Georgia Pinhoti Trail Thru-Ride?

[munisano]

There has got to be some folks from my neck of the woods?  I'm in Huntsville, Alabama. So I'll throw this out there in the hopes that maybe somebody, especially out of the Atlanta area has experience on the Georgia Pinhoti trail.

Has anybody ridden the contiguous portions of the Georgia Pinhoti trail (http://www.georgiapinhoti.org/):
Dug Gap to Huffaker Road at Simms Mountain Trail? ~70 miles this seems like it would be a great place for a leisurely two day bike-packing epic (or a more difficult one day shot). I'm considering doing this sometime this fall and any trail beta, trip reports from somebody who's done this would be greatly appreciated. I'd imagine I'd go North to South unless there was a good reason not to? Thanks...

[MikeC]

Can't help you, but I'd like to learn more about this route.  Please share what you can after you've ridden it, and maybe even as you do more research in prep.

Cheers,

MC

[munisano]

All I've learned so far is from:
http://trails.firstworks.com/trails/trails.cgi/default/index.html

and the actual Georgia Pinhoti website:
http://georgiapinhoti.org/

I'll be sure to add information to this thread as I learn more.  I'm hoping to make this my first over-nighter Uni-pack!

[Ohio Robb]

i've now ridden a great deal of it.  East to West....I've ridden from the beginning near Jack's Field all the way through to Hwy 52/2, haven't ridden the little bit of trail...lots of gravel and pavement to Dalton...and then I've ridden the Snake Creek Course..which is the next 32 ish miles.  We just tried to ride the entire transGA route 2 weeks ago...interesting....

East to West seems to be the way to go...in my opinion...but i can answer some questions for ya if you need some advice

[sherpaxc]

What was "interesting" about the TG route?  Do you have a ride review or any pics?

[Ohio Robb]

What was "interesting" about the TG route?  Do you have a ride review or any pics?

http://www.spotadventures.com/trip/view/?trip_id=173152

or

http://workandmeals.blogspot.com/2009/07/transga-attempt-10.html

As i say in one of these write ups....because its still an open objective (the whole thing, not the Pinhoti) I'm a little hesitant to share too much, just because we walked into a lot of unknowns that cost us time.  I'm not sure whether or not the Pinhoti has been ridden complete or not...my guess would be that it has.  David Muse on the NWGA SORBA board or Rick Moon, who's president of the Pinhoti Trail Association would probably be good resources for historical info. 

I think it would go great as an overnighter.  You could go really light if you just stayed in Dalton..the route has to go through there anyway...not as adventurous, but definitely fast.  From my experience on the Snake Creek Gap section, there are some great places to camp in there. 

Good luck.  Post a write up here if you get it done. If i get sick of trying the whole Georgia thing, I'll definitely jump on doing the Pinhoti section before the years out. 

[munisano]

Anybody know why the Alabama section of the Pinhoti is closed to bikes?  It's a darn shame.  I've run/hiked a bunch of it and it would be a great place for a thru-ride for those of us that live close by.

My Fall schedule kind of got changed around quite a bit because of my ultrarunning focuses.  So I don't know if I'll have time for a Georgia Pinhoti "unipacking" trip or not; perhaps in November/December (I like it cold anyhow!).

The route I'm think about unipacking is starting from Dug Gap and heading SOBO to Huffaker Road at Simms Mountain Trail a distance of ~70 miles.  I could probably get it done all in one long push, but I want to have fun with it and not travel too much in the dark...

I'll definitely post more to this thread as we get closer and if my plans shape up; would be nice to see some other folks out on the trail!