The Road to Big Bend: After the Storm in the Sipsey

Mark Dutton, Ranger the Chihuahua, Curbie the Wonderdog and I went to the Sipsey Wilderness on Saturday to explore some trails we have not hiked and to see a few waterfalls. Our trip began in Houston, Alabama (I had never heard of it either). There is a restaurant on the north end of Smith Lake in the middle of nowhere only known for being the home of Alabama's oldest log jail. The restaurant known as Chef Troys Talk of the Town is a real little gem. Chef Troy is a trained chef from San Francisco who loves to cook cajun food. I had a wonderful andouie sausage omelet and french toast that was out of this world. What a great way to start the day.

Our actual hike started at the Thompson Creek Trail Head heading up the Northwest Trail (Trail 208) which actually is an old forest service road that has been closed since the Sipsey became a national wilderness. Roads are not allowed in a national wilderness so it was allowed to return to nature. It actually serves as one of the few horse trails so it was a little cut up because of the horse traffic. The trail headed uphill for about 2 miles and connected with Trail 224 which is the old Bunyan Trail which runs near Braziel Creek. At some point I want to do a little exploring in this region because Clifty Falls is nearby but will require some bushwhacking to get to.

We eventually hit Trail 204 which was to take us to our central destination which was East Bee Falls and the Big Tree. This was a very beautiful area to hike in and produced a very interesting tree along the way.

We finally made our way down to the top of East Bee Falls which is one of the prettiest places in the Sipsey. There is a campsite at this position which I must come back and stay for at least a night.

We headed down the rocks into East Bee Branch and home of the Big Tree. The Big Tree is the largest Tulip Poplar in the state of Alabama and may people come here to see it. Now I am not really that impressed with the Big Tree but I really love where it is located. This is truly a beautiful and serene place.

We decided to have our lunch among the rocks and rest a little before continuing on with our hike. I got Curbie and I a sausage biscuit from MickeyD's along with some peanut butter crackers so we had a feast. Mark and Ranger seemed to enjoy whatever treat they brought along.

We then headed off down East Bee Branch Trail to the Sipsey River and Trail 209. This part of the trail down East Bee Branch is not maintained and the dead-fall is everywhere. I truly hate dead-fall. I am not nearly as flexible as I once was (and even then was not very flexible) so going over and under logs wears me out.
But eventually we reached the Sipsey River but we needed to cross the creek and the water was running high. Rather than wade to thigh deep creek we decided to utilize a fallen log to test our balance.

We headed down 209 which follows the Sipsey River and eventually runs into Trail 206 after passing through some private land. The river was running very high with some nice rapids. We spotted some canoers enjoying the day on the river.

There are some very nice campsites in this area of the wilderness. The river creates some sandy banks and the hemlock trees create wonderful shade. The rocks in the river were almost covered by the high water making for some great hydraulics.