Category: St. Clair Outdoors

Long-awaited groundbreaking celebrates 422-acre nature preserve in Springville

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Mackenzie Free
Discover Archive
and submitted Photos

When public officials hoist shovels full of dirt into the air, it traditionally celebrates the coming of a new business or industry. But when officials struck that familiar pose for the cameras in March, it signaled the coming of a new era for St. Clair County.

On a ridge surrounded by dense forest above Big Canoe Creek in Springville, a crowd gathered in a clearing to celebrate the groundbreaking for Big Canoe Creek Nature Preserve – 422 acres of nature –preserved, protected and treasured.

Now designated as a Forever Wild site in Alabama, this preserve protects the pristine creek that runs through it, allowing its rare species to thrive. It preserves its flora and fauna. And it is being designed so that all can enjoy now and for generations to come.

“In 1999, the St. Clair Economic Development Council was formed to recruit projects that would create jobs and improve the quality of life” in St. Clair County, said EDC Executive Director Don Smith. “This doesn’t normally fit with what we usually do,” but it does not stray from its mission to improve the quality of life. “People will be able to hike and enjoy nature with their friends, family and children.”  

Early day

Go back a bit – 2009, to be precise – and the idea of Forever Wild came to the attention of Doug Morrison, who was president of Friends of Big Canoe Creek at the time, and Vicki Wheeler, who holds that title now. “It took nine years to make it happen, but it happened,” Morrison said.

“Friends of Big Canoe Creek brought to the attention of our community the importance of protecting Big Canoe Creek – its channel, its banks and its forested flood plain – that led to the creation of Big Canoe Nature Preserve,” Wheeler said. “For it to be designated as a ‘preserve’ was rewarding for us because it spoke to the importance of the ongoing protection of the natural aesthetic and ecological properties of the land and the creek and, by extension, the entire watershed.”

She noted that “As a member of the Alabama Rivers Alliance, Friends of Big Canoe Creek wanted to ensure that the preserve would be an example for other watershed protection groups in the state to follow, a model for ecological preservation and restoration and environmental stewardship. It also would serve as an educational resource for the community, to teach that ‘Through Nature Comes Understanding.’”

Team work

They had help along the way. Wendy Jackson, then executive director of Alabama Freshwater Land Trust pitched the idea to then Springville Mayor Butch Isley, who embraced it. Springville Mayor Dave Thomas got behind the project and enhanced it through the push for creating Big Canoe Creek Preserve Partners, a nonprofit that will help with sustainable funding. Morrison chairs that nonprofit.

“We will have funding for outdoor education, new trails and endless opportunities,” Morrison said. He noted that Alabama ranks fourth nationally in biodiversity, but No. 1 in species like fish, salamanders, snails, mussels, crayfish and turtles, all of which are found in Big Canoe Creek. “There are so many discoveries to be made. It’s here in our own backyard. We are going to bring people to nature.”

Former Alabama Commissioner of Conservation and Natural Resources Barnett Lawley was a driving force behind the Forever Wild push along with Jackson. While their positions were lofty on the state level – Lawley as a cabinet member for former Gov. Bob Riley, and Jackson, as a leader in acquiring lands that enhance water quality and preserve open spaces, this project was personal to them, too. Their roots are firmly planted in St. Clair County soil as native born – Lawley in Pell City and Jackson in Ashville.

Dean Goforth, a Springville businessman who owns nearby Homestead Hollow, and Candice Hill, an executive with St. Clair EDC, entered the picture to push the project along, and “things got off the ground,” Morrison said.

In 2018, it became a site in the Forever Wild program, which funds the acquisition of land to preserve what the name implies. St. Clair County and City of Springville have joined forces behind the project along with EDC, and investment to date is $1.5 million.

Patti McCurdy, director of Alabama State Lands Division of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, called the unprecedented show of support locally an example she holds up to other communities across the state working toward similar goals. “You deserve a true pat on the back,” she said.

About the preserve

A visit to the preserve area is like discovering a long-hidden treasure. Preserve officials call the Big Canoe Creek watershed “a jewel in the crown of Alabama’s biodiversity.” And rightly so.

According to the preserve’s own description, “About 80% of the main stem remains free-flowing through its 50-plus-mile length, as do all four of its major tributaries. Both the main stem and tributaries throughout the watershed retain much of their forest cover, helping maintain critical natural water temperatures. And to a significant degree, the watershed’s high quality is attributable to its drainage area remaining essentially rural and agricultural in character and land use.”

The creek is home to more than 50 species of fish, including the rare Trispot Darter, which was discovered in 2008 in Little Canoe Creek. The Trispot Darter is a species that used to be found in Alabama but had not been seen in nearly 50 years. It is now listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Endangered Species Act.

