Agency-listedADCNRFree

Indian Mountain Tract camping area (Forever Wild, Pinhoti Trail)

Drive-up · Alabama Dept. of Conservation & Natural Resources · AL · 34.03082, -85.42299
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Alabama Dept. of Conservation & Natural Resources lists this site. Someone from the agency inventoried it, so it is a real camp — not a spot we guessed at. What changes is conditions — roads, gates, closures, fire rules. Check those with the unit before you commit to the drive.
USGS topo — contours & terrain
USGS topographic map of Indian Mountain Tract camping area (Forever Wild, Pinhoti Trail)
Aerial — USGS / NAIP
Aerial image of Indian Mountain Tract camping area (Forever Wild, Pinhoti Trail)
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Weather outlook — at Indian Mountain Tract camping area (Forever Wild, Pinhoti Trail)
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Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 1,859 ft.
Fire & smoke — around Indian Mountain Tract camping area (Forever Wild, Pinhoti Trail)NIFC · AirNow
Checking active fires & air quality…
Active wildfires from NIFC (within ~50 mi); air quality from AirNow. Always confirm current fire restrictions with the managing office before you go.

Everything you need — measured from Indian Mountain Tract camping area (Forever Wild, Pinhoti Trail) · Alabama Dept. of Conservation & Natural Resources · AL

▲ your camp. Rings are 15, 30 and 60 straight-line miles; bearings are approximate and roads run longer.
Nearest of each
  • @Mail6 mi
  • FFuel8 mi
  • GGrocery8 mi
  • EVEV fast charger10 mi
  • RxPharmacy10 mi
  • LLaundry10 mi
  • +Urgent care10 mi
  • HHardware11 mi
  • WWater18 mi
  • MMechanic21 mi
  • ShShower29 mi
  • PPropane33 mi
  • OOutfitter34 mi
  • AAir-up40 mi
  • DDump42 mi
≤30 mi30–4545+water

The read: water's a short hop out, fuel & food sit about 8 mi out.

One dot per need — the nearest of each kind, straight-line from camp. Places from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors); the EV fast charger from the US DOE station locator. Open in Google Maps ↗

The site — Indian Mountain Tract camping area (Forever Wild, Pinhoti Trail)

Access
Drive-up
Land
Alabama Dept. of Conservation & Natural Resources
Elevation
1,859 ft
Ground slope
20.2% · steep
Nearest rail line
~9.9 mi · main line
State
AL
Coordinates
34.03082, -85.42299
Cost
Free

Nearby & resupply — around Indian Mountain Tract camping area (Forever Wild, Pinhoti Trail) · Alabama Dept. of Conservation & Natural Resources · AL (OpenStreetMap)

  • Water featureIndian Branch · ~0.2 mi · USGS: intermittent stream
  • Nearest townCave Spring · ~7.2 mi
  • Nearest rail line~9.9 mi · main line
  • Nearest highwayno interstate or US route within 10 mi
  • Drinking waternone within 10 mi
  • FuelFuel · ~7.9 mi
  • Propane / LPGnone within 31 mi
  • GroceriesGrocery · ~7.9 mi
  • PharmacyCVS Pharmacy · ~9.8 mi
  • Hospital / clinicamedysis · ~10.5 mi
  • HardwareThe Home Depot · ~11.0 mi

EV charging — from Indian Mountain Tract camping area (Forever Wild, Pinhoti Trail) · Alabama Dept. of Conservation & Natural Resources · AL — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)

Nearby restrooms — around Indian Mountain Tract camping area (Forever Wild, Pinhoti Trail) · Alabama Dept. of Conservation & Natural Resources · AL — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)

Coming out here — Indian Mountain Tract camping area (Forever Wild, Pinhoti Trail) · Alabama Dept. of Conservation & Natural Resources · AL

Open Indian Mountain Tract camping area (Forever Wild, Pinhoti Trail) elsewhere

Other camps near Indian Mountain Tract camping area (Forever Wild, Pinhoti Trail)

If this one is full, gated or washed out.

Who holds the land at Indian Mountain Tract camping area (Forever Wild, Pinhoti Trail)

USGS’s Protected Areas Database (PAD-US 4.1, queried 2026-09-23) lists the ground at this pin as Indian Mountain Complex, manager on record: Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (state). That names who holds the land — it is not a statement that camping is permitted here.

