An autumn view of the Lake Chinnabee campground with no one around (click on the image for a larger view)
Secret Vistas
by Glynn Wilson
LAKE CHINNABEE, Ala. — It drizzled rain in the dark all the way from the Oxford, Alabama exit off Interstate 20 through Munford on Highway 21, making it hard to find all the turns that lead to Lake Chinnabee in the Talladega National Forest. But somehow between a detailed atlas and the Google iPhone map, we found the turnoff at McElderry Road that led to Cheaha Road, which took us past Camp Mac and wound up into the mountains toward the highest point in Alabama at Cheaha State Park.
All the way there, photographer Kenny Walters and I had gone back and forth over whether we would find the place empty, or whether other knowledgeable campers would have found the place and staked out a position in the middle of the second week of November. I figured it was 60-40 the place would be deserted.
It was still drizzling when we pulled into the Lake Chinnabee campground on Wednesday evening at about 6:30 p.m. — and there was not another vehicle or camper in site. The place was deserted, just the way we like it.
A pair of pileated woodpeckers dryocopus pileatus hang out regularly in the vicinity of Lake Chinnabee Recreation Area in the Talladega National Forest, just down the mountain from Cheaha State Park, Alabama’s highest point. These huge birds are nearly as large as a crow and are sometimes mistaken for the ivory-billed woodpecker, believed by many experts to be extinct, making this the largest woodpecker in most of North America. Its loud ringing calls and large rectangular excavations in dead trees reveal its presence in forests across the continent, although try getting close enough to one to get a full frame sharp photograph. They are shy and elusive for the most part, and dip when they fly, making them hard to photograph in flight. I got a few frames of this one Saturday morning, from too far away, across the creek running out of Lake Chinnabee.
Woke up this mornin’
Turned on the Mac.
Got the coffee started,
Then looked out the window.
The skies are gray,
Rain’s on the way.
It’s daylight savings time,
What can I say?
It is that time of year again, time to make the transition from the best of times, autumn, to the worst of times, winter. Although I must say with global warming these days, it is a toss up to say whether I don’t like summer or winter more. I am a spring and fall man all the way.
There is an 80 percent chance of rain Wednesday in Middle Alabamaland, and I would like nothing more than to just sleep through it all.
Alas, we have made plans to go camping again this week for one more chance to get outside in nature before the leaves all fall off the trees and turn the landscape brown.
So I will suck it up, pack the van and get out into the woods one more time before putting the canoe up for the winter. The skies should be clear and the weather cool over the next few days.
Besides, there is some good news in the headlines.
The official launch of the Piedmont Plateau Birding Trail will be held Thursday, November 17 at 1 p.m. at Horseshoe Bend National Military Park in Daviston, Alabama, the site of where General Andrew Jackson’s army slaughtered 800 of Chief Menawa’s 1,000 Red Sticks (Creek) Indians in March, 1814.
There will be 34 mapped bird sites along the trail located along 3.5 million acres of Alabama’s great outdoors.
Invited speakers include representatives from the Alabama Tourism Department, Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs, Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Alabama Cooperative Extension System, Senators, State Representatives, local dignitaries and officials from Autauga, Chambers, Chilton, Clay, Coosa, Elmore, Lee, Randolph and Tallapoosa counties.
It is a ridiculously easy day trip from Birmingham and points to the northeast to visit Cheaha State Park, located at 2407 feet above sea level, Alabama’s highest point in the Appalachian Mountains.
The resort now has an arrowhead museum, which we feature in this video along with the view from the back deck at the restaurant.
It is called the Walter Farr Indian Artifacts Museum since the collection was donated by Walter Farr from Lineville. The grand opening was held on September 24, 2011.
Creek Indians named the place “Chaha,” meaning high place. Another native American name for it was “Sleeping Giant.”
This red-bellied woodpecker [melanerpes carolinus], close cousin to the northern flicker, also known as the yellow-hammer, the state bird of Alabama, stopped by for a meal atop a pine tree by our campsite Saturday afternoon in Cheaha State Park in the lower Campground No. 2 near Cheaha Lake.
During the Bush years, we specialized in covering the politicization of the U.S. justice system as much as any news organization. Our archives are about the most comprehensive for anyone researching the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, and the original case against Richard Scrushy, which Glynn Wilson covered for The New York Times.