Mussels, nature’s own water filter, are in “great supply” in Big Canoe Creek, which has retained most of its species, and has kept the creek pristine. Officials note that they are most endangered because of the need for extremely high water quality.

“Mussels are one of the most imperiled animal groups in North America, and their presence in the Big Canoe Creek watershed is a testament to its ecological integrity,” according to the preserve. “Big Canoe Creek has eight federally listed freshwater mussel species, and an 18-mile stretch of its main stem was designated in 2004 as a ‘critical habitat’ under the Endangered Species Act.”

A brand-new species, The Canoe Creek Clubshell (Pleurobema athearni), is only found in Big Canoe Creek and has been discovered in one of its tributaries.

The preserve’s 422 acres includes hilly, forested terrain as well as the creek, and its northern border is about a mile long with the northwestern corner spanning both sides of the creek.

Creekside scenery is abundant and higher points of the preserve provide views of the Big Canoe Creek watershed, including picturesque Canoe Creek Valley and the ridges of Pine and Blount mountains.

Realizing the vision

The groundbreaking ceremony celebrated the beginning of the foundational aspects of the preserve property. It includes improvements to the entrance road and the initiation of its first hiking trail designed by Flow Motion Trail Builders through a contract with the City of Springville. Once completed, the goal is to have a series of trails that will eventually cross the preserve. 

Other activities anticipated to eventually become part of the preserve’s offerings include horseback riding, kayaking and hiking.

“The Big Canoe Creek Nature Preserve is a project that we are all behind here in Springville,” said Mayor Thomas. “Giving the public a place to experience the beauty of this area, increase their knowledge about nature, exercise and spend time in the quietness of the outdoors is something this entire administration has a desire to do.”

He noted that previous administrations began this project, “and we plan to see it through. We look forward to welcoming those in the surrounding communities as they visit Springville to enjoy this beautiful area at the heart of our community.”

Perseverance pays off

Lawley, by virtue of his cabinet post, was chairman of Forever Wild. “This is what Forever Wild is for,” he said. These properties are “an asset for the community and provide free opportunities for citizens to utilize property that is theirs. It’s taxpayer property.”

This project took longer than most because of the land acquisition delays in dealing with landowners. “But everybody stayed committed to it. It was a great team,” he said. “You can’t give enough credit to Doug Morrison. He hung in there, was tenacious and kept people motivated.”

He noted that the program around the state has great potential, pointing to other Forever Wild properties that communities can take advantage of and have a real impact on their economy. “They see major increases in their tax base,” Lawley said.

Springville, he added, will reap sizable benefits because it gives the city the opportunity to “create its own economic impact.” Similar properties without as many amenities as Big Canoe Creek draw hundreds of thousands of people each year. “This is going to be a destination point.”

Jackson sees the potential as well. Through her work at Freshwater Land Trust, she was heavily involved in the early stages. “I have had the honor of being involved with land conservation here in Alabama and across the country. This project in my home county, is an excellent example of how to do successful conservation. Over the years, the project traversed multiple political administrations who all stayed the course. The leadership shown by the City of Springville and the St. Clair County Commission is amazing as are the public-private partnerships” with the Big Canoe Creek Preserve Partners, Freshwater Land Trust and Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham.

“It is a testament to what I have always known and that is the beauty of the people who call this amazing place home and how special our natural areas are,” she said. “This is why, no matter how far I travel, my home will always be here with some of the finest people in the world. I really can’t emphasize how rare it is to find a lack of egos and such a collaborative nature in these projects.

“Every single person and agency made tremendous contributions, yet all of them stood at the podium giving credit to others.”

She had a name for them all – “land conservation rock stars” – but singled out one in particular. “Doug Morrison poured his heart, soul, sweat and tears in this effort. Every project needs a local person with the determination to see it through, and he is that person on this project.”

Hill sees the value in the work, too. “It is exciting to be able to offer opportunities for recreation on public properties in St. Clair County. The land itself is beautiful, and it will be preserved as greenspace in the middle of one of our fastest growing communities.”

Looking to the future, she said, “We believe that this project sets a tone for other projects yet to come. We would love to see more greenspace preserved and allow more public recreation throughout the county. All of the parties involved work together so seamlessly, and it really makes you proud to be a part. So much can be done with this type of concerted effort, and we applaud our current leadership for their role in this endeavor.”

Crossing the finish line

It took a yeoman effort from a number of corners to get the project where it needed to be to become Forever Wild. Goforth, who now serves on the Preserve Partners board, was instrumental in that process.

When he was asked by the former Springville administration to help the project along, “I didn’t fully realize the impact it would have on this city, county and the entire area.”

