Starting out at the beginning of St Marks we crossed paths with what was most likely a poacher. He was entirely non threatening, but was on the St Mark’s non hunting area, and was too quick with his “I’m lost, I think I’m on the wrong side of the boundary” for my suspicious nature. His gun was in it’s case though, and he didn’t have anything dead with him, and he appeared to go back in the direction we pointed him when we explained where the boundary was. Shortly after meeting him, we came across the first deer of the day, so I’m rather glad we saw him (or he saw us) when we did.
At one stage I was taking a water break and waiting for Ian to catch up to me, and four hogs calmly walked up the trail rooting around as they did. It took me a few minutes to come to my senses enough to grab the camera, and most had disappeared off into the brush by then, but I think I got a fairly decent picture of one of them.At one point we were hiking along the levee separating the freshwater marshes from the saltwater flats of the Gulf of Mexico. the panorama view was of the west coast of the northern Florida peninsula to our east, and the south coast of the panhandle to our west. At a break in the marsh around an island we could see the blue water of the gulf in the distance. We had originally planned to camp overnight at the Ring Levee campsite, which is the closest to the gulf, on the outside of the main levee, but the weather was forecast to turn to torrential rain tonight and and below freezing temperatures after that for the next couple of days while a major winter storm system passes just to the north of us, so we took refuge inland again.
The forecast didn't lie. It did indeed turn very wet, then very cold. We started out all dressed in winter gear, and stayed that way. The biggest problem was that this was the day we would cross the St Mark’s river. The river is too deep and swift to ford, and there is no bridge. Usually hikers can hail a passing boat to carry them across, but of course on a cold day like today there was absolutely no traffic on the river! After 30 minutes we called a local resort for a shuttle across. They said it would take them 10 minutes to get someone out to us. It was actually almost an hour. That 90 minutes or so was spent sitting in the full blast of the wind roaring down the St Mark’s and in the shade of the trees that come all the way down to the water level. It was cold! I’m not complaining too loud though. We had originally planned to do this section the day before. It was absolutely pouring with rain all day, so we called a no hiking day. We’re told there was no traffic at all on the river yesterday, and even the resort would not have sent someone out in the rain! That wouldn’t have been a whole lot of fun.After the cold wait, we had the boat driver drop us at the Riverside café, where a couple of cups of hot spiced cider and a bowl of chowder for lunch helped thaw me out. From the café the trail utilizes the St Mark’s paved multi-use rail trail for about 3 miles. This was the first rail line in Florida, from Tallahassee to Port Leon. It is now a trail for the 16 miles from St Marks to Tallahassee.
Interestingly, after not seeing another actual hiker on the trail, on this section, and not on the paved trail, we saw 4 hikers out of the day. One lady was out looking for orchids. She showed us the specific orchid she was here for. It’s not a native, and quite common in Florida, but is not listed in the orchid books as ever having been seen in this county, so needless to say was quite a find. They (there were four little stems) were beautiful, but absolutely tiny and growing smack in the middle of the dirt berm/trail/road. The one bloom that was apparently very pretty yesterday had been affected by last night’s hard frost and was laid down dying, but there were two additional new stems. Later, at Shepherd Spring we ran into two men out dayhiking. The spring was very pretty, and crystal clear. They shared their lunch spot with us and we spent a very enjoyable hour with them. Shortly after that we passed through an area called the Cathedral, a virgin stand of palms, which was quite impressive and beautiful with the sun streaming through the leaves.
On our last day in St Mark’s NWR we crossed some swamp with bog bridges. Real nice bridges, but I assume that either the lower steps had washed away at sometime in the past, or there has been major erosion around the bridge pilings, as some of them took a 3’ step up to the bridge surface. Luckily they were attainable with log assists, a minor tree clamber, and a reverse mount! At the end of the swamp, the forest suddenly ended at the salt marshes of the gulf. It was quite a contrast to stand on the edge of both.
The most surprising find of the day was a perfect undamaged sand dollar in the middle of the forest. The most incredible thing we saw on this section has to be the sunsets borne of the cold weather front. For two nights while we were out on the levees and marshes we saw the most spectalar sunsets. It made the cold worthwhile.View more photos in my Picasa album
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