Merry Christmas

What a great Christmas Day.

It started off in bed in a small cabin at the Suwannee Valley Campground. Ian brought me my coffee in bed (as all good cabana boys should!) and a bag of charcoal, which I assume was the closest to coal he could find, and receiving the entire bag means I must have been real bad this year. Santa, I can explain!

We did hike today, but just a short stroll today along the banks of the Suwannee and back into the campground where we are staying.

Ian earned his Sherpa patch today. I had decided to carry only my santa hat, water bottle and camera as it was such a short hike. Ian wants to carry his pack the whole way, so he carried the thermos of coffee, sodas and snacks. What a guy.

After the hike we fired up the bag of charcoal and threw a couple of juicy steaks, mushrooms and brussel sprouts on the grill. Desert was microwaved english Christmas Pudding and custard. It was all delicious, and rounded off a great Christmas day.

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Osceola

Want to know what happens to thin blooded Florida hikers when the weather turns cold?

We freeze! We set out all geared up like ninjas. You'd have thought it was an arctic expedition. We both swore we were over reacting and we’d be hot shortly, but we still had most of it on at the end of each day!

We're back in the woods on twisty, turning, uneven, but very well blazed, and recently maintained trail. It's hunting season and we've spent the last few days hiking through State land and private hunting areas. We heard a couple of shots early, but not seen too many hunters, and fortunately no close encounters. We felt safe enough with our orange coverage and the lack of visible hunters. The biggest concern was when emerging from the tree line next to an automated corn feeder, or onto a road that had been seeded with corn. Usually there was a hunter’s stand in line of sight, and each time this occurred we were cautious until we could confirm the stand was empty. That really doesn’t seem like a very sporting way to catch a deer, but I guess it saves having to walk to far in pursuit of your prey.

Ironically, the place we felt safest hiking was through the Olustee State Battlefield. I was here earlier in the year for the Olustee Battle reenactment. It looks a lot different here withouit thousands of people dressed in period costume.

We've been hiking through pine trees and palmettos as far as the eye could see. It was cold, windy, damp and misty. All at once sometimes. We did have some sunny and clear, but it was still cold. The trail was good, but had a couple of areas of blowdown debris and a boardwalk that had been smashed up by falling trees. At one point we passed through a hunt camp where some oblivious hunter had literally set his camper and tent extension right over the trail. Thankfully no-one was home.

We passed a couple of trail shelters on this section, one open sided one in the Osceola Forest, and the Randy Madison shelter, a private shelter for FT members doing long hikes. It is a great little screened shelter situated by a small stream, with a wood stove, plenty of chairs including a rocking chair, covered porch, fire ring. A great little location. If we had been backpacking we would definitely been tempted to stay even so early in the day. As it was we ate lunch and moved on. As we left the property we heard an unknown and unseen female voice wishing us Merry Christmas.

This afternoon we reached the banks of the Suwannee River. I had hiked this small section earlier this year, so it was familiar territory. I was surprised to see that the river actually seemed higher than last spring, however several side streams were now dry, and there was a substantial amount of wind damage, trees down, etc that I did not recall. We ended the day at Little Shoals where the Suwannee runs over a small rapid.

We decided to treat ourselves with with somewhere that is not a tent, preferably with indoor running water in a nice warm bathroom, to stay for Christmas. We're in a cabin at the Suwannee Vally campground. My Christmas present to Ian is giving up the full size bed to him, I'm in the top bunk of a set. We've got a heater, small bathroom, fridge and microwave. I've had a hot shower, and I'm settled down with a cold beer and popcorn, warm and cosy, and with a wifi connection! How much better could Christmas Eve get?

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Palatka - Lake Butler State Trail

The past couple of days have been cool and sunny. Great weather for hiking. However the nights have been cold. We wimped out on the camping for a couple of nights: first one night Deb Blick (from the Florida Trail Association offered to put us up for the night in her spare room, then the next night we wimped out again and ended up in a motel room in Starke. We're back in the tents at Ocean pond now though. Continuing to camp through the winter is going to be a challenge, heat in the morning and a hot shower at night make a massive difference to the day.

We started this section from Gold Head Branch, and after a brief walk through Camp Blanding and some private hunting land for the remainder of the morning. After that we deviated from our maps. The remainder of the mapped walk from Camp Blanding to Lake Butler is a road walk connector. The other night at Debs, she had mentionned that the Florida Trail would shortly be moved off the road and onto the Palatka to State Butler State Trail. This is an old rail bed that the Florida Trail has just received permission to route the Trail along. It has not yet been blazed, but will be soon. Deb told us that it had been recently mowed and was ready for hiking. We would be the first hikers to use it. We couldn’t pass that up, so armed with directions on how to hook up to the start point, we set out. It is a great addition to the trail that moves 25 miles or so of trail off the road. Yeah!!!!