The pieces were there, but it needed a point person who knew their way around state agencies to put it all together. Goforth had those contacts and knew the inner workings, and he helped move it closer to fruition.

“I reached out to Candice Hill (at EDC) and others at the state level. We involved others at the county, state and city level to get it over the finish line,” he said. “I really believe it is going to become a premier destination spot in our state,” he said. “It’s going to be great for everyone. It’s not just about the economics, it’s education and preservation.”

A byproduct in opening the space is “providing a way for people to get together with family and friends and enjoy the outdoors,” he added. “It’s going to be wonderful for the local community, the county, the state and for people who travel in and out of this area.”

Smith agreed. He told the groundbreaking audience, “It’s in our nature,” coincidentally giving a nod to the county’s tourism slogan. “This kind of property would normally be in private hands with few to enjoy it. This preserve gives the public “opportunities to enjoy the outdoors and create those memories. They don’t have to drive out of state. I think they’ll like our good nature.”

Pell City native discovers his future along hiking trail

Story by Scottie Vickery
Photos courtesy of Bennett Fisher

When Bennett Fisher agreed to hike the Appalachian Trail with his father after his high school graduation, he thought the trip would buy him some time before making major life decisions. But somewhere along the 2,189-mile trek he took to avoid thinking about his future, the Pell City native discovered it instead.

“I didn’t know where I wanted to go to college or what I wanted to do, and I figured it would allow me to put the decision off a bit,” said Bennett, a 2015 Pell City High School graduate. “But while we were backpacking, the people we met were really cool, the gear was really cool, and I started thinking it would be fun to be a designer.”

Seven years later, Bennett’s dream, which started taking shape on that trail, is a reality. Last October, he launched his online company, Jolly Gear (jollygearapparel.com), which offers the hybrid sun shirt he designed to meet a hiker’s every need.

It’s fast drying, offers sun and odor protection, and unlike most outdoor shirts available, it’s a vibrant, colorful creation that looks great in photos. He named the shirt the Triple Crown Button Down Sun Hoodie, a nod to the Triple Crown of Hiking: conquering the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide.

“It’s where fun meets functional,” said Bennett, quoting the tagline on the Jolly Gear logo. “I really enjoy the outdoors, and I like to problem-solve. I wanted to design something and make it different, better and special. People are buying them, and I’m just overjoyed.”

The first steps

The summer before Bennett’s senior year of high school, he was at the beach with his parents, Henry and Vicki Fisher, when they saw a father teaching his son to catch a wave. “I was joking around and said, ‘I wish my parents were cool enough to teach me to surf,’” he recalled. “My father said, ‘Well, if you want a cool dad, why don’t we hike the Appalachian Trail next summer?’”

Bennett agreed, and a few months later he posted about it on Instagram. “My dad texted me and said, ‘Oh, you’re serious. I guess we’re doing this,’” he said. “We’d never backpacked before. I grew up camping, and we’d take day hikes, but we’d never loaded up a backpack with four days of food and set out with no vehicle or anything. I knew nothing.”

His father researched gear and got what they needed, but Bennett didn’t give the trip a lot of thought in advance. “The day we left was the first time I’d fully loaded my pack,” he said. “My friends asked all these ‘what if’ questions – what if you get hurt, what if the weather is bad – but my plan was that I was just going to walk.”

The trek, which stretches from Georgia to Maine, took 5 ½ months, and Bennett was a different person when they finished in December. “I had some of the most real conversations I’d ever had with my dad,” he said. “He told me that he wanted to prove to himself that he could still do something that was epic.”

Bennett didn’t know it then, but each step he took brought him closer to his own epic adventure: designing a product, launching a brand and becoming a business owner at 24. “Right now, this is a side hustle, but I can see it becoming something much bigger,” he said.

The winding trail

Bennett, now 25, has always loved the outdoors, but he was surprised at how many other people seemed to, as well. Hikers were everywhere on the Appalachian Trail, and “I thought, ‘There are jobs here; people are doing this,’” he said, adding that the hiking community has grown tremendously since 2015.

He came home, enrolled at Jefferson State Community College and graduated in the spring of 2017. During his last semester, he began preparing to hike the Pacific Crest Trail with a friend while also researching options for the next phase of his education.

He stumbled across Utah State, which offered a major in outdoor product design and development. “I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I’d had the idea to work for a brand like Osprey or Patagonia, and I thought I could get a degree in this and work for a company like that. Plus, I’d always wanted to go to Utah. It seemed like kind of a mystical place to me.”

To make it work, Bennett needed to save some money. He decided to take a gap year and enroll in the fall of 2018. In the meantime, he and a buddy set off to conquer the 2,650 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, which starts at the Mexican border in southern California and winds through Oregon and Washington before ending at the Canadian border.

