Sand in the Coffee, Vol. 119: the backcountry trail, and the twenty-eight miles behind the condos
Twenty-eight miles, and then some. That’s how much paved trail runs through the pine woods, swamps and live-oak ridges behind Orange Beach and Gulf Shores, all of it flat, all of it free, open to anybody with sneakers or a bike. The alligators come at no extra charge.
Most people who spend a week in Orange Beach never see a foot of it. It sits a few turns back from the beach road, behind the condos, in the one direction nobody on vacation thinks to look.
It’s the Hugh S. Branyon Backcountry Trail, which everybody here shortens to the Backcountry Trail, and it threads through Gulf State Park and the woods between the two towns. From the Key, cross the state line and the Pass and you’re at a trailhead before the car’s air conditioning has made up its mind.
why now
In July, a paved trail through a swamp at noon is a sauna with a bike lane. October is a different animal. Behind each fall front the humidity finally lets go, and the first couple of hours after sunrise are about as good as outdoor air gets on this coast. You can ride at ten in the morning and come back merely warm, which in July would have cost you a shirt.
It’s also the best answer this coast has to a red-flag day. When the Gulf is flying red, or double red, which means the water is closed, the trail is under trees and doesn’t care what the surf is doing. Check the flags at /beach-today/ before you load the car. If the Gulf is off-limits, the trail isn’t.
where to start
The main trailheads are off AL-161 and Canal Road in Orange Beach, with more access points inside Gulf State Park. There are trail maps on the kiosks. Take a picture of one with your phone before you set off. The system is a web of connected, named segments, and it’s very easy to end up on a different one than you meant to, cheerfully, for forty minutes.
pick it by the clock, not the miles
Nobody needs all twenty-eight. Plan an out-and-back by time. A relaxed pace on a rental cruiser covers somewhere around eight to ten miles in an hour; on foot, call it three. Decide how long you want to be out, and turn around at half. Every fall somebody rides out for an hour on a cruiser seat and learns, at the far end, that there is also an hour back.
If you didn’t bring bikes, rentals are easy to find on both sides of the line, by the day. Ask what time they’re due back before you plan the long loop. And because it’s flat and paved, it’s one of the few outdoor things down here that a kid on a small bike and a grandparent on a cruiser can actually do together. Most of our outdoors is sand, and sand has never once let a bicycle win.
what to bring
Water, more than seems reasonable. It’s a trail, not a food court.
Bug spray. Parts of it are swamp. The swamp parts are the best parts, and the mosquitoes agree.
Sunscreen. Some stretches are shaded and some are open marsh with nothing between you and the sky.
The words “on your left,” said early and pleasantly, not when you’re already halfway past somebody’s grandmother. Walkers keep right, riders pass on the left and slow down doing it, and if you stop for a photo, step off to the side.
the wildlife isn’t decorative
Deer early in the morning, wading birds working the marsh, and alligators, which are the reason the first rule is to stay on the pavement. Two of the segments are named Rattlesnake Ridge and Coyote Crossing, which is the trail being honest with you. Never feed a gator, never get between one and the water, and give any gator lying beside the trail far more room than your curiosity thinks it needs. Your phone has a zoom. That’s what it’s for.
Keep a dog on a short leash anywhere near the marshes. And a bonus for dog owners: dogs aren’t allowed on the Gulf-front sand in Orange Beach, but inside Gulf State Park there’s the Dog Pond at Lake Shelby, where a dog can get properly wet without anybody writing a ticket.
the october morning, start to finish
Here’s the one I’d hand a visitor. Look at the flags with breakfast. If the Gulf is flying red, load the bikes, cross the Pass and be rolling by eight. Turn around at half your time. You’ll be back in Orange Beach for an early lunch with the whole afternoon still open, and if the cam at /live-cam/ shows the surf laying down by then, the beach is right where you left it. It’s very patient that way.
— Chris
P.S. If you rent the bikes, pour the post-ride beer or run anything else on the Key or in Orange Beach, and it’s on this site, it’s yours to claim, free, always: /submit/claim/
