Dates: June 23 & 24, 2012 (note, I wrote this after
writing my first blog, TosohatcheeWildlife Mangement Area)
Introduction:
This was to be my first backpacking trip in a looooong
time. 5 years had past since I backpacked
in The Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Two of my brothers and a sister-in-law decided that they wanted to hike all
of the unpaved portions of the entire Florida Trail. It wasn’t a race, and they figured to do it
in 5 – 10 years. They had already done
several overnight trips as well as multiple day hikes.
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| Map of North Section |
The Trip:
1)
After dropping off one of the vehicles we headed
off to the northern starting point which is just south of the Hopskins Prairie
campsite in the Ocala National Forest. While
in travel to our destination, I casually mentioned that I had never seen a bear
on a camping or backpacking trip. Shawn
had bear spray just encase. After
leaving the main road and heading off onto the dirt road there it was….a
bear. He was running down the road in
front of us. We couldn’t believe
it. Pretty cool specially since we were
still in the truck!
2)
After arriving we went through the normal gear
check and setup. Of course, we pulled
out the bug repellant because that is what you do when you go backpacking in
Florida in the middle of the summer.
Now, this we knew wasn’t going to be a typical hot summer trip. The weather had been building up out in the Gulf
of Mexico to give us a nice little tropical storm. It was scheduled to hit us the same day as
the hike started. Interestingly, we all
look forward to something different: going for a long trip in the drenching,
puddle producing, driving rain. Now, I have
backpacked on several occasions in the rain but they were all up in the
mountains. Needless to say, this should
be a cake walk since it is “Florida flat” and not in the mountains. Off we went, into the woods.
3)
As we started to get going I had looked at the
soon to be dark sky and stated that the trail should be pretty clear of snakes
this trip. I figured no sun would mean
on of my biggest concerns on the trail would be eliminated. I had been on many trips and had only seen
one snake on the trail which happened to be the last on. Suddenly, my visions of clear paths ahead
was interrupted by Shawn stating something like “Snaaaaaaaaaaaaaaakkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkeeeeeee”. Okay, that probably didn’t happen. What I do know is that went through my head
when James almost stepped on one sunning himself directly on the trail. After catching our breath and stopping it
appeared to be venomous (yeah!) but not threatened by us (not sure if that is
good or bad). We slowly walked around the
snake to keep on our merry way.
4)
Not toooooo loooonnnnggggg (okay, I will stop
with the snake stuff) after our reptilian rendezvous (seriously, I’ll stop) we encountered something new for me,
again! I have heard many a story about
how buggy Florida is in the summer.
Sometimes people tell you how big a bug is (usually exaggerated 4 times
the actual size) or how many of them there were but, well, WOW! We hit an amazing amount of biting flies that
Deep Woods Off had NEVER been tested on!
Typically, when you go through something like that, they will linger for
a little, take a nibble, and let you go.
I am not sure if these guys were going along for a ride or there were
just that many of them. They had to have
been following us or spread out for a ½ mile or so. All I kept thinking was that they can’t bite
me if I keep walking….fast. Of course,
trying to walk fast, and clear the path of spider webs wasn’t a great
combination.
5)
As we wander along the trail something hits me…sun! It still wasn’t very cloudy yet but it was
hot, much hotter than we thought it was
going to be. We figure that it wouldn’t
be like that much longer because we could see the rain clouds of Tropical storm
Debby to the south of it. Soon we would
be out of the sun but in the rain. We
had talked briefly that if the rain was really bad we would just hunker down till
it blew through. Sometime during this portion,
Debi started having problems with overheating.
Shawn and her were dumping water over her head to cool her down. I can’t imagine what that was like being out
in the hot sun, not feeling good, and knowing that you had to keep pressing
forward. We ended up stopping for a
little break. As we talked I looked down
and saw a tick on my shin. No big deal
besides, Debi was able to pull it off pretty easily. With a little bit of a break, we continued
on.
6)
I refer to the terrain in Florida as “Florida
flat”. Obviously, we don’t have mountains
but we do have some small hills. When
walking, they seem to be bigger than they really are. When carrying a 40 pound pack, they seem even
bigger. But when you are hiking in the
summer Florida heat, with no shade, they can be a nuisance. Of course, the rain was close so soon we
would been cooled off by that but get a respite from the heat.
7)
Sure would be nice to get some rain because it
is hot down in this prairie!
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| Map of South Section |
8)
As we traveled, we found this hidden, little gem:
Hidden Pond. It looked like people came
to this location regularly because it had somewhat of a road to it. We stopped here for lunch and some respite
from the sun. The funny thing is that I wasn’t
very hungry because of the heat and I was looking at my water supply
dwindling. I had brought 6 liters of
water but left back two 32oz bottles of Poweraide. Something with flavor sounded real good at
this point so I added an electrolyte drink to one of my water bladders. Oh, I carry two 3 litter ladders with
drinking tubes so I can alternate between the two easily. As we left, we walked up a hill and could see
what we were waiting for….
