Little River/A.H.T.S Trail Cleanup

Have you ever seen a copy of "Hiking Alabama" by Joe Cuhaj?  If not I highly recommend it as a starting point if you are trying to get out and see Alabama.  My wife and I are trying to complete the whole book, within just this summer we have almost completed the entire Gulf Coast section.  I mention this because we are both members of the Alabama Hiking Trail Society and Joe is the president.  This past Saturday we were able to finally attend a trail cleanup with group and had a really good time.

We left the house around eight o' clock and heading north onto 65 to Atmore Alabama, a route I am very familiar with because this is the way we go to Camden Alabama, my hometown.  The trail cleanup would be located at Little River State Park, a place I have passed a many times but never stopped and I was really glad that we finally got to go.  Little River was built in the 30's as apart of Civilian Conservation Corps.  The C.C.C. was work relief program designed by Franklin D. Roosevelt which provided unskilled labor jobs for men across the United States in hopes of getting out of the depression and the conservation of nature.  Enlisting 250,000 works and planting 3 billion trees in just the nine years of service.  It also taught 40,000 illiterate men to read and write.  The C.C.C. still lives on in the hundreds of hiking trails, swimming holes and campgrounds that Americans still enjoy to this day.

There are two trails located at Little River, one is the C.C.C. Bell Trail and the other is the Gazebo Trail.  We mowed grass and cut limbs.  It was a great turnout and we were able to split into 2 groups and get the job done.  The cleanup day was led by Cheryl and Scott Gardner.  My group worked on the C.C.C. Bell Trail and Cheryl and her group worked on the Gazebo Trail.  After the work day was complete my wife and I decided to hike the Gazebo Trail and have lunch.  The trail is very short and leads to a gazebo on top of the hill that was originally built in the 1930's.  It is amazing that it still stands.  One of the members (Dave) was playing on his ham radio, we spoke, ate lunch and headed back to the car.  There is also a nice like to canoe, which we will hopefully do the next time we are in that area.

On the way back down we were met by the Boyscouts and they thanked us for the job we had done.  I like to personally thank Cheryl, Scott, Dave, Peggy, Marion, Emily, Eric and Randy.  I hope you all get to read and enjoy this.  Thank you for letting my wife and I be apart of something that brings good to this earth and nature.  Until next time, live to wander.