Wettest June on Record

Of course it is!

I'm home in England visiting with my family. I never expect great weather for my UK trips, it's not like I come here for the weather, I come here to see my family.

But it would be nice to sometime have both!

National Trails Day

Started off the weekend at Withlacoochee River Park for the local FL Trail chapter's National Trails day event. There was a reasonable turnout, but mainlymembers. I just don't think that expecting the non hiking public to turn up for such events is realistic unless there is some other massive draw, like the bicycle trail opening I went to recently in Blountstown. Free barbeque dinner seems to pull in a crowd!

The event was OK though, we took a little hike, and the dignitaries were almost through with the speeches before the tornado sirens started wailing an oncoming storm. It rained hard and the wind whipped around for a while, but no major damage.

After the Trails event I continued on up to Lake Norris to join the gang for a car camping weekend. It was almost dinner time by the time I found them. The kayak plans for the day had basically been abandonned due to the wind and rain all day, but a couple of people had gone out anyway. Ian, Charles, Mary and MichaelAnn had just just hung out all day at the campsite, cooked out, and had a few adult beverages by all accounts. They were in good spirits and we had a great evening in the old barn.

This morning, when everyone else cleared out, Mary and I took a nice long walk on the blazed FL Trail. This trail isn't in any of my maps or books, but is obviously maintained, and possibly a future piece of off road trail waiting to be connected into the main contiguous trail.

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Grand Canyon Work Your Way

You've got to love last minute trip plans. I do: Three weeks ago I received a very quick phone call with an offer of a Grand Canyon "work your way" raft trip if I could make it to Phoenix by the following Friday. Work your way is a free trip as part of the crew on the rafts. The work is mainly helping with the tying up and launching of the boats, food prep and cleanup, loading/unloading boats, etc. I'd taken a trip a couple of summers ago that had a couple of work your ways and was fairly confident I'd be OK with the camp duties, I've always helped out on my other trips anyway. The tiny bit of concern I felt was for my ability to navigate up and down the moving boat, as my previous experiences had basically just been the "sit down and hang on" variety. It didn't give me too much pause though. I wanted to go, and go I would.

Unlike the other trips which started out with a restful night in a hotel and a smooth comfortable ride to Marble Canyon to meet the rafts, this time I found myself at the crew trailer taking a freezing cold shower at 6am, being instructed to borrow a vehicle to go pick up hot coffee from a local convenience store, then help myself to grits from the pan on the stove that should be ready by the time I returned. Coffee in hand, I ate my fair share, and glad I did, as the next several hours were spent rigging the rafts. First ice: tons of ice, loaded in the bottom of giant coolers, shortly followed by food deliveries, produce, dairy, meat, and bread. Then drinks; sodas, cases of them, and giant jugs of fresh water, as well as chips, candy, cereals and other groceries. After all the consumables the sleeping kits are loaded (not forgetting to procure a sleeping mat and bag for myself), and tied down, topped off with rolled up side tubes that would later be inflated and attached to the boats, and the all important giant bags of life vests. When everything is secured into road travel mode, the two massive fully loaded rafts are gassed up and winched on to a converted car carrier trailer.

The crew piled into the sleeping bunks of the truck and tried to nap for the trip to Marble Canyon. But the day's work was not yet done. At Lee's Ferry, in the full heat of the day, the rafts are winched into the Colorado River, side tubes inflated and attached, and the rafts re-rigged into river travel mode. It was a long, hot, dusty day and I was ready for a shower, good dinner and an early night! Next day, the first task was to relocate the rafts down to the launch ramp in anticipation of arrival of the passengers. So here it is, my moment of nemesis. Am I strong enough to actually assist in moving the heavily laden rafts back off the sandbar they had stranded on overnight? And would I be able to get back onto the raft after it was pushed free? Well, the boats came free, though I'm not sure my effort made much difference. Getting myself back onto the raft? Well that was a whole different story. I leaped for it, and was almost on, but would never have made it without the assistance of Riley, the trip's swamper and an awesome young woman who practically grew up on the river, and would be showing me the ropes (literally, in the case of tying up the boats) for the next week.

