Mississippi's best hiking: backpacking in Noxubee Hills
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I parked at the southern trailhead of the Noxubee Hills Trail System in Tombigbee National Forest, Mississippi. It was nearing noon on the last day of March 2018, with a beautiful blue sky and perfect temperature. In the parking lot, I met an elderset couple who kindly provided me with a trail map. For the next 48 hours, I'd be in the woods and would not see another human, except for at Choctaw Lake, a dammed recreation area at the northern terminus.
The couple in the parking lot were also backpackers. When hearing that this was my first Noxubee Hills expedition, the man remarked that not only is this the best hiking in Mississippi, but that spring is the best season. He was not wrong. In fact, this would turn out to be the best hike of my life (thus far).
To follow along with my expedition, I'd recommend this map. I embarked on my perimeter hike starting at the southern trailhead (coordinates: 33.208, -89.074). Then I traversed the trails in the following order: Sheep Ranch 🥾 Sheep Ranch Road 🥾 Rock Crusher Road 🥾 Lost Cemetery Road 🥾 Rabbit's Run 🥾 Slashing Dog 🥾 Chocktaw Lake 🥾 Lake Side 🥾 Chata 🥾 Headwaters 🥾 Lake side 🥾 Beaver Lodge 🥾 Lost Cemetery Road 🥾 North 🥾 Long Bridge 🥾 Charlotte's Web. If you're wondering, the emoji in the previous sentence probably won't start rendering for you until at least June 2018.
On this trip, I'd cross paths with alligators, wild turkeys, butterflies, howling coyotes, and giant spiders. My complete collection of pictures and videos is available in this album. Below I'll take you through the highlights, (except for the Photo Sphere, of course).
Photographs
They were named Screaming Tutu:
Anthill planks:
Cooling my feet at the first night campsite:
Moonlit bog. Every 20 seconds or so a gigantic splash played the role of a tracking beacon for the local alligator:
Sunrise at Lake Choctaw. Can you tell whether the top or bottom is the reflection?
Lake Choctaw Gazebo:
Starting the return trip. Northern trailhead at Lake Choctaw (coordinates: 33.275, -89.137):
Beach with a bridge view:
Eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus):
Second night hammock setup:
Hike complete at the southern trailhead:
This joyous moment soon turned to despair as I reemerged into a society so antithetical to my time in Nuxobee Hills. A society where bigger is better; heavier is the norm; nature is exterminated; and consumption, not conservation, is the motto.
Insights
Here are two thoughts I had on the trail.
A mosquito is a friend you can count on
There weren't many mosquitoes although I did encounter two ticks (RIP).Airplane mode is adventure mode
More information
Thanks to all the individuals who have helped to create and maintain Noxubee Hills. The trails were in fantastic shape. These forest are a magnificent wildlife refuge, and hopefully they are preserved, if not expanded.
For planning, the Facebook Group was helpful as well as the Hiking Mississippi page. I've posted my gear list online, although it includes some items that were for a conference I attended previously and left in the car. Happy to answer any gear questions in the comments.
Steemian Boss Series
This is the seventh post in the popular Steemian Boss Series. Previous posts include:
- Ultralight travel to Key West
- Sights aboard a twinjet, Philly to Boston style
- How to hammock like a Steemian Boss in Cambridge
- Glory aboard American Airlines flight 501
- The Centurion PHL Challenge: 8 specialty crafted cocktails
- The Delta Sky Club ATL Challenge: all 2 specialty cocktails
Do you want to be boss? Just tag your post with #steemian-boss, mention me in the post or a comment, and if it meets the quality standards for this series, I'll resteem and add it to the list above in future posts!
License
This post as well as its images are released under a CC BY 4.0 License. Republish or reuse this content, but please attribute by linking to this Steem post.
For those wondering why this post is getting downvoted, it's because of a new initiative called Operation Clean Trending. This webapp identifies trending posts which have a high percentage of upvotes from vote bots. This post currently has a high upvote percentage from two bots, which I commissioned using https://steembottracker.com.
I've commented on Operation Clean Trending's introductory post with more details. While I appreciate the desire to reduce voting abuse and the promotion of low quality content, I think it's a bit unfortunate that I'm getting downvoted for having:
Tagging the accounts that have downvoted this post: @noisy @heimindanger @nikokafka @javirid @vfxjourney. I completely respect your freedom to downvote as you wish and commend you for acting altruistically to improve Steem. However, perhaps you should consider only downvoting posts that are trending due to vote bots AND of low quality. I think downvoting high quality posts because they advertised is not healthy for the system in the long run.
I agree completely.
I'll be joining you on trending later today, thanks to my investment in the advertising tools provided to us.
