JANUARY 2, SATURDAY, Meet 9:45 a.m.
Southeastern Outings Picnic Lunch and Moderate Dayhike
Where: Paul Grist State Park near Selma, Alabama
Details: Paul Grist State Park is one of the state’s most uncrowded, yet scenic state parks containing hills, forests, fields and a large, beautiful, tree-lined lake.
Prior to the dayhike we will get together at the smaller pavilion right near the Park Office to eat our picnic lunches. Please bring your picnic lunch and also $3 per person ($2 for children age 2-6 and seniors age 62 and older) park admission and a beverage for yourself.
Dayhike Details: Hike rated moderate. There are only a few ups and downs. Total hiking distance is approximately 5.5 miles. We plan to walk all the way around the lake and then also walk on some additional trails in the park to make the drive time down and back worthwhile. Well-behaved, carefully supervised children age nine and over able to walk 6 miles without complaining are welcome. Please bring your drink and wear sturdy footwear.
Optional group restaurant dinner after the hike. Reservations not required for this outing.
Please meet 9:45 a.m. at the McDonald’s Galleria. We plan to depart from there at 10:00 a.m.
Info: Randall Adkins, 205/317-6969
JANUARY 6. WEDNESDAY, Meet 9:15 a.m.
Weekday Hike
Where: High Ore Line Trail in Birmingham and Midfield, Alabama
Details: This will be Southeastern Outings second hike on this relatively new in-city trail. The hike, which is rated easy, will be 3 miles long with very little change in elevation.
Birmingham’s three-mile High Ore Line Trail is now complete and open to the public. We will start our hike on the High Ore Line Trail from the Jefferson County Western Health Center in Midfield and hike along an old railroad line to Red Mountain Park’s new entrance and parking lot on Venice Road. The trail is mostly flat and off road and provides an accessible place to walk in Greater Birmingham’s outdoors. In 2012, the City of Birmingham won a competitive Department of Transportation TIGER grant for $10,000,000 in order to develop active transportation routes in Birmingham. With this funding, the City of Birmingham, Freshwater Land Trust, Jefferson County Health Department, and many partners have built 14 trail miles throughout Birmingham. The first two miles of the High Ore Line Trail opened in 2016. With its third and final mile complete, High Ore Line now connects Red Mountain Park to Jefferson County’s growing Red Rock Trail System.
“We are thrilled to open this new portion of High Ore Line and hope it will continue to be a valuable asset to the community,” said Carolyn Buck, Freshwater Land Trust Red Rock Trail Director. “With each trail opening, we are one step closer to our goal of building and connecting 750 miles of trails in Jefferson County.” “We are excited to celebrate this long-anticipated connection to Red Mountain Park as it creates more opportunities for more communities in Birmingham to engage in outdoor recreation and learn about our shared history,” said T.C. McLemore, Red Mountain Park Executive Director. In Midfield, an industrial suburb of Birmingham near the towering U.S. Steel plant, a railroad track once sliced through the air, an elevated track running ore and coal from the mines at Red Mountain to the steel works at Fairfield. Today, decades after the railroad went out of operation, the elevated track has a new lease on life: a green one. Spanning three miles from Midfield to Venice Road at the base of Red Mountain, the High Ore Line Trail now occupies the raised railroad line as one of the newest additions to the Red Rock Ridge and Valley Trail System. Connecting neighborhoods in west Birmingham to Midfield, the trail passes its visitors over Valley Creek with a glimpse in the distance of Red Mountain Park – to which the trail is now connected. It is a space of recreation and peace, a place where a simple stroll can become a scenic experience blending the urban industrial suburbs with natural, preserved greenspace. As greenspaces around Birmingham help the Magic City make a resurgence, the High Ore Line Trail is a project that makes sure the western neighborhoods of Birmingham get their own piece of the puzzle. Please bring water to drink and comfortable footwear suitable for walking three miles. We expect to complete the hike about lunch time. For those who would like to enjoy lunch with their fellow hikers, you may join the group for lunch at the Subway sandwich restaurant on Lakeshore Parkway on the way back. Please meet 9:15 a.m. at the new Jones Valley parking lot for Red Mountain Park, 2109 Venice Road, Birmingham, Alabama. We plan to depart from there at 9:30 a.m.
Information and Trip Leader: Dan Frederick, email seoutings@bellwouth.net or phone 205-631-4680
JANUARY 9, SATURDAY, Meet 9:45 a.m.
Southeastern Outings Dayhike along the Locust Fork River from Swann Covered Bridge to Powell Falls
Details: A moderate 3-mile dayhike and picnic along the lovely Locust Fork River in Blount County near Cleveland, Alabama. We’ll view and drive through the genuine and newly-restored wooden covered bridge. Then we’ll hike along the river from the bridge and have lunch right beside Powell Falls. This waterfall drops about eight feet and carries a substantial amount of water. We’ll also view sheer cliffs rising over 60 feet right above the water. See a rushing river, covered bridge, high rock bluffs and a large waterfall—all along a one and a half mile stretch of river.