The passengers arrived, and we set off down the river. I spent the first day riding with Travis, and it's a whole different river from up there in the swamper's seat. The swamper's seat is a boat seat strapped to a cooler or row of large ammo cans. It's next to the driver, (and the noisy engine), and it's the highest point on the raft. You don't get splashed as much as on the main boat, I was in for a hot and fairly dry trip, and if I thought some of those rapids looked scary from the main boat I was in for a heck of a ride!

It was during the initial short run to our lunchtime beach stop that I realized I was not going to be able to keep my camera close enough by to take my usual 700 or so canyon shots, and still be able to keep the camera protected and dry. I was also still rather concerned about being ready to jump out of my seat, run down the side tubes and jump off the boat to tie up without getting caught in a multitude of straps. Keeping my water bottle close by seemed more important than the camera. Consequently there are not as many photos of this trip.

We stayed the first night at North Canyon, and had an interesting tent raising experience for an hour or so, but everyone eventually got settled. The food has always been good on my river trips, and tonight was no exception. Dinner was great, even though I had to play a part in cooking it myself.

Next morning it was a 4:45am start, with Riley providing the jet blaster alarm clock when she started the morning coffee water. We stopped for hikes at South Canyon, and a brief wander in Redwall cavern. After lunch at Buck Farm we cruised past Nankoweap beach and saw three mule deer right on the beach where I had slept last October. A short while later we saw a coyote on the river bank, but my camera was not close by at that time.

After a night at 60 mile canyon, we set off for the short ride to the Little Colorado and hiked up to the flume to play. On the right is a picture of the passengers "diapering up" for the ride in the flume, and below is the first few brave souls to test the water. After getting the flumers started I took a little walk up the river bank, enjoying the clear blue water and red rock formations.

The day was overcast, and continued that way as we passed the Hopi salt mines and pulled in to Carbon canyon for lunch and a hike up the canyon. Late afternoon, after a short river day and some good hiking we pulled up on the big beach at Tanner Canyon for the night. It was early enough for cold baths in the river while the sun was still shining. During this process we discovered a small rattlesnake curled up in the rocks by the river.

And then the rain came! It started right after dinner, and turned quickly into a massive storm, with high winds and very close lightning. Those of us that had not yet put up a tent had a very wet start to the night while dealing with that issue as quickly as possible. By the time the tent was up I was wet and cold, but snuggling down in the sleeping bag helped warm me up. The wind got harder, threatening to flatten the tent, or blow it off the boat, and the lightning got even closer and brighter in the early hours of the morning. Judging by the proximity of lighting to thunder, it appeared the strikes were below the canyon rim. Even more surprising was that the storm and rain lasted all night, and was still raining next morning. I was expecting to see some very unhappy people the next morning, but everyone took it in good spirits, and the rain eased off as we prepared and ate breakfast.

Gorge day. What can I say? The rapids came thick and fast, and I was right about those rapids being scarier from the swamper seat! We made a quick stop at Phantom Beach for fresh water, then continued down to Ross Wheeler camp for the night. Next day we stopped at Elves Chasm, Randy's Rock for lunch, Blacktail Canyon, and Deer Creek before making camp just upriver of Olo canyon.

The evening above Olo was wonderful. There was a little time to chill before dinner, and Elkanah brought out his guitar and played and sang for us all for the remainder of the night. It was very relaxing and we all seemed to stay up quite late.

Next day we hiked up Havasu Canyon for a couple of hours, then continued downriver, stopping at Stairway for lunch. I had been very nervous about landing here, as I remember how bumpy the landing can be inside the rapid, and this is the only place I have seen several flips and stranded boats on various trips. When we pulled up in the second raft Riley was already scaling the rocks looking for a suitable chock to tie to, and I was pretty certain I wouldn't be comfortable or safe following her. Elkanah came to my assistance though, and jumped off his raft to tie up ours as soon as his own was secured, and I got to sit safe on the raft until we were tied up. In my anxiety I seem to have neglected to take the camera out of it's bag all day today. Typically, because a hummingbird buzzed the boats and landed several times on bright objects posing for those with their cameras ready, then late in the afternoon, after great runs in Lava rapid, we pulled around the corner to a beach for what we thought was to be a short break, and came across a bobcat sitting on the beach lunching on a snake. Unfortunately our "oooh a bobcat" exclamations scared him into the brush before cameras could be retrieved. Our river day ended a mile or so later at Fat camp around mile 200.

