Florida Trail: Eastern Continental Trail (ECT) & *Official* Florida Trail (FT) Day 16
January 22, 2022
Mile: 83.5 to 86.3 (ECT) & 0.0 to 9.5 (12.3 total miles)
Start: Tenting behind camp host’s RV at Midway Campground, Big Cypress National Preserve
Finish: Pine savannah tenting at 10 Mile Camp, Big Cypress Preserve
It was overcast and almost borderline cool temperatures when we woke in the morning, the damp chill making us want to burrow deeper into our sleeping bags instead of waking up. Not wanting to overstep the goodwill that camp host Larry had extended us last night, we groggily rose and mentally prepared ourselves for the start of the next section of trail: The Hell Swamp. Physically we packed up our gear and asked permission from Larry to grab our food bags out of the backseat of his truck cab where it was stashed out of any hungry camp animal’s way. As campground host, Larry had camp duties to tend to so he was up early, making coffee for anyone at camp who wanted some while updating the weather forecast and answering questions for campers.
Shannon and I cooked breakfast at a covered picnic table overlooking a large inviting pond where RVs were parked in neat rows circumnavigating the calm water. Sawgrass, reeds and tufts of tall fluffy marsh grass rustled gently in the puff of morning breeze lingering along the water’s edge. Everything about the pond seemed like it would be the perfect place for a dip, especially since there were no showers at the campground. It was all hunky dory for an unsuspecting visitor to wade in except for the enormous blaring yellow signs painted with pictures of “No Swimming” mandates and “Alligators present” warnings in both Spanish and English. “No dog walking” signs were posted next to the grass surrounding the water for pet owners. Some of these signs were being ignored by humans as they strolled languidly next to the alligator pond with their unsuspecting poochies who also seemed like they couldn’t read real good just like their owners. Lingering by the pond shoreline in the Florida swamps with your 15lb dog would be a surefire way to ensure that you’re doing your part to feed and promote the continuing survival of the American alligator. Your dog might not agree but what he thinks doesn’t matter because he’s certified gator chow now!
Larry and a few RV neighbors stopped by to chat as we were boiling hot water for raisin oatmeal and tea for me and cheesy grits and coffee for Shannon. A tiny dog on a leash was with them named Walker which was short for “Walker, Texas Ranger” aka Chuck Norris’s famous cowboy cop and karate master character that launched him into the kingdom of pop cultural fame and badassery. Walker (the dog) liked to assume the downward dog position when she wanted to be petted which was super cute with all 10 lbs of her body wiggling with excitement from the attention. At one point she wandered into the reeds and right next to the water’s edge. I noticed a large ripple on the pond’s surface of some creature submerging itself only a stone’s throw from the where unsuspecting Walker stood smelling the grasses below the “No dog walking” sign. Yikes! Luckily before Walker, Texas Ranger became alligator chow, she was taken further inland to safety.
Several very kind people approached us as we were cooking breakfast and asked us if we needed anything like food, water and charging our electronics. I couldn’t believe how sweet the campground residents were and we chatted with a few of them, listening to stories of people they met biking from Alaska to Argentina or how they realized that life is fleeting and how much happier they are to be out of the rat race, taking the time off to explore the world and enjoy life. One of the guys had even outfitted a pull-behind trailer to be an air-conditioned two room house on wheels complete with a king-sized bed and a fridge. He said something along the lines of “You could park at any Cracker Barrel overnight and no one would suspect a thing that you’re sleeping in your trailer.” It was so unassuming looking that you would never suspect someone was living there and could easily get away with parking somewhere overnight without having to pay for camping. In the summers, he would become a camp host in the mountains of Oregon near the city of Bend which he said was the most beautiful place on earth. These people had life figured out!
It rained a while during breakfast so we took our time packing up under the covered picnic table keeping us dry. My blisters that I’d spent 30 minutes popping last night in the camp bathroom had returned so I did some minor surgery at the picnic table. Curious campers walked by our table as they looked to try to figure out what we’re doing. When they saw my nasty feet and needles and blister nastiness everywhere, they paled and hurried away looking like they were going to lose their breakfast. Oh well – maybe sometimes you should mind your own business.