The trail was mainly maintained, but there are a couple of rough patches, and a couple of old railroad bridges that might need a foottread to add a bit of confidence crossing them, but were passable. We just loved being off the road. We saw more wildlife than we would have hiking the road: a herd of about 20 wild hogs, several bobcats, small black snake, chicken, wildflowers, etc. Much nicer than cars!

At the town of Hampton there were a couple of areas of rough trail, but we battled on through and were soon on the long straight well maintained grassy old railbed that we had come to expect. At the end of that day's hike we returned to the start car at the Hampton ball park to find a business card on the windshield from the local police officer saying how he wanted us to know that he’d been watching our cars for the last couple of days (the other car was parked in the same spot yesterday, and both have FL Trail stickers in the rear window) and that they were happy to have us here. How is that for a welcome message for the new trail!

On the final day of hiking we came to the old trestle bridge at New River. We had been warned that this bridge was out and we would have to descend into the river bed and ford the river. Before starting out this morning we had made a scouting trip to the next road bridge upstream of this point to see how much water was flowing and whether it would be feasible to try to cross. It looked low, so we decided to chance crossing it. As we approached the river I spotted something running or hopping by the bridge. At first I assumed it was a large jack rabbit, but as we approached Ian realized it was a Bobcat. It could cross onto the bridge easier than we could, and it took refuge on one of the bridge pilings and watched us warily while we tried to get close enough for photos. Eventually I made my way down the embankment to the river bed, hoping that it would make the cat move into Ian’s view, but suddenly it just disappeared as stealthily as you would expect of a cat. Down at the river we finally decided it was shallow enough to wade across. It wasn’t too cold or deep, and there was a nice solid sandy bottom with no slimy mud. Continuing down the trail were two additional washed out bridges over creeks much smaller than the New River, and both were easily navigated without getting wet.

Around lunchtime today we passed through Lake Butler and joined up with the original FL Trail leaving us just a half mile road walk before turning north and heading into the Lake Butler Forest. It was nice to be back in the woods, but we had both enjoyed the long straight rail trail walk, and especially the 30 mile road walk it had saved us.

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Finishing up the Western Corridor Roadwalks

What a difference a couple of days can make. Last week we were seeking shade and breeze for breaks. Now, a rainy front a couple of days ago has left breezy and much cooler conditions that we have experienced the past few weeks. The next couple of days are supposed to be even colder!

Still, there's hiking to be done, so I just concentrated on getting into the sunny spots and out of the breeze.


The past couple of days I have been hiking alone again. My hiking partner Ian decided some time ago not to hike the Western Corridor, while I chose to hike most of it in short day hike and weekend chunks as it is close to my home. I have completed the entire 222 miles of the Western with the exception of a couple of short road walks connecting the weekend hikes. Ian needed a couple of days off to get some chores done, so I figured it was time to complete the Western connections. I'm shuttling myself using my car and bicycle, so though the hikes aren't particularly strenuous, adding the shuttling in adds some complexity.

First of the three connecting sections was the northernmost section of the Withlacoochee State bicycle trail, through Dunellon, crossing the Withlacoochee and Rainbow rivers, then out alongside the busy highway for the final 5 miles to Pruitt. Later the same day I also connected a tiny couple of miles from Hog Island to the south end of the Withlacoochee State trail.

The hike for the final day started at Richloam Fire Tower, then after only a mile in the woods, followed busy roadsides before turning onto a quieter country road for the last few miles into River Junction. The only things worthy of the camera today were the Little Withlacoochee River and a rather garish Christmas display where I stopped for lunch.

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Rodman to Gold Head Branch

We’re back on the trail again after a week or so break for F-Troop (FL Trail’s maintenance program) for me, and for Ian some time to catchup the section of the Eastern Corridor he needed to complete it.