I obviously wasn't paying attention that morning, because we stopped early to take a small hike up a canyon to some petroglyphs but I have no idea where we were! Lunch was eaten at Pumpkin Springs, where several people played jumping off the rocks into the river, but I just helped prepare lunch. Today was my first very frustrating experience tying up the boats, as I couldn't find a suitable rock to tie up to, and I was rather nervous when everyone started jumping from raft to rocks without being tied up. Everyone survived though, and I got over it.

Later in the day, approaching Diamond Creek i got very hot and drowsy up in the swamper's seat. In fact I think I dropped off to sleep up there. Guessing that would not be a good place to "drop off" I made my way down to the front of the boat for a few minutes of cold splashes to wake me up. Shortly after, we stopped at Travertine Canyon for the short hike up to splash in the Grotto. After a thorough soaking and the rope ladder assisted climb back down to the rafts, we cruised through our final rapids of the trip and into our final beach at Gneiss Canyon. This was a great campsite, but judging by the heat still retained in the rocks on this spring day, it might be a little hot and uncomfortable in summer. Riley and I handled dinner while the guys reshuffled everything in the rafts in preparation for derigging the boats in the morning. We cooked meat and veggie spaghetti with lots of great assistance from our volunteer kitchen crew. It was thoroughly appreciated. You know who you are!

During and after breakfast the side tubes were removed and re-rolled, and the boats strapped together for the final part of the journey. Everyone gathered for group photos and we all piled onto the rafts for the last time together. The two drivers took turns driving and reading to the passengers as we continued downstream to meet up with the jet boat. When it arrived we all said our good-byes and they were off on their high speed conclusion to the trip.

We, however still had a long hot day ahead of us to cover the same distance at a much slower pace. Early in the afternoon we rounded a bend to find another unloaded raft stranded on a sand bar. We all jumped off to help push it off but it was stuck pretty fast. Eventually our raft and another were used to pull the grounded raft back out into deeper water. Unfortunately for me, I was on the shallow side of the raft pushing when it finally broke free. Leaving me now stranded on the sandbar! I thought someone would come back for me but was just told "swim", so jumped in and swam to the nearest raft where two big strong young men grabbed my upstretched arms and manhandled me upward onto the raft. My first swim in the Colorado!

At the end of a long day we finally approached Lake Mead and the end of the river. Half an hour later we were tied up on the dock at South Cove, and very shortly after that, sound asleep.

The final day was a blur of activity. Very early we moved the boats around to the unloading ramp, and back onto the awaiting truck. It was here that I finally managed to fall off the raft and into the water just as we were loading the second raft. Fortunately the water was only 3 or 4 feet deep and I landed on my feet. No harm done.

When the truck was loaded we once again all piled in, and in a repeat of the first day attempted to nap in the sleeping cab of the truck. About halfway back to Flagstaff we stopped at IHOP for breakfast. I confess I have never eaten steak and ice-cream for breakfast before, but it was good! Back at the warehouse in Flagstaff we spent several hours in the reverse of the rigging process: emptying coolers and water jugs, removing and sorting food, sleep kits and tents, and washing down everything. It was very efficient and accomplished fairly quickly. As we were de-rigging, who should stop by to say hi? TJ and Trey, the two drivers from my very first canyon trip. It seems like I just came full circle!