It was a lofty goal, and Bennett made it halfway before breaking his ankle. Although he was disappointed, he wasn’t giving up on his hiking goals or the dreams for his future. He found jobs at an outdoor apparel store and an indoor climbing facility, put some money aside and learned he’d earned a scholarship that made his Utah adventure possible.

“Before school started, I finally did the whole Pacific Crest Trail that summer,” Bennett said. In addition to marking the hike off his bucket list, he got the inspiration for the Triple Crown Button Down he would eventually design.

“You become pretty close to people pretty fast when you’re backpacking because you spend so much time together,” Bennett said. “You meet folks out there, and they become your trail family – the people you camp with, eat with, hike with.”

One hiker he met was a guy named Max. “He was wearing his mother’s gardening shirt, which had a hood, long sleeves, and buttons,” Bennett recalled. “At the time, everyone had to choose between a sun hoodie, which didn’t have buttons (allowing you to open the shirt to catch a breeze), or a fishing shirt. The rest of the trail, I kept thinking that I wanted to design something like that.”

Triple Crown design

The thought made him even more excited about school, but once in Utah, he grew discouraged. “All these people had been in art classes growing up, and they were all light-years ahead of me,” he said. Being several years older than his classmates didn’t help either, and “it was pretty intimidating to be around such talented folks.”

Despite his doubts, Bennett continued to do what he’s always done: he just kept going. Two sewing classes were required for his major, and that’s when everything started falling into place. In the first class, he had to make either a jacket or a shirt, and his Triple Crown Button Down first came to life. “It took me 72 hours to hand-sew that first prototype,” he said.

The shirt was a combination of a Performance Fishing Gear shirt and a sun hoodie. Thumb holes in the sleeves offered sun protection for the hands while the hood protected the neck. Two zipper pockets on the chest are perfect for holding a phone or wallet.

“I combined a button down and sun hoodie into one; there’s no more compromise,” Bennett said. “At that point, I thought I had just made the shirt for myself, and I was pretty proud of it.” His confidence grew when he earned a perfect score, and the shirt was named runner-up in a vote by his classmates.

His final semester, he took a class on logo design and branding. “We had to create a fake company and a fake clothing line,” he said. The logo he designed was an outline of a man’s face with a long beard, which is actually an image of a pine cone. He landed on Jolly Gear for the name, in honor of the nickname he got on the Appalachian Trail.

“They called me Jolly because I was very positive and optimistic,” he said, adding that long-distance hikers go by nicknames. “Most of the time, people give you the name. My dad was Powerslide because he slipped on the rocks a lot but still managed not to fall.”

Launching a dream

At the time, Bennett thought he was just completing a class project, but graduating in May 2020 in the middle of a pandemic made him rethink things. “I graduated when no one was hiring, and everyone was getting laid off,” he said. “All of these outdoor companies were letting people go. How was I, a guy with no experience, going to get a job over people who had been doing this for 10 years?”

He found a job as a software tester and decided to launch Jolly Gear on the side. He offers hats and T-shirts, as well, but the star is the Triple Crown Button Down, which features all of Bennett’s must-haves. The four-way stretch fabric is extremely lightweight, odor-resistant and offers UPF-50 sun protection.

In addition to thumb holes, there’s a hair hole and cinch cord in the hood, and most importantly, it’s bright and colorful. “I wanted to have fun patterns” so it would stand out from the typical solid khaki, gray, light blue or yellow options. Long-distance hikers typically wear one shirt for weeks or months at a time, and “I wanted to create something you’d be proud to show in every single picture on the trail,” he said.

In an effort to earn his own Triple Crown, Bennett was hiking the Continental Divide, which spans some 3,100 miles through New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, when the first samples were finished last summer. He had some shipped to himself, and he and a few members of his trail family picked them up together. “We literally ripped our shirts off in the post office and tried them on,” he said.

“I had never seen the print in person, and the size of the flowers was exactly what I had imagined,” he said. “Eight of us wore them on the trail and out to dinner. They got a lot of attention, and everybody loved them. People have told me it’s the fastest-drying shirt they’ve ever had.”

While Bennett hoped to earn his Triple Crown while wearing his Triple Crown Button Down, he fractured his left foot 1,650 miles into the trip. He plans to pick up the trail where he left off and finish the hike this summer, but he’s thrilled that one of his seven friends who wore the shirt finished and earned his Triple Crown in style.

Despite having been worn for thousands of sweaty miles, the shirt “still looks beautiful,” Bennett said. “He actually wore it on a date a few days later. I was so excited – it’s everything I hoped for and more.” 

Competition finds home at Horse Pens 40

Story by Paul South
Photos by Mackenzie Free

There’s something on target about one of the newer events, the Southeast Regional Slingshot Tournament, to come to Horse Pens 40.