Well-behaved, carefully supervised children age 7 and older welcome.
Bring a friend or several if you wish. Please meet 9:45 a.m. at the Cleveland Chevron. We plan to depart from there at 10:00 a.m.
Info: Dan Frederick, 205/631-4680
JANUARY 10, SUNDAY, Meet 12:45 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 and complete the hike are welcome.
Share an adventure! Bring a friend. Optional dinner after the hike.
Please meet at 12:45 p.m. in the Oak Mountain Park office parking lot. We plan to depart from there at 1:00 p.m.
Please bring $5/person ($2.00 seniors) park admission fee plus your drink.
Info: Randall Adkins, 205-317-6969
JANUARY 14, THURSDAY, Meet 10:00 a.m.
Southeastern Outings Weekday Hike
Where: Red Mountain Park, 2011 Frankfurt Drive, Birmingham, AL 35211 
Details: Please come with us for a two to three-mile hike on a walkable portion of this noteworthy place. Hike rated moderately easy. There may be some hills to climb. For more information about the park, please visit the park’s website:
http://www.redmountainpark.org.
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.
Please bring your picnic lunch and plenty of water. Wear good walking shoes or boots. Dress appropriately for the weather.
Please meet at 10:00 a.m. in the large Red Mountain Park parking lots on the right side of Lyon Lane immediately after you turn right onto Lyon Lane off of the north end of Frankfurt Drive off Lakeshore Parkway. We plan to depart from there shortly after 10:00 a.m.
Information: Christine Heckemeyer, 205-979-5730
JANUARY 16, SATURDAY, Meet 8:45 a.m.
Southeastern Outings Dayhike on the Deadening Trail at Lake Martin near Alexander City, Alabama
Details: The Deadening Trail is among the most scenic and diverse hiking trails in Alabama. The cliffs of the Tallapoosa, the Needles Eye, and Lichen and Jasmine Bluffs are just a few of the unusual and unique rock formations that await the hiker. The trails are routed through a variety of flora and fauna. There are high rocky ridges with mountain long leaf pine, mountain laurel, low and high bush blueberry, and lush hardwood forests that include redbud, sourwood, dogwood, native azalea, umbrella and big leaf magnolia. Large thickets of Catawba Rhododendron are numerous. Deer, turkey and numerous bird species, including bald eagles, can be seen along the trail.
The Deadening Trail is a moderately strenuous 3.6 mile loop trail at Lake Martin. The trail is a more challenging footpath than other trails located along an area of the southeast shore of beautiful Lake Martin (a 40,000-acre, 700-mile shoreline lake) in Tallapoosa County, Alabama.
In order to manage most effectively hiking on this difficult trail it is highly recommended that you wear hiking boots, not tennis shoes, and that you bring a trekking pole (hiking stick) or two. Also be sure to bring plenty of water with you.
Optional dinner after the hike.
Please meet 8:45 a.m. at the parking lot of the Publix in the Village at Lee Branch in Greystone. We plan to depart from there at 9:00 a.m.
Info: Dan Frederick, seoutings@bellsouth.net or 205/631-4680
JANUARY 23, SATURDAY, 8:45 a.m.
Southeastern Outings Waterfowl Viewing Trip
Where: Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge (WNWR), Decatur, AL
Details Experience the thrilling sight of thousands of sandhill cranes, wild geese and ducks plus herons and other birds. The Refuge has the largest concentration of wintering geese and ducks in the entire state of Alabama! You don’t need to be a bird watcher to enjoy this outing! Experienced birders leading the trip will share their knowledge with all.
This 35,000 acre refuge attracts thousands of wintering waterfowl each year. WNWR is comprised of diverse habitat types including bottomland hardwoods, wetlands, pine uplands, shoreline or riparian woodlands, agricultural fields, and backwater embayments. These habitats provide excellent feeding, resting, and roosting sites for wintering waterfowl, white pelicans, sandhill cranes and a few whooping cranes as well as nesting sites for migratory songbirds and many species of resident wildlife.
We are highly privileged to have as our guide Dwight Cooley, the retired Refuge Manager. Dwight will take us on refuge roads behind locked gates as we drive to various bays and sloughs where you can easily see hundreds of ducks and geese in large numbers. We’ll also see many other types of birds including, hopefully, bald eagles. We’ll even see a huge flock of sandhill cranes which winter at the refuge each year. Last winter the Refuge hosted 16,000 sandhill Cranes and 15 endangered whooping cranes. The gated roads are closed to the public but will be open to our group.
Please bring binoculars, a birding field guide and a spotting telescope with you if you have them. The leader and Dan Frederick will each bring a spotting scope.