This was an awesome trip. I loved experiencing the entire process from start to finish. Even though it was quite hard and tiring at times, I would go back in a heartbeat. I can't thank my crew enough for the patience they showed dealing with my questions and inexperience, nor the passengers who willingly held out hands, shoulders and heads for me to grab on to for stability when runnning up and down those side tubes, and for all their help getting me and my ropes back on the boat after stops. Thanks also to Arizona River Runners for allowing work your ways along on trips, but the biggest thanks of all go to Elkanah for being willing to put up with me for a week and extending the invite for the trip.
Until next time......


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Gores Landing

This weekend was supposed to either be a kayaking weekend, or the weekend I bought my RV. Neither happened.

I did at least get a deposit down on my RV, and I did drive up to Ocala National Forest with my kayak and camped out with the gang.

The RV process is obviously going to take a lot longer than I expected. I have researched the options pretty thouroughly, but assumed I could just walk onto the dealer's lot with money in hand and drive out in my new purchase. Not so. My research identified the RV model I'm interested in. I don't want anything too long, so preferred the models below 25', but I'd like to live in the RV eventually so I wanted a model with a cabover bed, which will eventually become my storage closet. I was surprised to find how many of the privately owned used models have entertainment centers, not beds, over the cab. The other two "must haves" for my RV are a seperate bed and eating area, and a bathroom with a shower. If I am going to be living in it, I don't want to have to collapse a table every night to go to bed, or pack up the bed to have breakfast. The bathroom, well I could probably make do with washcloth baths and a cassette style potty, but for full time I'd like the luxuries of flushing and a shower.

The purpose of living in the RV is to be able to travel a bit more and see some of the States. Travel means miles, so I wanted to get a used RV with reasonable existing mileage, and had pretty much established that I wouldn't likely find that in a private sale for a reasonable cost. So I started looking at used ex rental units, though doubting that I'd find anything in as good a condition as I wanted, at the low mileage I wanted, but at a reasonable price.

To my surprise, while looking at Cruise America's website I found an online inventory for their Orlando location that showed an RV the perfect length, layout, mileage and price! I didn't expected it to be in great condition, but figured it would be worth a look. Unfortunately, after scouring Cruise America's sales lot, we determined that my RV is lost.

Actually, lost is a little strong. Mislaid is more accurate, and it appears that this may work in my favor. After some creative computer searching, the missing RV was tracked down to a small garage/storage facility somewhere in Georgia. It appears that back in 2005 when all the hurricanes kept coming through Orlando, this particular unit, only a year old and with 34k miles on it, was rented out. When a hurricane was due to hit Orlando and the unit was due to be returned, the renters called for advice on whether it was safe or sensible to drive back to Orlando and into the path of the storm. They were told to drop it at the nearest Cruise America affiliate, in a small town in GA. They did so. I'm sure similar situations have happened before. In this case, the affiliate it was dropped at don't actually do much RV rental business, and for some reason the "available for rent" at the location did not get updated. The upshot is that it has been sitting unused on the lot in GA since 2005. Low mileage, little use, but a 2004 model that needs to be de-inventoried as Cruise America doesn't rent out vehicles older than a couple of years.

It seemed like serendipity, or a match made in heaven. For a $500 fully refundable deposit Cruise America would pay to have the RV returned back to Orlando for me to inspect and decide if I wished to continue with the purchase. I have to say, having created quite a bit of panic when I pointed out (with inventory printouts in hand) that they were missing an RV,the staff were actually quite pleased at the idea of recovering the vehicle. I was a little cautious about paying the deposit, sight unseen, but they manager assured me that if I decide not to persue the purchase he would have no hesitation returning my deposit as he would not have any problem selling this RV with such low mileage.

So I kind of have an RV, but I still have to see it. I did at least test drive another RV of the same model and year. It actually didn't feel as big to drive as I had expected. Rather like a UHaul truck, but with the added advantage of beig able to see out of the back window. It was a much smoother drive than I expected.

After all that, I set out to meet up with the gang at Gores Landing in Ocala NF. They kayaked today and will again tomorrow, and are camping overnight. I got there just before dark, and the rain, which poured down when we were about half way through cooking dinner. It was one of Charles' masterpieces, pork loin in some exotic sauce, delicious. We rigged up a tarp to eat under, enjoyed a pleasant eveing and headed for the tents in the rain. Hmmmm, it would have been nice to be able to retreat to a nice dry RV in such a storm!