The park, an ancient ground settled by native peoples – including the Creek and Cherokee – centuries ago has been transformed through the years through war and new settlers, but its ancient trees and boulders remain largely unchanged.

While owned today by the Schultz family, the park has a simple mission, driven by the presence of more than 60 rare, threatened, protected or endangered species, as well as the other flora and fauna in the park: “Leave No Trace” of human hands.

By the 1950s, Horse Pens was home to craft fairs. By the 1960s, the new phenomenon of outdoor music festivals drew bluegrass and Americana roots music legends like Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley, Lester Flatt, Ricky Skaggs, Alison Krauss and Birmingham’s own Emmylou Harris, delighting audiences hungry for the high lonesome sound.

Music still rings, and artisans and craftspeople still show their wares there, but now, there is even more to what has become a global destination point

The park is known as one of the best bouldering courses in the world with its massive rocks beckoning climbers from near and far. Horse Pens is home to the Triple Crown championship of bouldering, raising its profile much higher than the allure of its boulders that draw competitors from around the world.

Sling shooting thriving atop Chandler Mountain

Add to its already established bouldering reputation the competitive slingshot tournaments, one of only a handful in the United States, and Horse Pens is becoming a sports destination point all over again. A one-time weapon of war older than the Scriptures became a kid’s toy in the 1940s and is now part of a small but growing sport. The roots of the slingshot can be traced back 2,500 years.

Competitively speaking, what once meant knocking a Campbell’s soup can off a fencepost with a rock is now nailing tiny targets from more than 30 feet away.

 In late September, Dan Ambrosius of Steele won the most recent Southeast Regional tournament at Horse Pens, one of five such tournament titles he’s captured nationwide.

Growing up in the jungles of the Philippines as the son of American missionaries, he began shooting slingshots as a toddler. But make no mistake, Ambrosius’ first slingshot was no toy, but a survival tool.

“As jungle missionaries, when I was a small child, all the tribal people had slingshots. I was introduced to a slingshot at three or four years old.

“Over there, we ate whatever we shot – birds, small animals, all kinds of stuff. So, coming to this country, I’d always had a slingshot and always been interested in it. About seven or eight years ago, I found out through social media that tournaments existed. For all I knew, I was the only one in this country who was good with a slingshot, period, because I’d never met anyone that could shoot as well as me, ever,” he says.

When he entered his first competition, the prestigious East Coast Slingshot Tournament in Alverton, Pa., he learned quickly that there were indeed others who could shoot as well, if not better. Ambrosius finished in the top 10, but competitive sling shooting had won his heart.

He quickly learned others were better, and the pressure of competition was far different than tracking animals in steamy Filipino jungles.

“I didn’t realize how accurate you had to be,” he says. “My slingshotting up until tournaments was always designed to kill things. It was about the biggest ammo as fast as you can shoot it and kill the game. In tournament, it’s either you hit the target, or you don’t.”

While the Pennsylvania tournament is highly regarded in slingshot circles, the Southeast Regional at Horse Pens is perhaps the sport’s fastest-growing competition in the United States because of a growing number of shooters in Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas. About 60 shooters competed in the 2021 event, renewed after COVID-19 forced cancellation of the 2020 event.

Horse Pens 40 Park Manager Ashley Ensign said that bouldering remains the biggest draw at the park, which makes it a big economic driver for St. Clair and neighboring counties.

“The largest rock-climbing competition in the world is the Triple Crown Bouldering Series and Horse Pens is part of that,” Ensign says. “Even with the current situation we have now (the pandemic), we had over 300 competitors and roughly 400 spectators, and all from out of state.”

Horse Pens also hosts an annual Songwriters’ Festival, Ensign says. But she gives high marks to the slingshot event. “It’s not something you see every day, so it’s always fun,” she says.

While sling shooting is growing slowly in the United States, it’s wildly popular in other countries, particularly in Europe and Asia. As of now, China is the world’s superpower in the sport. Asked to compare the sport’s popularity overseas to the United States, Ambrosius doesn’t mince words.

“It’s not even close,” he says. “In the United States, there are 10 to 15 of us that would be considered world-class shooters – that could go overseas and compete in a tournament. I’ve been invited to China, Italy, Spain, England, all expenses paid, because they want Americans to come over and participate.”

 He adds, “There are only a few of us (in the States), whereas in China, there are millions and millions of competitive shooters. Gymnasiums are full of shooters all over the country every weekend in China with competitive slingshot shooting. It’s a huge, huge business.”

 The reason slingshots are so popular? More restrictive gun laws.

 “They don’t have the freedom with firearms that we do in this country,” Ambrosius says.

