Hiking the Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail

Bit by bit over the last few months, I’ve been hiking and mapping out the Ridgeland District section of the Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail. In spite of being the only national scenic trail (out of 11 total) that is entirely on National Park Service land, nobody seems to know about it or hike it. Partly that may be due to it being the most incomplete of the national scenic trails (65 miles out of over 400 miles authorized) and spread out over multiple widely spaced sections. At a little over 25 miles, the Ridgeland section is the longest. It’s also close to the metropolitan area of Jackson (Mississippi, not Tennessee!).

When Helen McGinnis’s book “Hiking Trails of Mississippi” was published in 1994, this section was still under construction and was listed under the tentative name of the Lonesome Pine Trail. I suspect that the name didn’t hold partly because pines are not really the predominant forest type for much of the trail. In any case, what I found was a surprisingly enjoyable trail, with a feeling of remoteness even though closely paralleling the roadway of the Natchez Trace Parkway. In some parts the trail was in quite good condition, while in others it deteriorated to the point of almost being nonexistent. The biggest problem by far was the presence of a lot of fallen trees on the trail. There were also a couple of bridge challenges, some aggressive briars, occasional wet areas, and some open mowed areas that had to be crossed without a trail.

So what were the more pleasant surprises? A feeling of silence and isolation that is hard to come by in Mississippi. In over 60 miles of hiking (going over most sections at least twice) spread over several days, I saw maybe five people on horseback and not one single hiker. Most days I saw no one on the trail. It was apparently by design that this would be the one national scenic trail to give a special focus on equestrian use, to reflect the historic heritage of the original Natchez Trace. But this is one nationally significant trail that I believe I can say is actually in need of more hikers. Only at River Bend (near the middle) and Yockanookany (the northern end) were there trail registers available. I was the first to sign them in over a year!

So why is no one else on the trail? I’m sure that the inability to do loop hikes is a factor for some, though one-way linear hikes are the norm for national scenic trails anyway. Another factor surely would be the lack of dramatic scenery. But the biggest problem is probably that people just don’t know. They don’t know the trail exists, they don’t know what to find on it, and they’re not really sure how to hike it. At least those were some of my excuses over the last few years. About the only reliable information is the NPS website, which only gives the basics. There is no mention of the historic cemeteries, overnight camping opportunities, where to access the trail, or how to follow it. Amazingly, at the north and south ends of the trail there are no signs at all visible from the parking areas to alert anyone to the presence of a trail nearby. And at Upper Choctaw Boundary, there is an interpretive trail that goes within about 20 feet of the (much more enjoyable) national scenic trail, but you have to know where to look to see that the trail is there.

A short distance away from the southern end, the City of Ridgeland and NPS have built a paved multiuse (mainly jogging) trail that is well used and will probably be connected with the national scenic trail soon. Although that could possibly be viewed as an extension of the trail, it certainly does not offer the same type of experience.

Just A Poor Wayfaring Stranger

Over the last month or so, I've been preparing to start a new Sunday School class that would use John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" as a template to look at our Journey of faith. Yesterday was set as the start date for the new class, and last Thursday afternoon I was looking specifically at the material for the first class. Of course, I was also fighting off some butterflies and doubts about starting the new class.

As I started to rush over for the Metro Baptist Association missions banquet, the Bill Monroe song "Wayfaring Stranger" came into my head. It really struck me how the song fit so well the description by Bunyan of our "pilgrimage" through a world of trouble and temptations in pursuit of a heavenly home with Christ. When I got to the banquet, I was surprised to see a bluegrass band on the program. The fact that the name of their first song was not listed added to my shock when they got up and started on "Wayfaring Stranger"! As I listened to their beautiful performance of the song, I knew for certain that God had heard my need for assurance. Beyond the Sunday School class, the song also meshed amazingly with other areas where God has been challenging me. More pieces of the puzzle in seeking God's will, in hearing His voice. Good thing I didn't miss the banquet this year!