The storm kept me up a good long while into the morning hours, and I slept fitfully the remainder of the night. Something about being in a tent under trees in a storm just makes me nervous I guess. To cut a long story short, I decided not to kayak this morning. I helped the guys shuttle their cars to the take out and just spent the remainder of the day wandering around in Ocala NF, took a couple of short hikes, etc.

So. Not a whole lot achieved this weekend, but it felt like a lot.

Blountstown Greenway Trail

OK, so I have to take back everything I ever said about Mike DeWitt and my shortest weekend hiking mileage ever. This weekend I covered a grand total of about 3 trail miles, and it took me all weekend to do it!

This weekend was the official opening of the Blountstown Greenway Trail, which has been designated part of the Florida National Scenic Trail and moves 3 miles of trail off the roadway and onto the new trail. Getting the Florida trail off the roadway and into the woods is a good thing, even if on a paved trail. The new greenway section also gives easy blue blazed trail access to the Panhandle Pioneer Settlement and the Apalachicola River for those interested in the side hikes.

Even though I can only claim 3 trail miles for the weekend I did actually hike more than that, starting at the Pioneer Settlement (Sam Atkins Park) on Saturday morning, hiking the blue blaze trail to the conection with the through trail, the westward section out to FL71 and back, into and through the Blountstown Railroad Depot, and out to the point where the eastward trail connects to the new trail, and down the blue blazed spur to the river. I actually hopped on a shuttle bus for the 1.5 miles back to the Depot so I would not miss the ribbon cutting ceremony. I feel I redeemed myself for that lapse by rehiking the entire Depot to Pioneer Settlement and back,then Depot to River and back in the afternoon.

It was a beautiful day for the event. Many families were out walking and bicycling the trail, and generally enjoying the free entertainment and lunch. Everything was very organized, with water stations, music, great food, information booths, lots of brightly colored free t-shirts, balloons evrywhere, a giant pair of gold scissors for the ribbon cutting, and plenty of tp in the porta-potties! It sure looked like everyone was having lots of fun.

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A Pile of Sun Bleached Bones

That's how I thought I was going to end up on this hike. It's another solo backpack trip because everyone else seems to think it's too hot for backpacking already! They may be right!

The trip started with a roadwalk along US98. It was too long, and a little under pressure to get back into the woods before nightfall, but I fnally stumbled into Hickory Hammock campsite just a little after dark, considering myself lucky to have actually spotted the blue blazes on the trees, when even the orange were pretty hard to see by headlamp. There were lots of armadillos out on the trail around dusk, and several scurrying around in the bushes at the campsite after I was setteld for the night. They didn't disturb me near as much as the airboats churning up the Kissimmee River until after midnight though! Even though the airboats kept me awake late, I was still up early Saturday morning. I planned quite a long day into Fort Kissimmee, so fixed a quick breakfast and coffee and got packed up and on my way.

My first stop of the morning was at the Hickory Hammock equestrian campground. You just can't beat orange blazes leading right up to a pair of composting toilets! The campground is currently closed, but the toilets were unlocked and stocked with paper and sanitizer. Between that and the picnic pavillion I just couldn't resist an early break. The next couple of hours took me over the high rise bridge and the long boardwalk. There's not much water round these parts right now, and the high grass on the boardwalks was more of an issue than high water, but it was a very pleasant morning. I saw a several turkeys, and a dog-fight between a hawk and a bluejay. The hawk had apparently snatched a baby bird from it's nest, and bluejay mother bird was defending her irrecoverable offspring. The action was too far away and too fast for photos, but was interesting to watch. I also ran across a much slower red rat snake, which did co-operate for pictures. After a stop at Bluff hammock for lunch I set back out on the trail, which winds through more sloughs and swamp. Again, all very dry right now, but a nice mix of fauna between the dry grasslands and cactus, and the lusher marsh plants, including this bromeliad which had fallen from a tree, but was faring very nicely on the ground.