We packed up, chatting with camp hosts Larry, his wife and their hilarious neighbor and then said a sad goodbye as we were having so much fun with them. We left camp and hit busy US 41 again, walking on the side of the road with only less than 3 miles to go to the Oasis Visitor’s Center in Big Cypress National Preserve. This was the official start of the Florida Trail but we had already hiked close to 190 miles before that as part of the Eastern Continental Trail and the Overseas Highway Trail. Mentally we knew Florida trail started off in the middle of the swamp with waist deep water walking and boots sucking mud and vines and bugs and all sorts of stuff. We didn’t necessarily have a strong desire to start the trail off in a snake and gator infested swamp so we had made a decision to start in the Florida Keys first and enjoy the Caribbean Islands life while we could.
As we walked the final stretch of the ridiculous Highway 41 dodging huge RVs and 18 wheelers by stepping over into the grass where we looked for snakes as giant trucks came at us, we saw a very interesting bright lime green Toyota Yaris or some other shitty little car that was decorated with all sorts of weird stickers and literally filled to the brim with trash. I just had a bad feeling about this car and sure enough up ahead it had pulled over on the side of the road in a very dangerous highly trafficked area. Oh boy. Shannon and I looked at each other and agreed to just keep walking and hopefully whoever was in the puke green shitbox would just leave us alone. Unfortunately being on foot we really had nowhere to go as there’s no sidewalk and the Visitor’s Center was still 2 miles ahead with alligator-filled swamp and deep blackwater on either side of the road. Traffic went both ways crazy fast and there was such ittle room for this guy to even pull over.
As soon as we walked past the trash-filled car hauling ass as fast as we could go, we heard the guy from the car getting out and yelling at us. He had no shoes on and with thick layers of dirt smeared up-and-down his legs with some sort of weird bedazzled hat like you see in the truck stops in rural country with crosses and blinged out rhinestones.
“Hi I’m brother Roy!” Barefoot guy exclaimed.
We waved dismissively and mumbled, “Great…nice to meet you.” We hurriedly kept walking as Florida Man kept asking for two minutes of our time, barely looking for traffic as his nasty hobbit feet slapped pavement when he crossed the street towards us. I instinctively grabbed for my pepper spray and Shannon curtly replied, “We don’t have two minutes – we have to go meet someone.”
Crazy dude kept trying to push his shit on us and he starts going on and on about how he’s a born-again evangelist as we’re walking away and he’s walking with us. Then he starts cussing out his “…bitch ass ex-wife” and rambling loudly and yelling about how “…she stole everything! She stole my $2.4 million (the amount of money always changed), my business, my kids and now I have to pay for the $450/hour child psychiatry bills multiple times a month!” He sounded extremely bitter and like he had severe anger management issues. I was starting to get pretty nervous that he was going to try something involving weapons as he physically attempted to wedge his body between Shannon and I. I pulled closer to Shannon as we realized this Florida Man was pretty much the embodiment of Tiger King (aka Joe Exotic) when he’s talking about Carole Baskin except the phrase “That bitch Carole Baskin!” was replaced by “My bitch ass ex-wife!”
Every time we tried to walk away the guy followed us, even as oncoming traffic nearly hit him. He claimed he found Jesus but somehow Jesus couldn’t help him get over his ex-wife. This lunatic was raving about how he could go into any Mercedes car dealer and buy whatever he wanted but now his ex-wife stole everything and his money went to child support and his kids’ mental health bills. This sociopath kept droning on about how his ex was such a bitch and blah blah blah and he just went on and on and finally we told him firmly that we were sorry but we had to go to meet someone or we’d be late. Florida Man immediately turned his aggression on us. He stuck out his hand as if trying to prevent us from leaving and yelled about he was going to the city of Naples to steal from the rich and give to the homeless.
“Okay well have fun with that,” Shannon replied and we started walking away. Florida Man went to grab my arm and block my way and Shannon immediately turned back and rushed at the guy as I skirted back into the swamp and edged around the psychopath.
Florida Man pointed at me, handing out some BS pamphlets and told Shannon as he eyed me, “Go on ahead and I’ll just talk to her.”
Steely eyed Shannon stood firm and growled at the guy, “No. I’m not going anywhere. She’s my wife and she’s coming with me.” It got to be pretty aggressive and luckily before it came to physical violence some Trail Angel saw the altercation going on along the side of the road and pulled over behind Florida Man’s trash-filled car.
Shannon distracted the nut job, pointing out, “Hey I think someone’s pulled up behind you. Do you know them?” When the guy looked back at his car, we started jogging away as fast as we could with our backpacks.
