Backpacker Magazine – November 2012

Top 3: Ghostly Hikes

Test your courage—and your quads—this Halloween on one of these spooky cemetery trails.

by: Sarah L. Stewart

Tags:
• New Mexico
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• Arkansas
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• Mississippi
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• Top3
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• Destinations
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Vicksburg NMP, MS
Al Scheller Hiking Trail   
Trek through a Civil War cemetery.

If lost souls are doomed to eternal wandering, you’ll find a crowd in Vicksburg National Cemetery: Of the 17,000 Union soldiers interred here, most are unidentified, their bodies buried where they fell in battle, then exhumed and transferred here. Snag a free trail guide for this 12.5-mile loop, and follow orange and white blazes across former battle lines to stirring monuments like the Missouri State Memorial (mile 2.5), where opposing regiments from the same state battled one another. At mile five, enter the 116-acre cemetery and wander its rows of weathered headstones on a hill 200 feet above the Mississippi. Continue 7.5 miles over hardwood-forested ridges to a half-dozen more memorials and the Confederate surrender site (mile 11). (601-636-0583, nps.gov/vick) Trip ID 1877297

The way From Jackson, take I-20 west 39 miles to exit 4B. Follow Clay Street .8 mile west; turn right onto the park road to the trailhead next to the visitor center.

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