seriously......two things I am afraid of .....bears & gators!!!!!
:o”

“Gators will not bother an adult human on land.
Don't take a dog around them. They will eat dogs.”

“it's flat, and boring. Some weeks its dry as hell. Most of the waters in this area are small creeks and coldwater springs. just stay far from the waters edge at open pond, buck pond, blue springs. i went home after hiking about 11 miles of this trail, didn't bother camping or finishing..it sucked”

“Don't hold back, give us your unvarnished opinion...LMAO....”

“what about Blackwater River State Forest?????...in Fla?????”

“LOL...Opie....I will be taking newbies with me...and my first trip out since problems with my back last year....so an easy trip is what we need....what I really need is a Sipsey fix...sigh....”

“i'd go now...otherwise it would be long, hot and full of bugs.
it's not a short trail, and parts are sandy.
Be prepared for tons of orb spiders with thick webs across the trail.
Haven't been to blackwater, but it is a cross between conecuh and ocala from what i've heard/seen.”

“It is safe. And as Opie said, "Boring", but perfect for newbies.”

“I agree...would be a good place for a low stress/easy type of trip.”

“well....it won't be until March when I have some time.......maybe I'll take a day and do some day hiking to scout it out for backpacking!!!

thanks for the help!!!!!
last edited: 2/22/06 5:16:44 PM”

“you can also stash packs and caches of stuff/vehicles at road crossings”

“..I wonder if the fishing is any good?????”

“you can get a fishing license anywhere down there, and i would..that is the only place for the game warden to hang out...it's his little playground. tons of bream, bass, and of course...catfish, all small gas stations have worms and/or crickets...some have shiners. If you want good redworms and nightcrawlers, look for small misspelled signs in pples front yard.
most take major credit cards....lol”

“You can get your Alabama fishing license online, if you have a credit card and a valid driver's license.

Go here”

“Divinity, I will probably be going in April. However, if you go in March and give a review that matches Opie's, I will reconsider other options.”

“LOL.....thanks for the info...I already have my fishing license.....
...I wonder if I can fish with CONECUH sausage.....
....anyone ever have it????...yummmmmmmm
...if you ever have it, you will never eat any other kind!!!...goes best with pancakes!!!!”

“Conecuh Trail. The name Conecuh is believed to be of Muskogee Indian origin. It means "land of cane," which is appropriate since the trail runs through canebrakes in several sections. The Conecuh Trail winds 20 miles through Alabama's coastal plain.”

“IMHO, canebreaks are synonomous with rattlesnakes.”

“Canebreak rattlers are common throughout the sand hills of S. GA and LA. They love abandoned (and not so abandoned) gopher tortoise dens.

Though considered a seperate species by some, they are actually big, fat timber rattlers - damned near as big as the eastern diamondback, north Americas heaviest snake.
last edited: 11/28/08 9:04:57 AM”

“I grew up about 30 miles form there. My in-laws lived on the edge of the Conecuh National Forest. Fishing is good. Hiking/backpacking is typical southern pine forest with dogwoods blooming in the spring. Of course hot and buggy in summer. Gators are not a problem. Major swimming beach at Blue Springs and one at Open Pond. The only gator incident that I am aware of was at Open Pond several years ago involving a jogger that stopped to swim with his dog. Gators are attracted to dogs for some reason. And yes Conecuh sausage is the BEST!”

“lol...Conecuh sausage IS THE best!!!!”

“Div...plan us an overnight trip and I'll come down with BusyBee and hike with ya.

Not during the summer !

;)”

“I grew up on the outskirts of the conecuh also, skipped school to swim in blue hole. and he wasn't a jogger, Kermit George was a local redneck who went in after his poodle, and lost his arm in the fight...hehe

Would never swim in the ponds, only the springs. I tried to thru hike the longest part of this trail, but it was too hot, missed my water spot, and hiked out to the blue springs cycle shop and called my buddy to pick me up.

it's cut over pine plantation, wouldn't hike again”

“and as far as bottled water, blue springs water is hands down the tastiest.”

“Kermit George could not have been a redneck, OPIE.

Poodle/Redneck = noway. LOL”

“dirty scruffy never been to a groomer type poodle, Kermit was always a little off....his name is freaking kermit George, if your not born redneck, they can name you one!!”

“My forray into Conecuh was among the first of my hikes in the modern era. I discovered the forest and it's trail offerings online - along with thebackpacker.com - with my newly installed office computer. It would be one of the most anticipated spring breaks of my seven year teaching career, combining hiking with the promising possibilities of the Panama City Beach fishery.

After a stop at a tackle shop in town, I arrived at the forest campground around 3 pm. I found the campground host and got the local skinny as well as a map that could have been the third-place entry in a Draw a Map of Conecuh National Forest contest at Andalusia Elementary School.