How we know this — Indian Mountain Tract camping area (Forever Wild, Pinhoti Trail)

Stay limit
9 nights (camp for a period not to exceed nine (9) days in any thirty (30) day period)
Source
public land records
Confidence
Likely — The record is good enough to put a pin on, but thin in places. Treat the details as a starting point, not gospel.
How it was placed
Alabama Forever Wild Land Trust, Indian Mountain Tract, Cherokee County. SOURCE: alabamaforeverwild.com/indian-mountain read 2026-08-16: "Purchased in partnership with The Conservation Fund, the three tract acquisitions that make up Indian Mountain cover 1,114 acres of mountainous upland hardwood forest land in Cherokee County. Within the Indian Mountain Tract, the Pinhoti Trail of the Talladega National Forest connects with the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail in Georgia. Recreational opportunities abound in this picturesque locale, including hiking, camping, hunting and wildlife observation." FEE CAVEAT: that page lists camping as a permitted activity but says NOTHING about a fee, and there is no ADCNR camping fee published for Forever Wild tracts. fee=0 is an inference from the absence of a published fee plus the explicit 'no fee' wording ADCNR uses on its comparable Coosa and Walls of Jericho tracts -- it is NOT a 'this is free' sentence about Indian Mountain. CONFIRM BEFORE PUBLISHING. ADCNR publishes no facility list, so whether there is a table, ring or toilet is UNKNOWN. NO WATER IS CLAIMED. Access note: the tract's public parking lot is off Cherokee County Rd 793 per ADCNR's directions; we do NOT know whether you can drive to this point, so camp_type is left blank rather than guessed. COORDINATE PROVENANCE: this point is ADCNR's own GIS -- the public ArcGIS service https://conservationgis.alabama.gov/adcnrweb/rest/services/Activities/MapServer/0, layer name 'Camping', queried 2026-08-16 (13 points statewide). It is the agency's mapped camping symbol -- the same symbol that appears in the 'Camping Area' legend on ADCNR's WMA permit maps -- NOT a field visit and NOT a geocode. ADCNR publishes no per-site facility list for these points, so table / fire ring / toilet presence is UNKNOWN and no water source is claimed. Eight of the thirteen points carry no Name attribute at all; the name on this row is OURS, built from the Forever Wild tract and WMA polygons the point falls inside (ForeverWildTracts/MapServer/0 and WildlifeManagementAreas/MapServer/0, same service, same day). It is not a sign on the ground. STATEWIDE WMA CAMPING RULE, quoted verbatim from an ADCNR/Forever Wild permit map PDF (Forever Wild Land Trust, Sipsey River Complex South Zone permit map, downloaded from alabamaforeverwild.com and read 2026-08-16): "To camp except in designated areas. Campers using generators must camp in an area designated for generator use. Individuals or groups may camp for a period not to exceed nine (9) days in any thirty (30) day period. Campfires must be extinguished before departing. No warming fires shall be permitted away from camping area." Those clauses sit in the list of PROHIBITED acts, so read them as: camping is legal ONLY in designated areas, and the ceiling is 9 days in any 30. The same document also bans open alcoholic beverages outside a designated camping area, and bans hunting or discharging a firearm/bow within 150 yards of any designated camping area. Nearest town: Spring Garden ~8.5 mi -- STRAIGHT-LINE distance to the nearest OpenStreetMap place=city/town/village, NOT a driving distance; in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta and on the Cumberland Plateau the way in is far longer. Ingest 2026-08-16. | auto:agency-trust 2026-08-18: state agency GIS record with a source URL and coordinates, confidence not low. Fee value is the agency's own, not field-checked. Not field-verified -- confirm access, road conditions and fire rules before you go.
EV chargers
US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center station locator, snapshot 2026-09-16. Straight-line miles to the nearest public, open, unrestricted station; restricted and planned units are shown but never counted.
Field check
On the agency's books. The land manager inventoried this site, so its existence is not in question — current conditions are. Nobody from here has camped it recently.

What we don’t know about Indian Mountain Tract camping area (Forever Wild, Pinhoti Trail)

A land record can put you within a few meters of a spot. It cannot tell you any of this — so check it yourself, and treat anything below as the open question it is.

Before you go — Indian Mountain Tract camping area (Forever Wild, Pinhoti Trail)

Is this page wrong about Indian Mountain Tract camping area (Forever Wild, Pinhoti Trail)?

This page was built from a public land record, not from a visit. If you have actually pulled in here and it does not match, that is worth more than anything we can read off a map. Tell Dave what is off — it goes to him, not onto the page.

What did you find? Tick anything that fits.

A reader report is not a fact, and this one will not change a word of this page by itself. Dave reads it and checks it against the agency’s own record, because that record is what this site says. If reader reports are ever shown here they are labelled “reader report, unverified” with the date, and they are never merged into the agency fields.