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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