There’s a push to make it an Olympic sport. Once that happens, Ambrosius believes the sport will take off in popularity.

Companies are banking on that. The internet features a variety of sites, where shoppers can find slingshots ranging in price from $5 to high-tech versions up to $1,000 or more. The iconic American toy company Wham-O first marketed the slingshot after World War II.

And unlike other competitive sports where the competition is sometimes cutthroat and money pulls the strings, the slingshot – a sport propelled by an elastic band – is not about money, but about camaraderie. Trophies for the winners – not cash – are the only tangible rewards.

But there’s another reward to the slingshot, Ambrosius says. Taking aim with this childhood toy seems to melt away the years like ice on an August Alabama sidewalk.

“It just takes you to a different place,” Ambrosius says. “You become younger and more playful. It takes you to a place that’s not so much in the present. You’re a kid again, and you’re doing something that’s really, really fun. It’s just so fun to hit a can with a slingshot. It’s just fun.”

Pair of Pell City engineers ‘engineer’ a Grand Canyon adventure

Story by Scottie Vickery
Submitted photos

John Jones remembers reading a quote years ago that’s been on his mind quite a bit recently. The gist is that if you pick something to tackle, and it doesn’t seem impossible at the beginning, you didn’t choose something hard enough.

Jones and Dennis Vandegrift, his friend and co-worker, don’t have to worry that they set their sights on something too easy. Their idea to hike the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim-to-rim in two days was a daunting one. Five months after achieving their goal, they’re still amazed at what they accomplished.

“A little over a year ago, (we) hatched an insane idea” Jones said in a Facebook post after returning home. “We thought we should try to hike from one rim of the Grand Canyon to the other and back over two days. 110,000-ish steps, 45 miles, 20,000 feet of elevation change, and I’m not sure how many training hikes and runs later, we did it. I’m honestly more than a little surprised we pulled it off.”

Not many people do. According to the National Park Foundation, a partner of the National Park Service, fewer than 1% of the Grand Canyon’s 5 million annual visitors even venture below the rim – and many of those just hike a few miles. The ones who hike rim to rim, typically over two days, are even fewer.

Then there’s Jones and Vandegrift, who did it twice. They hiked from the North Rim of the canyon to the South Rim in 12 hours, spent the night in a hotel, and hiked back from the South Rim to the North the next day.

“It was cool, but it was a little bit nuts,” Jones said. “The more it’s in the rearview mirror, the cooler it becomes.”

The planning stages

Both Jones and Vandegrift, structural engineers with Barnett Jones Wilson in Pell City, are avid outdoorsmen. Jones, 49, is a hiking and backpacking enthusiast while Vandegrift, 41, competes in triathlons and owns Off-Road Multisport, which hosts swim/bike/run/paddle off-road race events in Alabama and Northwest Florida.

The two are always up for a challenge, and Jones proposed this one. “I mentioned it to Dennis, and it took him five seconds to say, ‘We’re doing it,’” Jones recalled.

They had to work quickly since lodging sells out a year in advance. “We hatched this plan 54 weeks before we could do the trip, so we had to make a lot of quick decisions,” Jones said. “The first day we were eligible, we booked everything.”

Their goal was to hike rim-to-rim-to-rim, but they decided to arrange for a shuttle at the South Rim in case they got there and weren’t up to hiking back. “We thought it would be a cheap insurance plan,” Jones said. Because of COVID, though, there were fewer shuttle options than normal, and all were booked. “At that point, it was all or nothing,” he said.

They began training in earnest. “I felt like I was the weak link,” Jones said. “He could have shown up ready to do it, but I definitely had a lot of conditioning to do. I was more worried about my general fitness level, and Dennis was more concerned about his feet and knees.”

The Grand Canyon hike is different from most, Vandegrift said, and they kept that in mind while training. “It’s like a reverse mountain climb,” he said. “You’re doing the descent first and then the ascent at the end when you’re tired. Normally, you get to the top, and you have gravity to bring you home.”

Another issue is temperature changes. The North Rim doesn’t open until May 15 because it’s got a much higher elevation than the South Rim, and ice and snow can be issues. “The first morning, it was 25 degrees when we left,” Vandegrift said. “By midday at the bottom, it was 90.”

Training included lots of hikes at Mt. Cheaha, and Jones had a previously scheduled hike in Wyoming. He also headed to Clingmans Dome in the Smoky Mountains after planning a hike that mimicked the Grand Canyon one as closely as possible.

“It was about 25 miles with 9-10,000 feet of elevation changes,” Jones said, adding that he started high, hiked down first and then back up. “I figured if I couldn’t do it in the Smoky Mountains when it’s 50 or 60 degrees, I couldn’t do it in the Grand Canyon when it’s in the 90s.”

