Green Swamp East

This is an impromptu day hike, and I'm joined by frind Deb who is staying a couple of days. She's not usually a hiker, but has agreed to come out for a short walk, so I Looked up the closest trail section of about 10 miles with a parking lot at each end. We shuttled a car to the SR471 parking lot and set out from the Green Swamp East trailhead.

The trail was a mixture of Cypress swamp, oak and pine forest, and crossed the Withlacoochee river several times. There were several sections of forest road walks. The weather was clear with a light breeze, and temps in the 80's. A couple of places were a little too sun exposed in the middle of the day, but for the most part the trail was nicely shaded.

After abot 3 miles we came across some trail signage where a loop trail joined the main trail. It listed the mileage for the thru trail as 10.8 miles. Exactly whatI had planned for the day, except we'd already walked almost 3 - ooops! We discussed just taking the loop trail then doubling back to the car, but Deb decided she was up to the full, now 14 mile hike, so we continued on, but just agreed to slow the pace a little and take a couple of nice long breaks in the shade as the heat increased.

We passed through several areas that had recently burned, but the new green regrowth of grass and Palmetto shows how quickly the forest begins to recover. We ended up taking several short water and snack breaks and two long lay down - shoes off breaks, including an hour long lunch and nap break. We ran short of water in the afternoon, so stopped at a flowing creek to collect and treat water. I actually managed to catch a small fish in my water bottle. I can't even imagine I'd have been able to do that if I'd been trying to catch a fish! We rescued him from the bottle before adding the iodine. I don't think Deb fancied having him swimming around in her water bottle anyway!

Late in the afternoon we crossed the Withlacoochee River once again at a road bridge. The worst of the day's heat had already passed, but the water still looked cool and inviting. We investigated the river bottom and found it was cool soft moss and firm sand, with no slimy mud. We could not resist the opportunity to strip down and enjoy a refreshing soak. We both wished we had been here for our lunchtime nap, but it was a great rest stop any time of day.
At the end of the day, after a wonderful day's hiking, albeit about 4 miles longer than expected, we reached the road, and the southbound register. We flipped open the lid, and found squatters have moved themselves into this nice cosy steel home!

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Hog Island

So my idea of a contiguous NOBO section hike obviously isn’t going to work. Having completed the first 7 or so miles of Big Cypress, the next section is a 3 day backpack trip with no accessible roads to split it up. I could take the time off an do it over a long weekend, but I can’t find anyone to go with me. The Rangers at Big Cypress are strongly advising against going solo. So to continue with my Florida Trail section hike I’ve picked out a couple of day/weekend segments close to home. I’ll just have to wait to finish Big Cypress. This weekend I’m hiking again with Mindy, who came on the Loop Road hike.

We started out the day at Hog Island campground, where we secured a camp site for the night, and left one vehicle, then drove to At River Junction where we left the second vehicle. After a brief false start we realized we had not actually seen an orange blaze since we left the car, and we doubled back and took the correct left turn (the one on the left!), actually headed down the correct sand road to River Junction and the start of the Croom Trail.

From the trailhead the trail skirts several small Cypress swamps. We really enjoyed the clear still water, with the sunshine flooding through the new spring green of the trees. Eventually the trail wound its way to the Withlacoochee River, back to the swamps, and then oak forest.

We saw plenty of wildlife throughout the day, from deer in the campgrounds, to birds, butterflies, a very fast black snake, and the little turtle. The butterfly would only allow me within a couple of feet, then would fly about 20 feet down the trail, let me within a couple of feet and fly 20 feet further. This went on for long enough that we thought it was hiking the trail with us! Eventually he flew off into the forest without us.

The last 1/4 mile of or so of the trail was through a pine forest, and we were home at our campsite for the night, complete with a campfire and steak dinner.

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