MARCH 6, THURSDAY
Tannehill Hike [This is CHANGED from previous plan!]
Details: Come with us on our weekday hike. Enjoy an easy 3 or so-mile hike on trails in an especially lovely Alabama Historical State Park. The site is very near Birmingham!
The walking pace for this hike will be moderately easy. We’ll stop often to catch our breath and note views, trees, birdsongs and the trail and woods around us.
Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park has more than 1,500 acres in three counties set aside for hiking, camping and outdoor recreation. A miniature railroad chugs through the pines. From spring through fall, the blacksmith, miller and craftsmen demonstrate their trades. Craft shops occupy restored pioneer cabins and artisans chat with visitors from their front porches. Steeped in history, Tannehill feels timeless. The cotton gin, pioneer farm and working gristmill preserve a long-gone way of life. Hiking trails retrace historic roadways. Artifacts of Alabama’s 19th century iron industry displayed in the Iron and Steel Museum put in perspective the massive stone furnaces, Tannehill’s awe-inspiring centerpiece.
The same ingredients afford today’s visitors a pleasurable escape from modern life.
If you are retired or not working on this particular Thursday, you are urged to participate in the Southeastern Outings’ group leisurely weekday hike on the trails and get a feel for the location and scale of the land.
This walk will be Southeastern Outings’ seventh hike in Tannehill Historical State Park. Come with us for a guided tour of easily walkable trails. Please bring a picnic lunch, water and wear good walking shoes or boots. Dress appropriately for the weather.
Please meet 10:00 a.m. at the parking lot behind the McDonald’s Galleria on U.S. Highway 31 in Hoover. We plan to depart from there at 10:15 a.m.
Day-Use Park Admission: $5 Adults (12 years and older); $4 Seniors (Ages 62 and older
Information and Hike Leader: Christine Heckemeyer, 205-979-5730
MARCH 8, SATURDAY
Southeastern Outings Dayhike, Sipsey Wilderness, Bankhead National Forest
Click for more pictures
Details: Moderately strenuous 4-mile hike in a highly scenic location, Upper Quillan Creek Forest Area. Most of the hike is off trail, there are lots of ups and downs, and several rock-hopping crossings are required across small creeks.
We’ll walk along two creeks and on an old road. At a beautiful waterfall we’ll visit the site of an old mill. On this hike we’ll see several small waterfalls on side creeks and tributaries to Quillan Creek. We will visit at least three very pretty waterfalls on Quillan Creek itself along the way. We expect to see a minimum of a total of twelve lovely waterfalls on this trip.
Please bring picnic lunch and water for the day. We expect to finish about 4:00 p.m. Optional dinner after. Well-behaved, properly supervised children age 9 and over able to walk 4 miles off trail without complaining welcome.
Reservations Required: If you wish to participate in this outing, you are required to call Dan Frederick, 205/631-4680 or email your reservation to southeasternoutings@gmail.com by 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 6, 2024. When you contact Dan, please be sure you leave either your phone number or email address. This outing is limited to 10 people in order to comply with U.S. Forest Service regulations. We hope the limitation will not prove to be a problem.
If you make a reservation with Dan to come on this trip and then for any reason decide later to not come on this outing, please telephone Dan, 205/631-4680 right away. If we have 10 people signed up on the day of the hike and, for example, we have two people on the waiting list and then two people who signed up don’t show up for the hike, those two no-show people have in effect deprived the two on the waiting list from participating. Please don’t be a no-show. If you aren’t coming after making a reservation, please notify Dan.
At a later date leader will advise meeting time and place only to those who have signed up and been approved for this trip.
Information and Trip Leader: Dan Frederick, southeasternoutings@gmail.com, or 205/631-4680
MARCH 9, SUNDAY, Meet 1:45 p.m.
Southeastern Outings Second Sunday
Dayhike in Oak Mountain State Park
Details: Enjoy a moderate 4-mile walk in the woodlands near
Birmingham on a Sunday afternoon. This
is an excellent outing for introducing your friends to Southeastern Outings and
for making new friends who enjoy the outdoors.
Parts of this hike may be off the color-coded trails. There will be some ups and downs.
Well-behaved, properly supervised children age eight
and up able to walk the distance of about 4 miles without complaining and
complete the hike are welcome.
Share an adventure!
Bring a friend.