Over many more dry stranded boardwalks and I finally reached my destination for the day at Ft Kissimmee campground. It started to rain right as I reached the main camping area so I took refuge under my second picnic pavillion of the day and cooked supper while I waited out the storm. After dinner I took advantage of the cold but refreshing shower, and continued on to the north camping area to pick my spot for the night. The campsites here are close to the river and there were many large noisy gators grunting down on the beaches all night. Just at dusk a small herd of deer came racing through my campgound, scattering to both sides of my tent when they rounded the bushes to find me there. I don't know who was more surprised, me or the deer!

Sunday morning I set off north past the Ft Kissimmee Cemetery. I took quite a nasty fall somewhere on the north end of Avon Park. Right into a cow pat. Fortunately a fairly dry one, but landed awkwardly on my front, with the weight of the pack pinning me down, and an arm and hiking pole stuck up underneath me. I gave my knees a few good scrapes and bruises on the way down too. After releasing the pack and struggling up from under it, I took a short break to wash up with wet wipes. While patching up the hurt parts a hawk flew down and landed in a nearby tree, voicing his displeasure at my intrusion. My inactivity at least gave me the chance to snap a couple of shots.
My other successful bird photo of the day was the only turkey of the weekend that stood still for long enough to make its photo debut. I stalked it for a few minutes, quite surprised that it didn't fly off as I got closer, snapping shots every few paces. Eventually I was close enough to see him swivel slightly on his single leg. Yes, I had been stalking a hunter's decoy turkey! After snapping this shot I hurried on, no doubt watched from somewhere by the hidden hunter whose chances of a last day of turkey hunting kill had just been negated by my tromping through his hunt area. I'm sure glad for my bright orange tshirt and bandana covered pack!

Today's lunch break was taken at the newly replaced Tick Island Slough bridge. It is the same design but shorter than the one I recently helped build at Monkey Creek. It was nice to see a completed version. After lunch I approached the Kicco area, with it's beautiful old oaks trees. I scared up an owl in one of the trees, and he flew up into a tree ahead of me. It was kind of a long shot through the trees to get a picture of him, but he turned to face me right as I clicked off a shot.

After Kicco is a long, hot, walk along a dirt road through cow pastures. It was a very breezy afternoon, for which I was greateful as there was absolutely no shade for 4+ miles in the hot mid-afternoon sun. In the first mile a passing truck stopped to offer me a ride, but I explained that the purpose of the trail was to hike, and he continued on. Two miles later, having seen nothing else but cows, sunbleach cow bones, hot dry road and no shade I may have reconsidered, given the opportunity, but none presented itself. I was oh so grateful to see the first shady oak grove at the north end of the pasture though. A half hour break here managed to sustain and re-energize me for the remainder of the hike into River Ranch.

Being a Sunday night there was little activity at the Ranch. There was one other occupant at the campground, a large popup camper with a 3 generation family out for a long weekend. As I set up the tent and prepared to wash out some socks (and the cowpat encounter t-shirt) they came over to my site and offered to share their evening meal. Great trail angels. After my shower (I think I used up the full $11 for my tent site in hot water in that shower) they re-appeared with foil packets of real food cooked over their fire, chicken, fresh veggies, apple salad, and cookies. It was a wonderful change from everything dried and prepackaged I had eaten the past couple of days.

Sunday night was the quietest of the trip. The strong breeze from the afternoon died down completely immediately after I had just washed out everything I was carrying and was hoping to air dry! So Monday started out with wet clothes and a bag of wet laundry to be carried. It was also to be a long road walk for the majority of the day. Walking along any road is never much fun, but walking along one as busy as SR60, with not a single spot of shade or place to get off the road in 5 miles or so was gruelling. Fortunately for me, the breeze from yesterday reappeared early. It was cloudier than yesterday, but during a break under the SR60 bridge over the Kissimmee river I managed to hang up my wet laundry and tent to dry out, lightening my load somewhat. The breeze and clouds also made the road walk a little more bearable for the first couple hours, but my luck gave out and the sun came out strong again shortly before I reached the turn north into Prairie Lakes and another two mile road walk along another dirt road.