Hiking the canyon

The two headed to Arizona on May 22. They camped out the night before the first day of hiking, which Jones said was their only big mistake. “We should have stayed in a hotel,” he said. “We had to break camp that morning, which took a long time, and it was cold. We were shooting to leave at 5 a.m. but it was more like 6:30.”

Each carried only the bare necessities in his pack – a toothbrush, water, change of clothes and two days’ worth of trail food, Vandegrift said. They planned to eat dinner at the hotel once they made it to the South Rim that evening, and there were water stations every three to five miles, so they never had to carry more than two quarts of water. “The packs probably weighed 18 or 20 pounds starting out, which is light for a pack,” he said.

One of the first things they noticed before setting out was all the warning signs around the Grand Canyon. “Hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon is optional. Hiking out is mandatory,” one read. Even still, they were determined. “I think where most people get in trouble is when they don’t respect it and understand it going into it,” Vandegrift said. “We knew it was going to be hard as hell.”

By the time they reached the bottom of the canyon on the first day, they were feeling it. They stopped for lunch and a cold glass of lemonade at Phantom Ranch, which offers the only lodging below the rim of the canyon and is accessible only by foot, mule or by rafting the Colorado River. Although many hikers stay the night, Jones and Vandegrift still had the ascent to the South Rim ahead of them.

“At one point we still had to hike nine more miles and gain 4,400 vertical feet to get to the hotel room,” Jones said, adding that the distance included a three- to four-mile section they later learned is nicknamed Heart Attack Hill. “We both had heart monitors on our watches, and they were beating pretty fast,” he said with a laugh.

By the end of the first day, all they could think about was food and a hot shower. “Our hotel room had a claw-foot tub that you had to step into. When we walked in and saw it, we were like, ‘Are you kidding me?’” After a hot dinner and a load of ibuprofen, they went to sleep only to be awakened by horrible leg cramps.

Getting up to catch the 5 a.m. shuttle to the South Kaibab trailhead was painful, and they started the hike in the dark with headlamps. A few miles in, they were rewarded with an incredible sunrise. “There are 360-degree views, and the sun just illuminates everything,” Vandegrift said. “It was incredible.”

Although they had seen some beautiful scenery and a full-size ram that jumped out of nearby brush the day before, they both agreed that the South Kaibab Trail, which is very steep, was their favorite. “In the really steep sections, you could look down and see as many as 10 switchbacks,” or zigzags of the trail, Jones said.

“You could see someone down below, and they seemed so close, like you could throw a rock to them, but they were probably an hour ahead on the trail,” Vandegrift added.

The views were spectacular. “If we had hiked that section and spent twice as much time there, it still wouldn’t have been enough; it was just so scenic,” Jones said. Vandegrift agreed. “You can take a million pictures and it doesn’t begin to capture it.”

Mission accomplished

By the time they made it back to the North Rim about 5 p.m., they were hungry, tired and had a 3-hour drive to their hotel ahead of them. They got a bison burger at a drive-through, turned in early, headed home the next day, and were in the office the day after that. “I don’t think we had that ‘we did it’ feeling until that first day back in the office,” Vandegrift said.

Although they were disappointed that they never saw a herd of bison, which are often spotted at the North Rim, Jones and Vandegrift said they loved the experience and the challenge. “The first three miles and the last three miles each day were the hardest,” Jones said.

Although they pushed themselves, they never considered quitting. “At the end of the first day when we still had a few miles left to go, I was feeling apprehensive about the second day,” Vandegrift said. “But you settle in, get down to business and start walking. It was two really long days of hiking, and there are times we were hurting, but it was never, ‘We’re about to die.’ We never thought that we weren’t going to finish.”

Jones said he was proud of their achievement and the determination that carried them through to the end. “My daughter runs cross country, and she would go to Cheaha with me and Dennis for some of our 13- to 14-mile training hikes,” he said. “She’d be running up the hills, and I was struggling to get up them.

“She saw me struggling in November with something that shouldn’t be that hard if you’re going to do what I signed up to do,” he said. “Then she saw what I did and saw what you can accomplish if you put your mind to it. That’s a pretty good feeling.”

Run at Millcreek MX Park in Pell City

Story, photos and video
by Graham Hadley

Mud Factor bills itself as a “seriously fun, 5K obstacle run,” and it delivered exactly that.

Despite days of heavy rains leading up to the day before the race, organizers were able to put together a spectacular event at Pell City’s Millcreek MX Park just off the Eden Exit of I-20.

David Carpenter, one of the event organizers, said their run is supposed to be more family oriented than many of the more hard-core obstacle runs and tries to draw a diverse crowd of people who otherwise might not tackle such a challenge.