Hah. I'm not sure it's worth it right now. Downvotes keep rolling in (@toddjsmith1979 @liveyourdream @flugbot), I presume from Operation Clean Trending. It's unfortunate that the site preselects posts and doesn't provide links to view the content. I assume many folks are "downvoting the trash" and failing to realize they're downvoting valuable content.
Oh that's ok....I'm ready to return the favor.
I know how to blindly flag also.
Yeah, that is exactly what I'm talking about. You cannot have your eyes everywhere. Seems like EVERY automatism is poisoning this community. Too bad it had to come that far...
Ayudame con tus amigos para que me voten mis post, porfa
I agree.
Downvoting a high quality content won't help in the growth of steemit
@bernisanders and his army have been toxic for steem all along. This is really annoying, but at the same time is their capitalistic right.
It is quite annoying, i am not sure what to do about it.
It looks pretty good especially for adventurous television programs.
I've asked you before @introvert-dime why you vote up all your own replies at basically full strength all the time, but the post itself at VERY low power (around 7% usually it seems) and here is the deal.
It is considered pretty scammy here to do that.
And you have been doing it a long time and it is time to address this poor behaviour.
Once in awhile is fine. Not all day, every day for weeks on end.
That is garbage behaviour here.
You seem to pick high profile posts, or users to do this on always and then vote your comments to the top increasing your visibility and you do this all day long, every day, all the time.
That is frowned upon here, not like you need someone to tell you this behaviour is scammy and poor.
I think I might start pasting this reply into your scammy replies to people, since your replies are all self-voted to the top for VISIBILITY. ALL THE TIME.
-- here is the proof just for today , the last few mins, on SteemD.com which I encourage everyone to check out on the blockchain.
This Reply posted April 3rd, 2018 to @introvert-dime, as I have done with them before..... without reply.
yes indeed it is quite suitable for adventure
Looks like a nice place to go hiking. I haven`t tried camping in the US before, but have plans to take some weeks in Alaska in a couple of years.
But, here in Norway I am camping all the time and it is like you say at the end, it is not a good thing to get back to the society where everything is just a lot of high sounds and pollution.
Looking forward to your next post from your hiking trips!
I still didn't have any experience yet on mountain camping. But I'll definitely try this out because of this blog. Thanks to make it look easy. I am hoping it was simple as this blog haha great post
Loved this post @dhimmel This is a wonderful place to hike, fish, camp..you name it. I graduated from Mississippi State University in Starkville and spent many weekends and "skip" days here. Thanks for this post!
Nice, I was in Mississippi for a conference at the Mill Center at MSU. I actually hiked from there to Enterprise Rent-A-Car:
One thing about Starkville is that there are no sidewalks! However, the University was big and beautiful.
This is true. The only sidewalks are in the downtown area and that's no fun to try to get to from MSU. Glad that you enjoyed the Hills.
Looked like a pretty good little hike. It's nice you gave coordinates for others to follow if they desire.
Loving the sunrise pictures, by the way.
Did you go alone? I would be scared of the alligators getting me in my sleep.
Yeah, these days GPS coordinates are much more useful and brief than other forms of directions. Just plug the coordinates into your navigation system and press GO! I got the coordinates based on the EXIF metadata from my trailhead photos. Fingers crossed that it's accurate.
I did go alone. Once you get over the fear, hiking alone is nice as it's great and efficient to be entirely on your own schedule. I don't know much about protecting oneself from gators, but I'd imagine it's best not to camp or eat next to a bog.
I agree with that, sometimes you get direction on community boards telling you where to go and the direction could be something like: "Go straight 500m until you pass a massive rock, then go left and take the right-most trail head after you pass the big coniferous tree.
GPS coordinates are a miraculous thing.
I would really like to do a solo trek one day. I feel that being alone with one's thoughts and the utter serenity of the outdoors would be extremely beneficial for your well being. But I'll just stick to my Canadian wilderness where the gators can't go. :)
I feel the need to do some camping. Looks like you had a blast.
It’s rare to come across people who aren’t afraid or unwilling to spend some decent time alone and away from technology. Some of my best memories are of times where I escaped society with nothing but some food and my swag (an Aussie style of tent/ camping bed).
Nice write up buddy.
Adventure with nature is really an exciting journey!
Nice ! Always wanted to go hiking for excercise and for experience but I easly get tired and bugs scare the shit outta me . 😔😔😔
I find that while during outdoor expeditions, I feel more awake than when I'm at my desk job, even if I've had less sleep. As for the bugs, you could try a deet or picardin based repellent and minimize exposed skin with long sleeves.
Yeah , i guess ima do that when I finally decide to go hiking .
Some great photos. I look forward to seeing more of your content!