This past weekend we drove down to Alabama accompanied by Todd to hike the Pinhoti Trail with Mark and Kristin along with their friends Wilf, Jane11e, and Maria. The Pinhoti trail extends 115 miles through Georgia and Alabama -- however, we only hiked about a 3-4 mile section of it (6-8 miles total).Here's a map of our hike
Friday evening we all met at the Pine Glen campground and set up our tents for the night. That night the temperature dipped down to 39 degrees F. Thank goodness for fleece & warm sleeping bags!The next morning we ate breakfast, packed up camp and set off towards our goal -- a camping shelter about 5.8 miles away (our original plan was to hike
a 13 mile segment of the trail, one direction). After hiking between 3 or 4 miles we decided that we were ready to stop for the night, and found a nice quiet spot in the woods, off the trail and by a peaceful creek.
That evening after setting up our tents among the trees we built a nice fire, ate supper and then played games, told stories and solved riddles around 
the campfire before finally heading to bed. There's nothing like climbing into a soft sleeping bag the second night of a camping trip after the exhaustion has settled in... :) Zzzzzzzzzz.... .
Sunday morning we got up, ate breakfast around the campfire, and then packed up our stuff once again for the hike back to our cars back at the first campsite (4 miles back). The hike back didn't seem nearly as long, although the backpacks still felt pretty heavy.Aside from our new aches & pains we can easily say that we had a great time hiking the Pinhoti Trail!
Other interesting bits of info:
- We saw a little snake on the trail
- We didn't see any bears, raccoons or skunks
- Er!c got stung by a yellow jacket on his wrist
- We found a skeleton in the woods -- it may have been a deer
- Our packs were 30+ lbs each
- We helped some campers break into their own car
- It was bow hunting season -- we didn't get shot