A Scientist's Lament

When God drops a powerful book into your lap, you can be assured that it does not come by accident. A couple days ago I met a representative of Voice of the Martyrs who gave me a copy of "Tortured for Christ" by Richard Wurmbrand. Today I'm a bit over halfway through reading it. It's gripping, painful, revitalizing, and real. That in itself would be noteworthy.

Today I watched the worship of a beautiful house of cards. It was my role to observe and take notes on a teacher training workshop at the university. The instructor masterfully wove his tale of the discovery of geologic timescales over the last few hundred years. I've always loved the geosciences, whether meteorology or oceanography or geology. I love the amazing variety and intricacy of this earth that God has given us. But I can not love the way that science (especially geology and biology) is so often hijacked to try to tear at the fabric of Christian faith. Today's instructor was nice, entertaining, and very well prepared. The kind of guy you can't help but like. He tried to preempt any religious concerns by claiming that his issue was not who made the rocks but just when and how. Just like in the Garden, the deception builds gradually in bits and pieces, until the final result is totally at odds with the revealed Word of the Creator God who is Himself the very embodiment of truth and reality.

I knew the topic for today ahead of time, and his arguments were largely familiar. But two points hit me head-on without warning near the end. First, I can not think of any real practical scientific value in the seemingly fanatical addiction that so many geologists have in trying to date rocks. The only reason I can see for caring to show that a rock or fossil is millions of years old instead of thousands is to try to discredit the Bible. Yes, they may say that they can still believe in God (as even the demons do!). But who really wants to give their life to a God that you can't believe what He says?

Secondly, I was struck by the contrast with some of Wurmbrand's stories from Communist nations. He pointed out cases of students and uneducated workers who courageously stood up to refute atheistic arguments in university and public lectures, at a very very high price. And yet here in the sanctuary of America's Bible Belt . . . not one person (of the cream of the crop of high school science teachers) gave any public indication today that they did not buy into all they were being fed. An hour later now I still can't stop shaking or easily hold back the tears.

The truth of God's Word may seem to lack the ornamentation and popularity of the anti-Christian house of cards. But the stone blockhouse built upon the Cornerstone that was rejected on Calvary will stand long long after man's ideologies. Yes, even eternally.

Outer Banks, Ferries, and Good Eats (Part 3)

On Monday morning, I missed an exit returning the rental car, and got to the airport just one minute before the car was due to be returned. I showed the guy where the car had been bumped, and he said not to worry about it. Whew! He also told me that Enterprise still gives a half-hour grace for returns, and that I could return the car to a neighborhood rental location for no extra charge. That way I could get a free ride back to the motel. God is so good! It still was stressful though since his directions to the other rental location just got me to the right general area . . . where I did not see any Enterprise signs at first.

The rest of the week was mainly occupied with work, of course. But I did eventually make time during a lunch break to ride the passenger ferry across the Elizabeth River and back. The dock was within about a block of the conference site. This was my first ride on a paddlewheel boat. Since it was covered by my 7-day bus pass, I didn't have to pay a fare either!

After the nasty nor'easter weather of the weekend, most of the week had great weather for my commutes back and forth on the bus. Of course the buses offered a wide cross-section of fellow passengers, everything from gangsta types to an evangelist and college students and old folks and cute little kids. Generally the rides were pleasant and timely, although there was one Third World-like experience where the connecting bus apparently ran out of gas at the transfer stop. Obviously somebody really messed up to let that happen.

Outer Banks, Ferries, and Good Eats (Day 2)

Although the wind was strong enough to blow some small branches down, I had a nice dry night. I headed into Washington and then east toward the Outer Banks, to see how far I could get before church time. It was interesting to discover that Washington, NC was the first city to be named for George Washington. It was close to 9:30 by the time I got to Swanquarter, so I started looking for churches. No one was at the Baptist church yet and there was only one car so far at the Christian church. So I killed a little time looking around the waterfront and watching the ferry come in. By this point, a couple more cars had shown up at the Christian church, so I decided to give it a try.



