We have hiked across the first part of Eglin AFB. Eglin used to be a State forest before it was reassigned to the military to use for munitions testion. We had to have a permit to hike across the base. Of course the thrail route stays away from any particularly sensitive areas, but we did have to sit through a video of how to identify unexploded munitions from bullets to bombs to missiles!
We found nothing unusual or unexploded, but did experience some new firsts for our FL Trail hike: First 17+ mile day (jointly anyway, I had had one longer last spring), first blue blaze high water route, and first headlamp hiking. The middle first was the reason for the other two. We set off knowing we had 15 miles to cover. The first couple of miles had lots of small streams that showed obvious signs of flooding due to the recent heavy rains, but were now merrily gurgling with crystal clear water and well within in their banks. There were several streams that were actually dry again, and very little standing water. When we reached the alternate high water route blue blazes we both agreed there seemed little cause to take it. Boy, were we ever wrong. A mile later, a slow, up and down the ravines and several blowdowns later, mile we came to the Alaqua Creek, a raging swollen torrent with an underwater plank bridge disappearing into the turmoil. Ther was no way we were crossing that! So we doubled back and took our first high water route of the hike, and adding 2 miles and more than an hour to our already long (for us) day.
Crossing the creek on the alternate road route we could see that the creek had indeed actually dropped from it’s former flood stage. It appears that even the road bridge was underwater within the past couple of days but the water had receded enough for us to continue dry, and most of all safe.
Joining back to the main trail we realized that we were now going to be short of time to complete the hike in daylight. There are very few options for bailing out of the Eglin base anyway, so we decided to continue, but pick up the pace a little to try to finish before dark. Of course, being in the forest, especially with somany creeks and swamps, there are always more photo opportunities, and we ultimately finished up the last mile or so of hiking by headlamp.
On the second day of hiking we still didn't spot any UXB's but did encounter an area of pungent smelling smoke. Afraid there was a fire we hurried to the next road crossing. On the way we heard heavy vehicles driving ahead which we assumed would be military fire trucks, but saw only civilian dump trucks. The smoke had cleared by then anyway, so we just hiked on.
But, did I mention it really was great to be back in the woods again?
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