Unfortunately on this long stretch of road there was nowhere for us to go and sure enough this guy waited for traffic and our stomachs sank as we heard the clunk-clunk-clunk of his shit box car (which did not have a license plate by the way) coming up behind us, the junk and trash blocking his rear view and side windows. He swerved over to our lane, trying to cut us off. I yelled at Shannon, “What the f***?! I hope this guy doesn’t try to shoot us.”
Florida Man swerved in front of traffic and with oncoming 18 wheelers and RVs going 65 mph he was in the middle of the lane blocking them. We quickly walked around the car, our feet dipping into the mud of the swamp to avoid him and he swerved back into his lane. Then he pulled up again on the wrong side of the road and handed Shannon this weird f***ing yarn thing that he said some Monsignor blessed.
Shannon flatly replied, “Great…” Florida Man leaned over out the window and hissed to Shannon, “Males are prettier than females aren’t they?” And then cackling as an oncoming RV was heading straight at him, Florida Man ducked into the correct lane of traffic, narrowly avoided getting hit and drove off.
As the garbage filled pea green car putted away, we looked at each other with shocked eyes and both yelled, “What in the actual f***?!!” We were on edge the whole rest of the way to the Visitor’s Center and hiked as fast as we could. Up until today we had lucked out so far on these stupid road walks not getting harassed and of course with only 2 miles of road walking left, we had to run into this nut job guy who reeked of pee and was barefoot with trash falling out of his car. Our contingency plans if Florida Man showed up at the visitor center were that we would go straight to the rangers or up to a stranger and pretend like we knew them so this guy would leave us alone. Luckily we didn’t have to worry about him again and I guess he drove off to somehow steal from the rich people of Naples to give their money to the homeless people. I don’t know but that man needs to work with a couple of psychiatrists to figure out his own shit first and not harass random hikers on the side of the road.
As hiker Twig who we met earlier on the trail told us, it’s not the alligators or the panthers that you need to worry about – it’s the people on the trail. And amen sister you are 100% right. We told ourselves we’d rather escape this “heaven” that the Florida Man was preaching about and walk through the swamps of hell any day. Little did we know, we’d get to experience both in one day!
After ensuring that Florida Man wasn’t at the Oasis Visitor’s Center, we looked on with the other tourists at the alligators which were absolutely massive. We definitely saw a massive 10 or 11 footer basking on the pond edges. They must feed the gators or something because there were so many in this gated off pool but there are also tons of fish for them to eat. Maybe they stock the pond with fish and that’s why there’s so many gators. Fabian Redwing who was our airboat tour guide yesterday said that in the wild alligators each have their own territory and don’t mingle much. Right before the Visitor’s Center we had looked over at a house on our right and saw what was probably the biggest alligator I’ve ever seen in my whole life. The enormous alligator heaved his massive body out of the dark black pond water and onto the clipped grass, stretching what was probably 13 or 14 feet long snout to tail tip. I think I let out a “Holy shit!” that scared the gator and he spun around right back into his pond sending water spraying up to the fronds of the palm trees.
None of the gators in the pond at the Oasis Visitor’s Center were as big as that freakishly large gator but they were pretty good sized. Shannon and I hung out at the Visitor’s Center charging our portable batteries and getting our backcountry permits for Big Cypress Preserve. We left our packs inside, making them look extra dirty and gross so people would stay far away. Shannon and I sat and watched a 30 minute movie learning about the area and the nature in Big Cypress. After the movie we went outside with our gear to sip on iced coffee we purchased inside and ate instant mashed potatoes under the shade tree. It was nice and we knew we weren’t gonna go super far today, maybe only 9 or 10 miles more, so we took our time enjoying lunch.
It was late in the day when we packed up our stuff and headed out into the preserve starting to follow the Florida Trail’s signature orange blazes. It was so nice not being on the road and not having to worry about crazy homeless crazy dudes preaching about God and being super aggressive and talking about their bitch ass ex-wives. We passed by a heliport and then into the woods where it was only a little bit muddy. I thought the trail was gonna be a lot crazier than it was but maybe that still is yet to come. The most mud we had today was similar to conditions that we were used to trail running in Cincinnati, Ohio so it wasn’t that bad. There was one section of trail where it was clear knee-deep water through a cypress strand but it was actually not too bad. We put on our polarized sunglasses to cut the glare in the water and beneath the sun rays on the surface little fish darted in and out of the water plants ahead of us.