After a good "whole church" Sunday school class, the people started pouring in. By God's grace, I just happened to be there on the day of their once a year homecoming/reunion service. So the church of maybe 20 or so mostly elderly members filled up with about 100 people. It was an interesting and enjoyable worship service, with the pastor holding firmly to the Word in spite of the discouraging size of the church. I was surprised to find out that this "Christian" church is actually associated with the Churches of Christ, and yet that they also included some wonderful non-acappello bluegrass for special music. The group is called the Believers Trio, although only two were present. Since it was homecoming day, of course I was encouraged to stick around for dinner on the grounds. It was nice not only to get bunches of wonderful free food, but also to get to know some folks. In particular, I talked a good bit with "J.D.". He was one of the out of town visitors who comes every year to homecoming at the church through his wife's connection. He told me he's active in a Missionary Baptist church, and that his initials stand for "Junk Dealer". It never ceases to amaze me how God has so often provided these opportunities since I decided to trust Him that I could travel without eating out at restaurants on Sunday.

I still had a long drive to get to the Outer Banks. I stopped briefly at Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge along the way. After many miles of flat and fairly monotonous driving, I was surprised to see a sign for "Stumpy Point Ferry". Not only was I not aware of any ferry in the area, I like the name too! I drove down to look and was stopped by a gate that said "State property. No trespassing." That left me scratching my head a bit, but I resolved to figure it out once I got access to the all-knowing Google. What I discovered is that there is an emergency evacuation ferry between Rodanthe and Stumpy Point to help with getting people off the Outer Banks before a hurricane.

Finally, I got out to Nags Head and exposure to the misty winds of an early nor'easter. The waves on the open Atlantic were pretty impressive and frothy at
Coquina Beach. Of course, I had to think about whether they would be passable by kayak. There seemed to be gaps where it would be possible to get out without being pummeled by a ten foot breaker, but it's always really hard to judge waves from a distance. I also made a sidetrip over to see the Bodie Island Lighthouse. Going further south into Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, I reluctantly decided to turn back. Even at low tide there was still water over the road in many places. Not knowing how deep or salty the water would get and remembering that I was in a little tiny Rio rental car, I opted for the responsible backtrack to the north.





The north side of Nags Head was a lot more commercial/residential/touristy. The Wright Brothers Memorial at Kitty Hawk was closed up by the time I got there, but I did get to go into Jockey Ridge State Park for a look. They claim it's the highest sand dunes in the eastern U.S. and a popular place for hanggliding. I don't think anybody was hanggliding today, but it's definitely a mighty big pile of sand. I took a few pictures and then headed on up to Norfolk.

The temperature was in the low 40s, with a wet wind chill, for most of the afternoon. But the only thing to dampen my spirits heading up to my motel was a sign shortly after crossing the Virginia line. "Last exit before toll road". What?! I had been down this way several years ago and did not remember there being a toll road. I quickly turned off and started trying to figure out what to do. Of course I couldn't find a decent place to pull over and look over my map (which didn't show a toll road anyway). I found where the "Business" version of the road was and continued blindly northward, wondering if it would disappear or change names or eventually push me onto the toll road anyway. When I came to a confusing intersection, I angled back toward the highway, discovered that it was now toll-free, and resumed my journey to Motel 6. Actually, I still managed to miss an exit before settling into my home away from home and gradually shifting mental gears to think of the next day's conference.

Outer Banks, Ferries, and Good Eats (Day 1)

It had been several months since I had flown on business. So the National Weather Association conference in Norfolk, VA was a nice chance to get away. Of course, there was also some stress in getting my presentations together. But let's not talk about that for now.

Flying in as usual on the Saturday before the main conference, I was looking forward to seeing the Outer Banks of North Carolina and checking out some ferries. Things got kind of crazy before I even left Jackson.