I hiked in only a mile or so, set up camp, then wound down with a cup-or-so of diluted rum. At dusk, the local deer herd began to gather round in small groups - staring at me and whispering about me. Ocassionaly, a bold button buck or one of the mamas would feign a charge only to stop yet far off and stomp and huff. They were not too happy with this intruder that had sat his homestead right in the middle of an animal equivilent to the Georgia-Florida Parkway. They got their revenge with a night-long barrage of snorts, grunts, and blows served up in rotating shifts. They don't sleep, and have no problem depriving their potential predators of said state - weakening us to utter exhaustion, thus decreasing the chance that we will have the energy to drag them down by the throat - action I pondered around 10 pm, midnight, 2:30 am, etc.

Next day, I struck southward down the trail, then eastward, with snake leggings securely donned, through the brush toward the Yellow River.

The Plan:
Arrive at the river and land a quantity of upper-tier sunfishes, preferably the river's equivelant to the red-eyed species of Suwanee, Flint River, and shoal basses. I was to do this until I exhausted my tackle supply or arm muscles - whichever came first.

Within the first hour of the bushwhack I toyed with the possibility of turning back and devising a plan B, but shear determination, or stupidity, or whatever, prompted me to continue - rationalizing that I must be getting close, and the worst was probably behind me anyway. I was not, it was not.

Though the tree canopy was seamless, the undergrowth managed in some places to achieve densities denying visibility of more than 10 feet in any direction. I ripped and plodded through endless acres of canebreaks, privet hedges, and hanging gardens of sawbrier - some of which were so thick I could have caught up on my sleep right where I stood. I was bloodied and bruised and stupid - but determined.

The wet ground finally sloped away into vast areas of standing water - creating relative clearings and suggesting the presence of a nearby waterway. Then, finally, a distant backdrop of a sunlit break in the canopy - the channel of the Yella. Halleluia.

Like most rivers, the Yellow is paralleled on either side by berms of course river sand - a sort of lateral morraine piled high by flood waters as it loses energy outside the channel. The berm serves as a dam, which accounted for the black ponds of trapped rainwater I had been wading for the preceding hour. The current configuration was probably the work of the flood of '94 - making them only five years old, and not terribly overgrown. It was atop the berm that I would traverse as I turned southward.

I surveyed the river upon reaching the ridge of the berm. The combined heights of the berm and the bluff put the water's level far below where I stood. That, and an abundance of riverbank snags and deadfalls, plus the close proximity of overhanging tree limbs, made fishing from the bank a likely exercise in futility. Besides, I had lost alot of the day just getting there, and should probably make haste toward the higher and dryer, camper-friendly ground of the sandhills of Conecuh.

The going was fairly easy along the berm, save a few extra-thick patches of reeds and privet laced with catbrier. On two occasions, yellow-bellied water snakes skurried from their tanning sessions among overhanging tree limbs to splash loudly into the safety of the river. Both times, I stood for a moment to watch them swim away - admiring their considerable size and their gracefulness in the water.

At one point there was a gap in the berm, the bottom of which was only a few feet above the water level of the river. The gap would be breached on occasion by the swollen river, then the impounded water left to stagnate as the river level receded. Fortunately, I was able to shimmy up and across a tree that leaned from my side in a favorable direction over the gap. Once within range, I tossed my pack across, then, swinging several times to build momentum, I released my grip on a limb to fly gymnast-like to a soft, sandy landing on the other side. It's good to be primate.

The next gap was considerably wider, and had no monkey bars any way. Be there gators or snakes or swomp boogers, I had one choice other than to venture down into the dark shadows of this blackwater slough, and that was to turn back. I opted to take a chance with the creatures that lied in wait below.

The creature was a copperhead snake. Well into my wade across the thigh-deep slough, movement ahead caught my eye. It was a large copperhead living up to it's nickname highland moccasin, and it was swimming straight toward me. The level of it's fangs were a foot above the highest level of my submerged snake leggings, making them useless in the event of an attack. Cooly, I implemented my defensive plan: I froze. It got close enough to count the hourglasses strung along the length of it's back, then veered slightly and passed on by - all the while stopping here and there to checkout a cypress trunk or some floating object. It never knew I was there.

It was time to go. I adjusted my compass bearing to 270 degrees - due west - and toward the thicket. Hungry, wet, and chilled by the rapidly dropping temperature, I leaned forward, and charged headlong into the tangle - hardly breaking stride. In what seemed like only minutes, I suddenly broke out of the jungle into the open sky. I had reached planted pine that was barely 10 feet tall, and criss-crossed with open, grassy lanes.

Within a half hour, I was fed and bedded down in the cozy warmth of my Eureka! Aurora. Minutes after that I was in a sleep deepened further by the pitterpatter of raindrops on the outside, and diluted rum on the inside.

By noon the next day, I had showered at the campground, and was on the road to PCB - with the foul weather in tow...”