We started this section at the north End of the Ocala Natioanl Forest at Rocman Campground. This is rather significant for us, because the 50 miles of Ocala up to Rodman was the first backpack that Ian and I completed together, about a year and a half ago. It seems like forever, but we remember back then saying that we both had the desire to hike the entire Florida Trail, and that we doubted we'd ever find anyone who would both have the desire and the time to do so. And now here we are, in a concerted effort to complete the remainder of the trail together before the Spring. We are far enough north now to make daily shuttling from Orlando totally impractical, so have started our first road trip. The intention is to make our way north and west from campground to campground, hopefully staying 3 – 5 days from each and dayhiking as we have been, but based from the tents. Today everything went fairly smoothly. We were both fairly organized and got going at a reasonable time, assisted by the very mild weather we have been having. It was in the mid 60s this morning, and will likely remain warm and dry until the weekend. Of course, mild nights means hot days. It was a sticky mid 80s at the warmest part of the day. Fortunately we were on shaded forest roads and in dense forest for most of the hike.

From Rodman it's a short hike up along the embankment of the canal to Buckman Lock from Rodman. The lock-keeper opened the gate for us, and we talked with him for a while. Then it was back in the woods again to Rice Creek Sanctuary where we saw a good size alligator by the creek, and a family of 5 wild hogs, including one white baby hog. That is the first time I have seen the hogs up close. They passed within 20 feet of me, and were not concerned at all by our presence.

The next morning started out with some strange fungus that looked ice rimmed. At 70 degrees, of course it wasn’t, but it served as a great reminder to us how lucky we are to be hiking in shirt sleeves in the middle of December. I scared up a flock of about 40 turkeys somewhere in the middle of Booger Woods. I’m sure they will be thinned out by the end of the hunting season if they continue to hang out in this private hunting area.

Back out on roads again, but this time sandy back roads which, after a couple of hours, we had had enough of the great glute workout! The roads took us into Etonia Creek State Park. We stopped for a break at a bench overlooking the ravine the creek has carved. We have not seen anything like this so far in our FL Trail travels. The ravine is quite deep and contains many different types of trees we don’t see much in Florida, very tall skinny magnolias and tulip poplars. The entire trail through this State park was very well maintained, with great blazing, signage and bridges, and the Iron bridge shelter, neat and clean, and complete with two chairs to relax in in addition to the picnic table. It would definitely have been worth a stop for the night if the car was not just 2 miles away.

About a mile into the final hike of this section, Ian commented how some unseen dogs had picked up his scent and were really barking behind us. We both assumed it was hunters and continued hiking. A couple of miles later, we had just sat down for a break when we heard the dogs again, much louder this time, and the staccato noise of a voice over a radio. Imagine our surprise when we were surrounded a few minutes later by a team of Dept of Corrections officers and K9 tracker dogs. They were on a practice ‘escapee roundup’ and had caught our scent and tracks, and had been following us! One of the officers asked if we had just come down the trail, then asked to see our boots. Seeing the tread on Ian’s boots he exclaimed that no wonder the dogs had picked up our scent instead of their intended target, as they had spent all afternoon yesterday tracking us too! They didn’t seem too upset, or happy either, but quickly radio’d in that it was a false track. Within minutes a vehicle arrived to transport them, and they disappeared to restart back where the dogs had first picked up our trail.

It was a little bit of unanticipated excitement for us anyway. It must have been a dog day for us today. Twice more during the hike we passed homes where dogs followed us outside their yards and onto the trail. Neither was particularly bothersome except for the worry that we were leading them away from their homes and along roads.

After a hot roadwalk we finally arrived at Gold Head State Park in the mid afternoon. The park buildings were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1920s. The remainder of the afternoon’s hike took us alongside the ravine of the stream the park is named for: a gorgeous, crystal clear, bubbling spring fed stream.

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Prairie Lakes F-Troop

Spent the last five days on the Florida Trail at Prairie Lakes with the F-Troop crew building a 505 foot boardwalk over a Cypress Swamp that often required hikers to take a high water reroute. Florida is very dry right now but there was still water in this area.

I spent the majority of the week standing in knee deep water with an extension cord over my shoulder and an electric drillin hand. I was very careful to keep the cord strung up in the trees above water level!

After the baordwalk was finished we built a couple of benches for the platform.

Hot, wet, and dirty! Just the way we like F-Troop.

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Paynes Prairie

We took a weekend off hiking the Florida Trail to go hiking!

I know it seems weird, but a group of friends always does an annual Ranger led trip into Paynes Prairie. It's a very short hike in, about 4 miles, then an afternoon free to wander the Prairie. In the past we've seen wild horses, and there are also buffalo there, and the sunsets are pretty. We always take extravagant food in as it's such a short hike, and the good food and adult beverages flow pretty freely.

It was, as always, a nice laid back weekend.