I realized as I was waiting for my flight that I had forgotten to pack a belt and didn't know for sure if the pants I had packed were skinny enough to be "self-supporting". So I called my wife to see if she could rush back to the airport with my belt in time before my flight. Luckily the TSA folks were cooperative about her passing the belt through the X-ray machine to me. Unfortunately, she had a tire blow out on the van as she was leaving the airport. So wife and kids all got to sit on the side of the road at 6 AM watching the sunrise until AAA could get someone out to change the tire. I was very relieved on my next phone contact to find out that they all enjoyed the experience (as much as could be hoped for) and I wasn't in the doghouse for getting them into the mess.

Once in Norfolk, I made a look at where my motel for the week and Kinko's were, before grabbing some lunch at Hardee's. As I was eating, I was also observing the people around me and struggling with my Christian witness. The guy at the next table over particularly caught my attention. As he got up to leave, I was torn between regret at my lack of faith and wondering if I was off the hook now. But he didn't leave. He turned to me and asked if I was a Christian! When I said yes, he said "I thought you were. Sometimes you can just tell." Huh? Well, we spent the next half-hour or so talking about his walk of faith after being saved just a couple years ago. Lots of blessings. Please pray for Forest as he continues seeking to serve the Lord. Actually, I was impressed throughout my visit with how visibly Christian the area is.

After some minor challenges in finding where to buy a 7-day bus pass downtown, I headed southwest into North Carolina to look for some ferries. I was not able to reach the small river ferries that I was most interested in, thanks to the annoying fine print in the rental car contract forbidding me to go on unpaved roads. I got photos of the signs and considered walking the remaining distance, but there was not a suitable place to leave the car. Argh. I did a little better when I got down to the Bayview-Aurora ferry across the broad tidal Pamlico River. I caught the last ferry of the day at 7:30 (drastically reduced schedule due to budget cuts) and began the challenge of finding a place for the night.



I was afraid I couldn't make it around to Goose Creek State Park before the campground gate closed for the night, and I hadn't thought to bring a AAA CampBook with me. So I drove toward Washington with my eyes open for campgrounds. When I saw a sign for a campground/resort near Chocowinity, I figured I'd better give it a try. It turned out to be a lot bigger, fancier kind of place than I would normally bother with, but I kept thinking of that "bird in the hand" business. So I settled for having to pay thirty bucks as the one and only tent camper among hundreds of RVs, mobile homes, and yachts. The security guy kindly escorted me to a site and shared about how God had protected him and his church in Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina. And then . . . he put his truck in the wrong gear and backed into my rental car. Ouch. Amazingly, there was only a little bit of paint lost from the front license plate area. But you just never know how picky rental agencies will be when you return the car, and of course I didn't bother with any supplemental insurance. At least I had a nice comfy place to settle in for the night and wonder what Sunday would bring.

Horn Island (Day 2)

After a decent night of sleep in spite of the wind, I got myself up just early enough to get a nice view of the sunrise. I didn't exactly rush to get going though, partly because I wanted to take my time to consider more how best to pack the kayak. And it's kind of challenging to fold up a tent and ground cloth by myself with the wind blowing. Not to mention the fact that it was just such a magical place to be and to reflect on God's will for me.



Horn Island sunrise



Clear water on the Gulf side of Horn Island

So it was past 10:00 when I finally shoved off in the kayak. The wind was blowing pretty good out of the east-northeast and it looked like there would be plenty of whitecaps over the Sound. I had hoped to paddle west a ways along the north shore of Horn Island to look around before heading for the mainland. But I decided that wouldn't be the most prudent approach since it looked like I was gonna have a tougher workout on my return. Not to mention the fact that I would still have the 3 1/2 hour drive back to Jackson after getting back to the boat ramp.