After lunch was more hot sun and dry, treeless trail. The one shade tree I found in several miles was shared with a wary turtle, who just chose to stand stock still while I took a break and some photos. The absolute highlight of the day, and possibly of this whole trip, was the sight of Godwin Hammock. After a whole day in the sun, this Oak hammock in the middle of the seemingly endless wiregrass and palmetto scrub fields is an oasis. The entrance to the Garden of Eden could not have been more enticing or welcome than the two massive trees, one complete with a hunter's tree stand (empty) guarding the trail's entrance to Godwin Hammock. I was so grateful for the shade I collapsed on the spot. Absolute paradise: lush, green and tropical. I swear I saw parrots! What I neglected to do, in my semi-delirious state, was take any photos of the entrance to this Oasis. After my break, enticed deeper into the lush greenery, I realized only miles later that I had forgotten to go back out in the hot sun to capture this idyllic spot.

There is supposed to be a campsite somewhere in Godwin Hammock, but I confess I never found it, despite looking. I had lingered long enough in this beautiful mile or so of meandering hardwood hammock that by the time I reached its end, and the emerged back out into the grasslands it was late enough to warrant stopping, campsite or not. I pulled out my GPS, took a reading and consulted my maps, and was apparently right on top of the campsite. I dropped my pack and wandered back for a few minutes, but still did not encounter the campsite. Returning to the pack, I pitched my tent right on the boundary of hammock and prairie for the night.

I fell asleep quite early in the quiet campsite, only to be woken at around 10:30 by what sounded like a dog size animal walking around the back of my tent, sniffing and scratching around. I assumed it was probably a fox. My stirring inside the tent sent it running off. A few minutes later a single coyote howled not to far off, followed by a cacophany of howls from all around. The serenade lasted well into the night, and was a little scary for a while when it was close by, but drifted away as the night went on. Each time I woke in the night I heard the coyotes calling across the prairie.


The final day of this trip is through the main area of the Prairie Lakes/Three Lakes management area. The trail blazes were a little sketchy, misleading or missing in places, and I got off the trail a couple of places, but managed to make my way back to it with the compass and dead reckoning. There were also a couple of places where the trail was rather overgrown, but in general it was a good trail. In the afternoon, after lunch at the dry pond campsite, the oak trees turned to tall pines with little shade. The strong breeze of the past several days did not materialize today, and the last hour or so of hiking was very hot. I was glad to see the trailhead parking and kiosk, and just had time for a quick shower down with my remaining water before my ride arrived.

Thanks to Mark for driving out all that way into the middle of nowhere to take me back the 80 miles back to another middle of nowhere to pick up my car.

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Grunting Gators and Breakfast to Order

This is a short entry for a rather long hike. Most of this section is road walk: hot and not much other than passing cars to take pictures of.
The weekend started out with a Friday evening car drop and a dike hike for about 6.5 miles before making camp beside the river right at dark. The evening was very pleasant so I left off the rain fly, but turned to fog overnight making everything very wet: clothes, sleeping bag, tent, everything. I also think I shared the river bank with some mating gators. I woke about 3 am to a growling outside the tent. It was very dark and foggy out, but suspecting it was a gator close by I didn't want to turn on the headlamp to know for sure, and certainly didn't want to leave the relative safety of my little no-see-um mesh security blankie. It may be small and flimsy, but might look big enough not to tackle to a gator!

So I huddled up in the dampening bag, and went back to sleep. I woke early, heard the same grunting, but further away. I figured it was safe enough to get coffee started from inside the tent while it lightened. I was up and packed up by the time it was full light. Across the river I could see several gators on the bank. I didn't venture down, but assumed I had a similar bank below me, probably with similar occupants. I had places to go anyway, so shouldered the pack and set out for the day. The plan was to get to Yates Marsh campground before it got too hot. The fog was lifting, but still quite misty on the river and across the cow fields. After a mile or so the lock stucture loomed eerily out of the fog, and the trail trined off the dike and onto road.

