Bikepacking home from Jacksonville. Did the Cheaha Challenge Ultra the day before and once again this year planned to do a bikepacking trip afterward in the days following. This time I decided to take the first couple of days more mellow because I knew i'd be really tired. This day went pretty well, I left a bit late so was riding in the heat more than I wanted to but I needed the sleep after the race. Got to the Talladega national forest from Anniston via the Coldwater Mountain bike trails and I wanted to do more but didn't really have the energy. I have no idea why I routed myself up Stebbins ave instead of going to the Anniston trailhead.... I can't fathom a reason. It doesn't seem to avoid any busy streets and the only reason I can think I did it is maybe it's shorter? In any case it was a terrible idea cause the it was a super steep powerline cut that in places was practically scree, and difficult to even hike a bike. Lesson learned there. After the trails I bought some bottled water from a gas station, something I never do, but I have read so much about pollution in Anniston and it just seemed like a bad idea to filter water from a creek originating in the town. After that I winded my way through quiet country roads till i turned onto the road that was supposed to take me to the national forest land. Only it was gated with no tresspassing signs right after the last house. I really didn't want to find an alternate since that meant many, many more miles and confusion and I didn't have the energy for that so I proceeded with caution and followed an old but passable roadbed to another gate, this one looked more like a NF one, and was on a well travelled and maintained gravel road. I used an app I found called Avenza maps which uses your phone's gps location along with normal pdf maps(such as those from the forest service), to determine when i was on public land or not to eliminate confusion(there were no marked trees that I saw, where I was). As soon as I found a decent place I plopped my tent down and retired for the evening.