The paddle back did turn out to be somewhat brutal. To start with, I discovered that I had absolutely no sunscreen left, so I just had to accept that I was gonna get burned (on my hands at least). Since it's normally safer and easier to be oriented nearly perpendicular to the waves and I wanted to avoid being blown very much to the west, I tried to head more northeasterly instead of north on my way up to Round Island. As the wind intensified over the open waters though, whitecaps were sometimes breaking off the tops of three foot waves out of the east. None of the waves were scary enough to give me any real concerns, but it was plenty annoying to spend so much time paddling eastward when I wanted to go north! Between gusts I could angle more to the north while keeping a careful eye for changes in the waves. I discovered that there were two types of waves that I didn't get along so good with. I called them "sneakers" and "smackers". The sneakers were ones that would surprise me by coming out of a different direction or breaking with little warning. The smackers came from abeam to smack against the side of the kayak and splash over the cockpit. I was really wishing for a more waterproof neoprene sprayskirt, although very thankful for the comfortable water temperature. Unfortunately I didn't think I should take a chance to try to photograph the conditions. A later check of wind observations from Petit Bois Island indicated that the winds were gusting at over 20 kt. A comparison with a couple versions of the Beaufort wind scale in some kayaking books implied that the winds may have approached 30 kt at times, since there were very definite streaks of spray-foam on the sea.

It was a nice relief when I finally set foot on Round Island. The wind was still blowing like crazy, but I was good and ready to eat some lunch. I knew I still had some pretty tough paddling ahead, although I'd decided to scoot around the west side of the island to have a nice break from the rough conditions. Even walking around, I felt about like I would blow away. I discovered though that I could talk decently on the cell phone by facing away from the wind with the phone inside the hood of my jacket. The paddle along the west side of the island was amazingly tranquil, with the wind almost seeming calm at one point. Once I got into the unsheltered waters between Round Island and Singing River Island though, it was as rough as ever. The waves may not have been quite as high, but were steeper thanks to the shallow waters. And now my target was northeast instead of just north. After what seemed like too long of a paddle (and with the wind shifting slightly south of east), I decided that I was basically upwind of Singing River Island and made a turn to surf my way in towards its shore. After landing, I unfortunately confirmed my suspicion that I ended up on the southwest tip of the island instead of the southeast. I also discovered that the kayak seemed excessively heavy in spite of pumping water out of the cockpit. Either I'd acquired some unwanted water in the stern compartment, or I was just too worn out. In any case, I couldn't bring myself to consider pumping out the tightly packed compartment.



View from Round Island toward Bayou Casotte industrial area



Calm waters on the west side of Round Island


About the only "nice" thing about my remaining battle with the wind was that at least I was close enough to land so that I could see that I was (gradually) making progress. After crossing the Pascagoula ship channel, I had my one case where I was significantly concerned about losing control. I had just watched a tugboat go past and figured I was pretty much home free, with the wind at my back. And then I noticed the wake from the tugboat bearing down on me. It looked like it would build into about a five foot breaking wave, and there was no way for me to get turned the right way in time. And yet somehow it just passed right underneath me without any trouble. Thank you, Lord! Besides the wind and waves, the other big difference on today's paddle was the boat traffic that I saw. Crossing between Horn and Round Islands, I'd seen a big barge heading east on the Intracoastal Waterway. And there was an odd sort of construction barge that I watched come from near Gautier, pass to the north of Round Island, and then turn up toward Pascagoula.

When I hauled myself out at Lake Yazoo around four o'clock, I found that I did have a lot of water in the stern of the kayak and a very soaked sleeping bag. Good thing I wouldn't be needing it! Driving back to Jackson, my muscles were in total rebellion. With a few stops along the way, it was past 10:00 when I finally got home. I was amazed the next morning to find that I did not have any muscle pain at all. That definitely had to be a God thing! However I did have an incredible sun and wind burn on my hands. My hands were so swollen that Nancy claimed they were double their normal size. Frequent slatherings of aloe vera though throughout the week resulted in a surprising recovery, considering how bad it initially looked.



Pascagoula shipyards, from entrance to Lake Yazoo