Please
meet at 1:45 p.m. in the Oak Mountain Park office parking lot. We plan to depart from there at 2:00 p.m.
Please bring $5/person ($2.00 seniors) park admission
fee plus your drink.
Info. and Trip Leader: Randall Adkins, 205/317-6969
CANCELED DUE TO WEATHER: MARCH 15, SATURDAY, 5:00 p.m. After hike,
Low Country Shrimp Boil Supper
Where: Marion Female Seminary Building, 204 West Monroe Street, Marion, AL 36756
Details: After we complete our hike, the very special, optional dinner will begin at 5:00 p.m. It will be the Low Country Shrimp Boil supper, an annual event in Marion that is perfect following our day of hiking. The dinner will be held at the historic Marion Female Seminary Building in Marion.
The function will be very informal. The menu is boiled shrimp (which you peel & eat), sausage, potatoes, corn on the cob, bread, and your choice of a multitude of homemade desserts.
Live musical entertainment will be provided for your enjoyment at the shrimp boil on March 15, 2025 after our hike. Please plan to come!
Price for the meal is $25 per person flat charge to benefit the Perry County Historical and Preservation Society. There is no tax and no tip. Cash, checks and all major American credit cards are accepted forms of payment for the dinner.
Please meet 9:45 a.m. at the McDonald’s Galleria. We plan to depart from there at 10:00 a.m. for the hike followed by the shrimp boil dinner.
For information concerning the dinner: Please call Kay Beckett, President of the Perry County Historical Society, at 334-292-0319.
CANCELED DUE TO TORNADO DAMAGE: MARCH 29, SATURDAY
Southeastern Outings Dayhike
Where: Horseshoe Bend National Military Park
Details: On March 27, 1814, Major General Andrew Jackson‘s army of 3,300 men attacked Chief Menawa’s 1,000 Red Stick Creek warriors fortified in a horseshoe- shaped bend of the Tallapoosa River. Over 800 Red Sticks died that day. The battle ended the Creek War, resulted in a land cession of 23,000,000 acres to the United States and created a national hero of Andrew Jackson. In March 1814, General Jackson's army left Fort Williams on the Coosa River, cut a 52-mile trail through the forest in three days, and on the 26th made camp six miles north of Horseshoe Bend. The next morning, Jackson sent General John Coffee and 700 mounted infantry and 600 Cherokee and Creek allies three miles down-stream to cross the Tallapoosa and surround the bend. He took the rest of the army - about 2000 men, consisting of East and West Tennessee militia and the Thirty-ninth U.S. Infantry - into the peninsula and at 10:30 a.m. began an ineffectual two-hour artillery bombardment of the Red Sticks' log barricade. At noon, Coffee's Cherokee allies crossed the river and assaulted the Red Sticks from the rear. Jackson quickly ordered a frontal bayonet charge, which poured over the barricade. Fighting raged over the south end of the peninsula throughout the afternoon. By dark at least 800 of Chief Menawa's 1,000 Red Sticks were dead (557 slain on the field and 200-300 in the river). Menawa himself, although severely wounded, managed to escape. Jackson's losses in the battle were 49 killed and 154 wounded, many mortally. Though the Red Sticks had been crushed at Tohopeka, remnants of the war party held out for several months. In August 1814, a treaty between the United States and the Creek Nation was signed at Fort Jackson near the present-day city of Wetumpka, Alabama. The Treaty of Fort Jackson ended the conflict and required the Creeks to cede 23 million acres of land to the United States. The state of Alabama was carved out of this domain and admitted to the Union in 1819. In 1828, partly as a result of his fame from the battles of Horseshoe Bend and New Orleans, Andrew Jackson was elected the seventh President of the United States. We will have the opportunity to watch a short film and view the exhibits before we begin our hike which is rated easy.
We are grateful and very pleased that Dallin Bartlett, Lead Park Guide at Horseshoe Bend National Military Park, has very kindly agreed to hike with us on March 29 and provide us with interesting historical information concerning the Battle of Horseshoe Bend during our walk.
Hike distance is about 5.8 miles.
Admission to the park is free. Well-behaved, carefully-supervised children age eight and over are welcome. Optional restaurant dinner after the hike.
Please meet 9:45 a.m. at the Publix in The Village at Lee Branch in Greystone. We plan to depart from there at 10:00 a.m. Info: Randall Adkins, 205/719-7719