Did I mention everything was totally soaked? About an hour into the road hike the sun was out, it was very humid, and my clothes were even wetter. My hiking skirt, which usually dries very quickly, was sticking to me where sweat was running down my back. It was rather uncomfortable and probably looked it. On the 7 1/2 mile road walk 4 separate motorists stopped to offer me water. Fortunately I was carrying plenty, and drinking it regularly. I had already stashed myself another gallon up ahead on the trail so didn't accept, but as I explained to the potential trail angels, if I didn't drink mine I'd have to carry it, and if I accepted extra I would also have to carry empty bottles. I thank them for checking though. If the circumstances had been different I would have appreciated it.

The road walk was hot, but I got a good pace and balance between hiking and rest/rehydration/shaded breaks and it was mercifully quick. By 11am I was at my water stash, and shortly after that into the campsite. I pulled everything out of my pack and adorned the oak trees with drying articles while I ate lunch. The breeze was strong and by noon I was fed and re-energized, and everything was dry. What to do with the rest of the afternoon? The obvious answer seemed to be to hike some more. So I set off. In the breezy, shady, trees the hiking was good, and fun. Apart from the cattle sharing the trail, which generally ran off at my approach, I also saw deer, turkeys, and several armadillos. I soon reached the Yates Marsh trailhead, where not only had I stashed my second gallon of water (I was assuming I would arrive here having consumed a night's use of water), but Jack Hailman who had shuttled my car, had also left a gallon. I managed to get a gallon and a half in every available water container I was carrying. After restashing the remaining 1/2 gallon and the empty bottle for later collection, I set off on another hot 6 mile road walk.

Reaching SR98, the trees were finally aligned to provide an occasional shady spot again. At a culvert bridge I decide to take a short break off the road. However, down by the water, others were also taking a shady break. A big gator was the first I saw, and I wasn't even in a hurry to tackle him just for shade, but when his friends on the opposite bank decided to swim my way also to investigate, I figured I'd be safer up on the high speed road!

The remaining road walk was mercifully short anyway. Instead of an almost 6 mile walk along US98 Jack, the trail leader for this section, had advised me that a new trail route had recently been blazed through Chandler Slough. The new trail was delightful, winding through cypress and oak stands, it was nice and shady for the most part, but judging by the high water marks on some of the trees, may need a high water bypass route when this current drought ends.

The final hour of the day was spent with a mission. I was back parallelling US98, there was about an hour or so of daylight left, and the objective was to cross the Kissimmee River bridge before dark. There is only a fairly narrow walkable edge on the bridge, and even walking against the traffic, I knew I needed to accomplish it in daylight. I succeeded, but it was a windy crossing and quite intimidating on the metal grill center section.

Finally, on the other side of the bridge, only a mile or so away, and completing my marathon 25 mile day, in 96 degree heat, and with a fully loaded pack (though decreasingly so through the day as I consumed the heavy but necessary water) I reached the Basinger campsite, where Jack, Liz and Bob were camping as part of their weekend trail maintenance session. As I stumbled in at dusk they had food and drinks to share. A three course meal, no less! The only effort I had to make was erecting my tent and attempting to reduce the salt on my skin and my sweaty odor. I cleaned up a little, changed into a dry nighttime shirt and relaxed for an hour or so before retiring to bed.

What a great night's sleep. Exhaustion may have had something to do with that, but it was also a warm, dry breezy night, and I slept on my pad and sleeping bag and under only my silk liner. Next morning, surprisingly I was not even stiff from the hike yesterday. Even better, my trail angels provided a full cooked breakfast of pancakes, sausage, bacon, cooked to order eggs, fresh juice and coffee. Amazing. The only bad part of such a great night was that I spent yesterday carrying a sleeping bag and a whole day's worth of food that I didn't need! At least I didn't have to carry it anywhere though, as Jack and Liz had shuttled my car to here to end this weekend's hike. Thanks Jack, Liz, Bob, and all the other trail angels of this weekend.

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