TALLADEGA NATIONAL FOREST — My definition of outdoors consists of a backyard barbeque party masked in mosquito repellent.

I concede I know nothing about the birds, bees and trees.

Now, shopping… that’s a different story.

When I was assigned to hike the Talladega National Forest through the hilly Pinoti Trail, I thought, “‘Why do my editors wish to punish me?’”

I don’t even own a pair of Timberlands, a fashionable style of hiking boots. In fact, the only type of boots I own are laced in faux fur or resemble stilts with spiked heels.

So I borrowed everything for the trip: boots, socks and a water pack. I donned a Baby Phat scull cap with the matching scarf and layered on heaps of clothes — ready or not — I was going hiking.

Or at least I thought so.

Nick Cenegy, who has been on several hiking journeys, led the way. We started off on the wrong track and ended up in mess through thick briar patches that scratched my arms and pricked my legs. I had to duck high and low. Cynegy pulled out his knife to thrash the “sticker bushes,” as I once called the briars in my salad days.

As I pulled thorns out of my legs I thought, “‘If this is what hiking is, count me out. Where did we park?’”

We chose the wrong path — at least I thought I did. When we finally got on the right track, I plodded down the trail and crunched the brown leaves covering the trail.

Thirty minutes into the hike, I began to sweat. Cenegy, who had on jeans and a light jacket, said I had overdressed. If I didn’t peel off some of my clothes I would freeze when I stopped sweating, he said.

I reluctantly peeled off my new coat, which happened to be trimmed in fur.

As we went back to plodding up the trail, my mind swarmed with thoughts of bear sightings. I had recently written an article about local biologists who were conducting research to determine if black bears had found a new home in the forest or were just passing through. I also thought of wild boars, since one of my cohorts recently wrote about wild bacon running through the wilderness.

The only thing I looked forward to was the Quizno’s sandwich in my backpack we would later eat on a “blow down” across the trail.

Cenegy and I had intriguing conversations about past relationships, hobbies and life lessons.

Of course I conjured my theory of why I don’t fool with Mother Nature. From my cultural background as an African-American, I don’t think many of them participate in many events that involve the wild, at least among my group of family and friends. When I informed them of my hiking voyage, they simply asked, “Why?”

Mother Nature and I don’t get along. If I end up in the woods, it’s usually when I’m dreaming. I’m running and screaming, trying to find away out or wishing to awake from my nightmare.

Cenegy pondered my theory and agreed I might be on to something. He had never thought of a reason why that might be so.

In the midst our great conversation, I actually forgot I was hiking and we were 2.4 miles in. That was an invigorating feeling – to know I had conquered a tiny bit of my fear of being vulnerable in the woods. I couldn’t hide behind my coat or scarf anymore, it was just me and Mother Nature.

Next time, I will go a step further and camp overnight.

‘Even experienced hikers make wrong turns’

PINHOTI TRAIL – So, I was charged with the task of guiding Star reporter Crystal Jarvis back alive from the wilderness. No problem. “Don’t worry ma’am, I’ve done this before,” and all of that.

After all, I am the “experienced” hiker, spending many a day with my dog Lyle nosing around the woods near Mount Cheaha, or back home in East Texas.

Crystal is an outdoors novice, explaining to me she’d never had a pair of boots without a two or three-inch – possibly four-inch – heel.

The powers that be teamed us up to hike/climb the first section of the Pinhoti Trail. Beginning six miles north of Piedmont and lacing itself through the hills thirteen miles southwest to Terrapin Creek Watershed.

We drove 45 minutes from Anniston to the trailhead in my truck. She sat bundled in several coats in the passenger’s seat, masking her anxiety about the coming venture into the wilderness with conversation. I drove, and fidgeted with the radio trying to hide my anxiety about simply finding the place. Trailheads are often little more than dirt roads poking out from the woods and are notoriously difficult to find.

About the time the radio took the place of conversation, we wound our way around U.S. 278 and, to my relief, stumbled onto a well-marked trailhead parking area.

Now comes the easy part: Get on the trail, stay on the trail.

Half an hour later, as I repeatedly found myself wrapped in thorns and tangled in spidery briars, I did what any guide would do: turned it into a teaching experience. “Well… I mean… when you get all tangled up like this, it’s easiest to… wait, could you pass me that hiking stick?”

The trail guide we printed out beforehand says the first piece of our trail is overgrown and a little difficult to follow. I’ll say.

When we set off from the parking area, there was a fork in the trail almost immediately. We had taken the path on the right hand side. A series of red spray-painted dots confirmed my trail choice. But after 30 minutes of battling back an onslaught of pokey briars and branches, I realized my error. Like every elementary school teacher I ever had used to say, “Make sure to read the whole worksheet before you begin.”

Page two of our guide would have told us that the Pinhoti Trail’s “blazes,” or trail markers, are actually light blue rectangles about the size of a dollar bill. The red spray-painted dots I had been following must have marked a pipeline or buried treasure or something, just not our trail.

All was not lost. With a few surreptitious looks at my trusty compass and a valiant – and complaint-less – effort from my hiking comrade, we managed to win the day and find our way back to the fork.

For the record, the Pinhoti Trail requires no hacking of thorny vines, entanglement in spidery briars, etc. In point of fact, it is a pleasant, well-kept, and clearly marked trail. Just make sure to take a left at the fork.

Back on the right – left – track, we found a good pace. Our section weaved its way over ridges, in and out of hollows, and clung at times to mountain slopes. The changes in elevation must have been a challenge for a newcomer to the outdoors but you couldn’t tell with Crystal.

She agreed, however, that there is a direct correlation between overall enjoyment, and whether you are climbing or descending a hill. For some reason you feel like you can go on for miles when you’re walking down a mountain but on your way up, you feel that the world is against you.

There’s something about the privacy of the wilderness, though. You talk about things that people don’t talk about in the office or at home, but you realize maybe they should. Important things like cultures and people, and at the base of it, are we really all that different?

Why is it that some cultures seem to be born into the outdoors – revere it – and others just can’t see much personal value in it? And that has everything to do with the way each chooses to live their lives.

It could’ve been the endorphin release. After about two miles on our hike, I suddenly noticed myself grinning a little. I scanned the brittle landscape. Brown drab leaves piled like a crispy 1970s shag carpet. The trees that they used to adorn stood mute grey, naked and gawky. “How beautiful it is here,” I said, and I meant it.

In that regard, the feeling you get is a little like a drug. It’s the moral equivalent of a “runner’s high” – just far less painful than jogging. By the time we returned to the fork at the beginning of the trail, life was good, simple.

Chalk it up to the endorphins, a hiker’s high, but it’s better than any therapist’s couch could ever be. Whether lost in thought or conversation, or physically lost and tangled in punishing briars, you’re almost forced to connect with those around you.

The section of the Pinhoti we hiked has no single tourist attraction. There is no giant cascading waterfall, no Indian village ruins, no gimmicks. It does its job, however, as any good trail does. It reminds us that we are only human and that we can pick our paths but even experienced hikers make wrong turns.