As we hiked through the water, we spotted trees filled with bromeliads with their pink and electric yellow blossoms erupting from what looked like the top of a pineapple. The crazy air plants were everywhere and it appeared as though the trees were decorated with living Christmas ornaments. Luckily we didn’t see any snakes but we did see some fresh bear tracks that were maybe a day old since it rained 2 days ago and these were pretty crisp still. We were on the lookout for black bears but didn’t see any today.
This afternoon we had some walking through thick jungle and palmettos but really the trail wasn’t as bad as people made it seem. Maybe tomorrow will be worse. Some of the trail was like gravelly cat litter and sticky mud that slowed us down sandwiched between dry fast flat pine forest. There were some sketchy parts where the trail turned into holes in the limestone called marl. The slick limestone rocks that have holes that will break your ankle or foot if you stepped in it wrong so you have to go extra slow through this section of trail. It was even worse in the ankle deep water where soft gritty mud filled the marl creating “solution holes” that sucked your foot in and then broke it. We always put our hiking poles first to feel out the way in case any of these ankle breaking holes were lying in wait for us.
I think having recently started getting into a lot of mushroom hunting, backwoods walking and bushwhacking that this experience made the trail not as bad as we thought it would be. We also think that our experience wading through murky rivers filled with quicksand and dead animals for 40 miles through Utah’s Buckskin Gulch slot canyon definitely prepared us for this. Utah definitely gave us experience on how to feel first with your hiking poles before stepping foot somewhere. I think that the Florida Trail was great so far and we even spotted the beautiful and threatened Pine Pink Orchids amongst the burnt pine tree trunks.
As the sun started to set we came across 10 Mile Camp which is where we were planning to stay for the night. Just before camp we met a couple older guys who are also hiking the Florida Trail called Pine Stick and Father Will. Pine Stick is vibrant and full of fervor and love of life and love of hiking. He gave us recommendations for the Continental Divide Trail to stay at a hostel that his friends owned. Father Will was out for 10 days hiking with Pine Stick and he was actually a religious clergy person who says a mass every night before bed. Tonight Pine Stick came out to us and said that he was doing a mass for us. Well that was nice of him I guess even though neither of us are very religious. Plus we had a pretty sour taste of anything religion after crazy Florida Man tried to “save us” aka run us over with his car.
After a day full of religion it was wonderful when we finally got to camp where it was peaceful and quiet and a soft breeze blew. I didn’t even mind that we had to scoop water from a puddle to drink or when we realized that Aquamira droplets don’t kill the sea monkeys swimming in the water (aka I think mosquito larvae). It wasn’t even a big deal when our expensive water filter stopped working the second time we’d used it or that it hadn’t rained all day and of course as soon as we started to set up our tent the rain started coming down. The rain stopped briefly and we sat in our rain jackets and rain pants eating dinner in the darkness but it was still better than dealing with Florida Man. A few fireflies came out in the palmettos and one even landed on my bag that had my wallet in it. He was going crazy walking and glowing on my wallet and I think he was trying to rob me (just kidding). The firefly glowing lemon-lime green sure was pretty though.
It was a nice change of pace finally being on an actual hiking trail as you couldn’t hear much because it’s so quiet out here compared to the last two weeks of walking next to busy traffic on the highway and being around lots of people. It’s nice to finally be in nature and the trail kind of reminded us of the Sheltowee Trace in Kentucky a little bit as well. We brought all of our gear and food inside our tent with us having seen a few raccoon prints a long ways back. Plus there was nowhere to really hang our food so we crossed our fingers and hoped for the best.
As the rain came down and we carefully arranged our gear inside the tent to reduce the amount of rain that dropped inside, we talked about how excited that my sister is buying us a new tent from a cottage manufacturer called Durston Gear. She’s doing this for us because we likely wouldn’t have cell service on the day it comes out and their other tent models often have sold out within minutes. Their new tent design doesn’t allow rain to fall in as easily as our current Zpacks Duplex does when it has 2 people and all our gear in it. Even when we properly stake out our tent we’ll often wake up with puddles of water in the corner or all our gear on the floor soaked through.
Anyways by the time we’d cleaned up dinner and brushed our teeth it was somehow around 9:30pm which is very late for Hiker Trash. We had to get up early enough in the morning and get miles done in order to make it through what is supposed to be the hardest section of trail and all of the trails in the US. I wasn’t too sure about that but we’ll find out soon!