Please bring a mask with you. You are required to wear it if you are a passenger in the refuge’s van during the outing. You may wear it at other times during the day, too, if you wish.
The WNWR has issued a permit to Southeastern Outings to visit the refuge behind locked gates on Saturday, January 23, 2020.
Special conditions contained in the permit include to follow current CDC and State recommendations - mask, social distance, use hand sanitizer, stay home if you feel sick or have a fever. Hopefully, the positive cases statewide will be much lower than they are now, but if there is a high number of cases for this area at the time of the scheduled trip, the permit could be rescinded. Here are the conditions:
The permittee is responsible for ensuring all COVID-19 precautions recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Alabama Department of Public Health and the Office of the Governor are followed.
This permit may be rescinded if one or more counties where the refuge is located is designated as “Very High Risk” or “High Risk” for the spread of the COVID-19 virus or if precautions are not being followed. Risk designation can change weekly. Permittee should monitor the Alabama Department of Health Risk Dashboard (see link below) for updates before proceeding with the activity.
This outing is rated easy, as there is very little walking involved, and we won’t be climbing any hills or walking through thick brush. Please dress for the weather. The wind at the refuge can be biting, blowing across open water on cold days.
Well-behaved, carefully supervised children age 10 and over who can remain quiet for extended periods of time (so as to not disturb the birds and bird watchers) are welcome.
Possible optional dinner after the birding trip depending on what time we finish bird watching.
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 seoutings@bellsouth.net by 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, January 21, 2021. When you contact Dan, please be sure you leave either your phone number or email address. This outing is limited to 5 motor vehicles. Dwight Cooley, the retired Refuge Manager and our outing leader, has very kindly reserved a 10-person refuge van to be one of those vehicles. Therefore we are now allowing a total of 26 people in order to comply with Refuge regulations. We hope the limitation will not prove to be a problem. People who want to register to participate after the twenty-six person limit is reached will be placed on a waiting list.
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 26 people signed up on the day of the outing and, say, 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. If you decide to cancel, if you do not inform the leader of your cancellation, and if you are just a no-show, you will not be permitted to participate in any future Southeastern Outings events where the number of participants is limited.
At a later date leader will advise meeting time and place only to those who have signed up for this trip.
We look forward to seeing many of you on January 23.
Info: Dan Frederick, 205/631-4680 or seoutings@bellsouth.net
JANUARY 24, SUNDAY, Meet 12:45 p.m.
Southeastern Outings Dayhike on the Montevallo Parks Trail
Details: Enjoy an easy 4-mile hike on a trail in Montevallo. The main trail is two miles one way and goes through parks, by two picturesque, flowing streams, and around a beautiful University-owned lake in a wooded park. Total hiking distance is about four miles.
This walk will be Southeastern Outings’ ninth or so hike on the Montevallo Parks trail. Come with us for a guided tour of an easily walkable trail. Please bring plenty of water and wear good walking shoes or boots. Dress appropriately for the weather.
Meet 12:45 a.m. at the McDonald’s Galleria. We plan to depart from there at 1:00 p.m. or you may meet the group at 1:35 p.m. at the parking lot beside the larger bridge over Shoal Creek which is the wide creek that flows through Orr Park between the ball fields and the open recreational area in the park in Montevallo. The bridge is right beside the parking lot along the creek at the back of the ball fields. Please email Dan Frederick at the email address below if you would like driving directions from Hoover to Orr Park sent to you before the hike.
Well-behaved, carefully supervised children age 7 and over able to complete the hike welcome.
Please bring your picnic lunch and plenty of water with you.
Admission to Trail: Free
Information: Dan Frederick, seoutings@bellsouth.net or 205/631-4680
JANUARY 30, SATURDAY, Meet 8:45 a.m.
Southeastern Outings Dayhike
Where: Brushy Creek and Sougahoagdee Falls, Bankhead National Forest
Details: The hike will be 6 miles long and is rated moderate. We will follow a beautiful trail which runs from the Brushy Creek Bridge along the creek. We usually observe about nine waterfalls on this route. We should also see lovely cliffs, hemlock trees, canyons and perhaps some additional waterfalls. If we have time, we may also visit the nearby natural bridge (not the one at the town of Natural Bridge) in the Natural Bridge Recreation Area of the Bankhead National Forest.
Carefully-supervised, well-behaved children age 8 and older welcome. Bring a picnic lunch and water.
Optional dinner after at a delightful Italian restaurant in Double Springs.
Please meet 8:45 a.m. at the Hayden/Corner Park and Ride. We plan to depart from there at 9:00 a.m. Or you may meet the group at 9:20 a.m. at the Mile 300 Rest Area on I-65.
Info: Dan Frederick, seoutings@bellsouth.net or phone 205/631-4680
