Alabama is hot.

Alabama. is. hot.

I work at a nature center in Alabama, and while I love being outside, working 5 days a week in weather in the high nineties with humidity that sits oppressively on you does not breed a desire for more wilderness connections. So despite moving to Birmingham in August to join Jesse, we haven't been outside much until recently. We had a couple day trips in the middle of September. And by day, I mean early morning before it got miserable out. And by trips I mean a couple miles. In fact, the first full weekend we actually explored outside was in late September - not coincidentally the first week that had a day below 90 degrees.

Our day trips were pleasant enough. We visited two local nature preserves in two consecutive weekends - Ruffner Mountain and Red Mountain Park. Ruffner Mountain has a nature center and preserve, and Red Mountain Park is a 501c3 with the goal of not taking any grant money and is therefore supported through donations, fundraisers, etc. I don't really agree with that model as a long-term success, nor think in the end it is the most self-sustaining, but they have a lovely dog park and some excellent trails. I'll be looking for ways to offer my support there in the future. We took a combination of the Quarry, Possom Loop, and the Ridge and Valley trails to make a morning hike.

My reason to enjoy the dog park at Red Mountain!

For our first weekend trip in Alabama, we traveled the scant 20 miles from our house to Oak Mountain State Park. Jesse was on call, so we couldn't travel too far. We got a campsite Friday afternoon. I set up and went back in the evening to pick Jesse up after he got out of work. A few things to note if you're thinking of playing in Alabama's State Park system. 1) The website says they don't allow check in at camp sites until 3. This is inaccurate, and can lead to you getting a less than ideal spot. We lucked out, but just barely. 2) The website also says they don't accept one night stays on the weekends. This, we observed, was also likely not correct. While I didn't personally check with the staff, we saw numerous people camping just Friday or just Saturday. 3) Hiking distances provided on the map may not correspond to actual distances. More on that in a bit.

Our campsite. All of the sites had pads like the one you see here, and they were all built into the hill, so most had a cement block support wall. Definitely new to us.

 All of the campsites that were rustic (i.e. not for RVs) were built into a hill. Usually, two or three sites had the same entry trail and shared parking. Immediately in front of us was another campsite, just down the hill, and to our left was another site. Behind the hammock about 30 feet was another campsite, but that one felt decently separated from us. We're used to the relative lack of privacy car camping provides, but this was definitely weird. We had to walk through two other campsites to get to ours. That said, Campsite #59 was the most private of the 3 in our trio so we were happy.

The park is very big. We knew there were dedicated hiking trails and mixed use trails shared with mountain bikers. I asked at the ranger station for a map, and they charged us $1. The map was alright, but the trails on the map are not precise. There is an older park map in many of the kiosks that is precise, better follows the actual trail and aligns with the topographic base map. If you can, take a picture with your phone and use that.

Here's a snap of the high quality map not for sale.

We elected to go on what the map suggested was a ~6 mile hike. It was closer to a 10 mile hike, but it was very enjoyable. We hiked from our campsite to the north trailhead parking lot. My fitbit estimated it was about a mile, but I didn't connect it to my phone so it isn't a precise measurement. The first overlook on the 'blue trail' is a dud. It is a close little walk to what would be a quiet overlook of a running brook. But Birmingham is under a drought watch, there was no water, and it was just a .3 mile out and back. There were a few other vistas another 2 or so miles out, like King's Chair, that were very beautiful and totally worth it. Our plan was to hike to the red-blue connector trail that was about 50% of the way up the 6.7 mile blue trail. The red trail is more of a 2-track and is a shared use trail with fewer twists and turns.

View from King's Throne

A cute little ring neck snake said hello!