9)
The dark clouds looked rather ominous. As we pressed on we all had a concern:
water. The rain would refresh us but, of
course, make everything wet. That was a
tradeoff we were more than willing to take.
It wasn’t the rain water that we were thinking about but drinking water that
we were mildly concerned with. We had all
left water/other fluids behind because we knew it wouldn’t be as hot as normal. As Shawn had later written: never sacrifice
water for weight. Smart words.
10)
We approached our next spot on the map: Whiskey
creek. This was where we could get our
water, after treating/filtering it first of course. This creek wasn’t that far from the cool water
that flowed from the Juniper Springs area.
We had canoed down that river in January as a surprise for James’ 40th
birthday. To me, Whiskey Creek lived up
to its name: undrinkable. It was
stagnant and nothing but a large puddle.
We didn’t even think about drinking that. We also knew that this location marked where
we needed to look for our overnight campsite.
11)
2/10ths of a mile from the “creek” was a large
grouping of pine trees that could have a possible location for camp. An area on the other side of the trees was
found that could be home for the night.
Shawn and Debi stopped to rest while James and I dropped our packs and
headed further down the trail. We were
looking to see if there was a better spot, and if there was a trail to the
nearby river. Neither were found so we
quickly doubled back. While James and I were
off, Shawn did some exploring and found where someone had left a fire pit and
made a makeshift bench. That is where we
were going to stay the night.
After clearing the area of small brush, we started to
hang up our hammocks. Yes, I said
hammocks. James had used his hammock
over the years and loved it. After one
night of sleeping on the ground, Shawn and Debi switched and swear by comfort
of sleeping off of the ground, cradled in a hammock while it rocks you to
sleep. I, too, brought my hammock. I didn’t have the money to purchase the right
equipment yet. I used one that I had for
a long time. It was small in packing
size, lightweight, and FREE. Thankfully,
Shawn had some mosquito netting for me.
I combined that with a rain fly from one of my tents and, viola!. I was
hammock camping too.
We started making dinner, and I was going to make
something new: Mexican
Style Chicken and Rice. As I waited
patiently for the water to boil I was asked what I was going to have for
dinner. I showed them the package and
the response was: spicy rice hmmm? I was
like, no, of course not, it is Mexican Style Chicken and Rice. After the 2nd spicy rice comment I
looked at the package, and much to my chagrin, it below the label “Spicy rice
and chicken seasoned with tomato, peppers, and olives”. Uh, oh!
It was already hot outside. I was
already dealing with the desert like conditions out there. And now, my parched self was going to eat
some fire breathing chicken and rice concoction? After waiting for the boiling water to rehydrate
it, I dipped my fork in and….yep it was hot!
Temperature hot that is! Okay, I had
to wait a minute for it too cool. And I did. The spicy temperature never did cool
down. As I ate it, I started to
sweat. Then I would have to drink some
water. Rinse. Repeat.
I was getting concerned that I was going to drink all of my water. I managed to finish it off and made a mental
note: eat spicy rice when it is cold outside.
After dinner the guys decided to be hunter/gathers
and went to gather some fire wood. It
had recent rained (not on us though!) and the wood around us wet. We were looking for wood up off of the
ground. We ended up going across Whiskey
creek to another wooded area and found one 6’x4” log . Slim pickens indeed. As we casually brought our find back, we
spotted a deer by the side of the trail.
Pretty cool. Once back at our
site, and after some work, they started the fire. It lasted for no more than 5 minutes and didn’t
get an bigger than 6” high. Not for a
lack of wood though but a lack of interest.
It was still pretty hot, spicy rice or not. There weren’t that many mosquitos yet so our
concerns turned to something more important: water.
Notice how I haven’t mentioned the rain yet? That is simply because there wasn’t any. Okay, we had gotten a couple of drops but, up
to this point, it was still dry. While
getting the firewood (since we didn’t burn it you could say it lasted all night
long) I noticed another campsite. It was
near the river and maybe, just maybe, there was a trail to the river. Off we went, the Three Stooges Amigos Hombres in the search of agua, err, water. We crossed, again, Whiskey Creek and went
back to the abandoned campsite. On the
other side, yes, a trail. We followed
that paralleling Whiskey Creek towards that cool water in the river. As the sun was taking its last moment to
shine, we found….nothing. The trail went
cold, and came to an end and so did our search for water. Now, we knew this may be a problem but also
knew that if water became a real problem, we could, would¸get to that water.
Back at camp, I came up with another idea: simply use
the rain water off of our canopies.