“We call ourselves a fitness-based entertainment event, very family oriented. Our obstacle course is more family friendly,” he said.

The early runs are for mixed groups of children and adults – people of all ages and athletic abilities. One lap is half the run, and there are no penalties if you opt out of an obstacle.

“One of our MCs says it best: ‘If you are staring up at an obstacle. And it is staring back at you, and you say, ‘Oh heck no.’ You can walk around it,’” Carpenter said.

There are also no 1st-place awards – but everyone gets a medal for finishing.

“The reality is that we are just trying to get people off the couch and have fun with their friends and family. Participants often help each other over the obstacles. There is no 1st place or last place. We are a fun run. No times are kept,” he said.

Don’t be fooled, though, this is still a challenging obstacle and mud run. And though one lap gets you through the entire course with all the obstacles, it takes two go-arounds to hit that 5K mark. Those runs are usually reserved for the afternoon.

The course has the usual suspects of obstacles – mud holes, inclines and ladders, ropes and crawls, walls, and of course, water slides. All the extra rain this year made for some tricky spots – areas that are normally only a couple of feet deep required swimming in some spots. Like the rest of the obstacles, there were plenty of Mud Factor staff on hand, especially around the deep water, to help anyone who needed it.

Safety was always at primary concern. In addition to the staff monitoring the obstacles, there were water stations, places to store you backpacks and gear – the Mud Factor employees had every contingency covered.

For spectators and participants, there were food trucks, music, and the runners got bandannas and free stick-on tattoos.

Despite the weeks of wet weather leading up to the run, the actual day of the event was perfect – clear skies and warm but not sweltering weather – the perfect combination for the perfect outdoors event.

With the increase in COVID-19 cases, event organizers took extra precautions to keep everyone safe – there was plenty of room for everybody to social distance, but masks were required in the starting area where everyone was crowded together at the beginning of each run. Masks were encouraged, but not required, in any areas where people were close together. Nobody was required to run with a mask.

“Mill Creek is the perfect venue right now,” Carpenter said. The park is a top MX competition bike track that is privately owned. Some of the other venues Mud Factor uses are in government-owned facilities and have to follow very strict COVID guidelines. Millcreek did not have such stringent requirements, which made the run much more fun for the participants.

That’s not the only reason, though, that Carpenter likes the park so much.

“It’s ideal. It has good entrance and exits, there is plenty of parking, the track and surrounding areas are dirt with some great terrain,” he said.

But most important is the easy access to water.

“At other parks, we are a national mud-run company, so especially out West, we have to often port in our own water for the obstacles and the mud. That is a lot of water, a lot of work. Millcreek had all of that right there,” he said.

“We are celebrating 10 years this year, and the MX parks are ideal. The tracks are permitted for crowds, they have the parking … it makes it easy.”

And true to the organizers’ intent, Mud Factor drew people from all walks of life and ages and from all over the region.

One trio was there from Madison because of a bet. Russ said with a smile that he was at the race because “Jamaicans run faster than Americans.” He had bet two of his friends from Jamaica, Ronae and Sachell, that America would win a track event they were watching on TV. “And there they went over the finish line, Jamaica, one, two, three, so here I am,” he said.

One of the things that made the race attractive to that group, who also brought young Sadike with them, was that the course was designed for athletes and non-athletes alike and was just a fun way to get out and get some exercise.

At the finish line, Team Jamaica Ronae and Sachell kept celebrating by throwing themselves back into the giant pool of water that served as the final obstacle, huge grins on their faces, as Russ filmed them from the shore with his phone, a grin plastered on his face as well.

That was the overall feeling from the other runners – a fun, athletic day in the sun and a chance to get out after a long year cooped up at home.

Nicole from Locust Fork said she had heard about the event on Facebook and that she liked the family-friendly atmosphere.

“This is great for kids, a good family event. We can go around any obstacles that are too hard for them,” she said.

A lot of the competitors were there in groups and said they often do these kinds of events together on a regular basis.

Candice, Jason, Lauren and Niles were one such group from Birmingham.

“We have done runs together before. We heard about it on Facebook and decided to come out,” Niles said.

Lauren agreed, “We saw it online, and it just looked like a lot of fun.”

The organizers enjoy the events almost as much as the runners, Carpenter said, and they have every intention of returning to St. Clair County for future mud runs.

“We have been doing this for 10 years. It is a lot of work. If we did not love doing this, we would not still be doing it,” he said. “I definitely see us returning here in the future.”

For people looking for additional Mud Factor races here, Carpenter did say that the events are usually named after the largest nearby metro area – so even though the race is held at Millcreek MX Park in Pell City, it is advertised as the Birmingham Mud Factor race.