Pinhoti Trail Hike Heflin, Alabama

We love to hike! It is mostly free and great exercise! Plus, you get to see beautiful parts of the country that you wouldn’t get to see from traveling the roadway! This last week we traveled to the Talladega National Forest and hiked part of the Pinhoti Trail near Heflin, Alabama. I say part of because the trail itself is part of the Southern Appalachian long distance hiking trail. The trail we hiked was 5 miles of the full 335 mile trail!

We began planning our Pinhoti Trail hike online over at www.pinhotitrailalliance.org, where maps, history, and activities can be found. From Oxford, Alabama we initial traveled to what we thought was an entrance to the trail near the gps coordinates: 33.753866, -85.572786 which turned out to be an to check biology stations. The well marked entrance to the trail that we found with the help of some locals was located near the Coleman Lake Campground (33.786870, -85.565831). We did not stay in the campground, but portions of it were visible from the trail. For those of you with longer recreations vehicles, be aware that it was designed for RVs no more than 35ft in length.

Once we located the trail and began our hike, we discovered that it was well-marked and well-kept! As beginner hikers with kids we found the trail to be an easy and fun outing that took us around 4 hours at a leisurely pace. Altogether, we did 2.5 miles in and turned around and did 2.5 miles out.