Surely it would rain a sufficient amount and we could fill up with no
problems. Long story short: no rain that
day!
One problem we had with our camp site was ticks. They were everywhere. The pine trees are a great habitat for
them. I ended up putting my poncho on
the ground and sitting/laying on that while around the “fire”. Shawn cleared out a spot to sit on and lean up against a tree. Unfortunately and unbenownst to him, that area was a chigger habitat.
Not long after dark, we hung up our food, and made
our way to our comfortable hammocks in the sky.
Okay, we were only a foot off of the ground but with the promise of
rain, we should stay pretty dry. I got
into my bed, made some adjustments and was looking at my arrangement. It was not nearly as nice as their hammocks
and….okay, it stunk. I was cramped, with no room at my shoulders. My camp pillow didn’t want to stay put. My feet were higher than my head, and I couldn’t
lay comfortably because this python like hammock was squeezing me for
everything I was worth. Then, there was
a mosquito buzzing around my head the entire night just waiting for me to make
a mistake so he could drain every bit of blood out of my body. The one thing that did go right was, no, not
rain, the mosquito netting. As a last
minute thing, Shawn was able to wrap it around and below me which kept that miniscule vampire from biting me. I didn’t get much sleep that night, if
any. I did get a lot of rest though and
that was nice.
As I laid there, I heard the most eventful thing of
the weekend. I am not sure what it was
but I do remember thinking “did I just really hear that…” “Shawn!
Shawn!” came from Debi’s hammock.
After calling for Shawn, Debi
must have scared whatever IT was away. I
thought it was a boar (shudders) but James, who heard it as well, thought it
may have been a male deer. Whatever it
was, we knew what we were going to call it: a booger.
As the dawn started to break, I got up and figured I’d
walk around a little. No use laying in a
cramped hammock, not getting an sleep.
Seriously, I must have dozed off sometime during the night..right? After James got up I decided to start getting
my gear together because it looked like rain (right!) and I didn’t want
everything to be all wet (right!) while hiking out. Breakfast was trail mix and an energy bar
chased down with a warm Pepsi Max.
And then it started.
As we headed out, the rain was a drizzle never a downpour. It was cool and refreshing with barely any
thunder/lightning. None of us bothered
to put on our raingear but we did cover our packs.
12)
As we continued south, we again ran into some
biting flies. Not nearly as bad as
before, but, again, I didn’t want to stop walking. Of course, a blister was making itself
known. I can’t remember if ti started
the day before but one of the problems with rain is feet stay wet.
13)
After sometime, and the rain misting at this
point, we came across some scrub jays.
They lived up to their reputation as being ornery. They followed us and squawked at us for a ¼ mile
or so. Later on, saw some vultures/buzzards. I guess we weren’t moving quickly enough for
them.
14)
We came across a couple that were day hiking
going north. It was still misting but
they didn’t seem to mind and neither did we.
15)
After crossing the border into Juniper Springs Recreation
Area it seemed like it took forever to get to our cars. We got there and were all soaking wet. Thankfully, the lack of sleep from the previous
night didn’t seem to affect me on the hike out.
My Lists – Thoughts and Ideas
Food (after a long, grueling day, I like to spoil myself at
dinner time):- Lunch: trail mix and Cliff bar. I had tuna and crackers in the kit but wasn’t hungry for it.
- Mexican Style Chicken and Rice – do I need to discuss this again? I wasn’t hungry, nor did I want to use my water, for my favorite desert on the trail Raspberry Crumble.
- Breakfast – energy bar and trail mix. I had the option of scrambled eggs (affectionately referred to as egg soup) but didn’t want the fuss since we were on our way out.
- Also had trail mix while trekking, Clif bars, and some hard candy
-
Spend some time cutting a trail to the river. I could probably stay there 2 nights in a
row.
-
Take a dip in that river!
-
Snake (pygmy rattlesnake)
-
Birds (vultures, scrub jays, bob white,
cardinal)
-
Crickets (there were a lot on the trail)
-
Deer
-
Vampire class (biting flies, ticks, mosquitos)
-
Backpackers: 0
-
Day Hikers: 2
-
Day 1: 6
-
Day 2: 6
-
Ice cream sandwich (one of the guys actually
bought me one at the snack bar in Juniper Springs)
Next time… (things I’d like to do differently)
-
Get a real hammock cheap guy!
-
During hot weather, I need something COLD to drink at dinner time.
-
Need something for the early bed times (these
old guys are killing me!). I need to
bring an mp3 player and a book.
Links:
Conclusion:
This was a fun first trip in a way too long while for me. The scenery was nice and changed enough to
keep my interest. I was content with my conditioning but there is always room
for improvement. I look forward to the
next one.
