Triple N and Bull Creek

I actually only had 2 ½ miles to hike today but ended up hiking 12 ½. A couple of weekends ago when I backpacked the Three Lakes to Bull Creek section with Grant we opted to hike the shorter white trail back to the car on our final day. Last week Ian and I had hiked the longer orange blazed trail, but had not been able to get as close to the Forever Florida fence (where the orange and white trails connect) as I anticipated. So that left me a 2 ½ mile hike to connect the two. Today Ian started his make up hike of the 40 or so miles I have hiked but he missed. We hatched a plan to drop him about 12 miles down trail, ending with the same fenceline to car miles that I need to hike. While he hiked through, rather than just sit in the car and read/snooze I decided to hike the Florida Trail loop hike in the nearby Triple N Ranch WMA.

The loop hike is a great little hike through flatland scrub and along the banks of Crabgrass Creek. The entire loop is well blazed, grass sections were recently mowed, and some recent maintenance done on the center part of the loop. However the creek section was very rough hard scrambling. The blazes are clear, but traveling between the blazes was often challenging. In several places I actually exclaimed “You’ve got to be kidding”. “How?”, when I saw the location of the next blaze. The area was very lush and could be a very pleasant hike, but I spent too much time and effort worrying about navigating and footing to be able to enjoy the surroundings fully. The trail is only a couple of years old, and sparsely used, so hopefully eventually it will become better. I was obviously the first person through in quite some time, evidenced by the complete lack of foot tread, and the massive amounts of spiderweb “condos” across the trail. I ate more than my fair share of web today, and had one little freak out moment when I missed seeing a low web, walked into it and on looking down saw it’s massive occupant, stunned, but crawling calmy across the bare flesh of my abdomen! Eeek!

It actually took me about 3 ½ hours to complete the loop, mainly due to the very slow going along the creek and the extra time I took to take photos of spiders. Next I moved over a couple of miles to the Bull Creek WMA for that final 2 ½ mile stretch, which of course would actually be 5 miles in and out. We had timed the day to finish at about the same time, so I expected to pass Ian somewhere as I was running a little late. Talk about timing: As I approached the fenceline stile from the south, Ian came over it while I was about 30 feet away! We drank a couple of cups of coffee to celebrate my finishing the Eastern Corridor took a couple of photos, and finished the hike back to the car.

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