Florida Trail: Day 29
Feb 4, 2022
Mile: 189.8 to 207.0 (17.2 miles)
Start: Oak Creek South Campsite, Kissimmee River
Finish: Cowboy Crossing, Kissimmee Prairie Preserve
During the night we only had to get up once to yell at a wild pig who got a little too close to our tent and was snuffling around in the dirt turning it up looking for grubs and food. With a healthy dose of fear of humans, the wild pig ran off into the woods and the rest of the night was quiet. As the sun rose, the cool mist condensed and settled amongst the live oak trees with their long curtains of Spanish moss. It made for an eerie morning but was pretty in its own way. We made the tea, coffee and granola and packed up heading out onto the trail by 8:30am. The trail followed a backcountry road where we read some weird hilarious comments in the navigation app about how someone took a “sussy poo” in the woods before they realize that there was a pristine portapotty at the trailhead. We were trying to figure out what the heck was going on in this person’s head and to us it felt like they were losing their minds.
We hiked down the road past a turf farm and more cabbage palms, trekking by another backcountry campsite where a couple of trucks were parked. It didn’t feel like the type of place that we wanted to hang around at. One truck was surrounded by 4 massive angry Newfoundlands that barked at us as we walked by and the other was a nice guy who had hung up a POW-MIA flag and an American flag. We said hello and headed out down the trail which was actually pretty challenging today because it was more often than not dug up by wild pigs, creating deep ruts and holes that would twist your ankle or trip you up if you didn’t pay attention. At the ranch next to us, instead of green grass or pastureland, acres of earth as far as the eye could see were all churned up and barren from the herds of wild pigs looking for food. It was kind of sad and we couldn’t figure out how the horses and cattle got enough to eat out here because there seemed to be more sand and gravel now than fields of grass.
We paused briefly in the extremely humid morning, sweating like wild piggies under the oak hammocks. Our legs put in another couple miles to an old campsite bordering the Kissimmee River and some farmland where a rancher had recently opened up a right of way to Florida Trail hikers to walk along the border of his ranch. This particular rancher was extremely savvy, retaining not only this land but the rights to the waterways on this section of the Kissimmee River. It was impressive because the State of Florida literally owns all of the waterways in the entire state except for this parcel. Love a good old “stick it to the man” story where this family had held out for generations not selling the rights to the waterways. Good job buddy, we’re proud of you!
At lunch it was turning out to be one of those uncomfortably hot Florida winter days so we needed to top off our water to keep hydrated. To access the water source you had to walk into a blackwater swamp which was filled with tons of weeds and plants which made it just a little nerve-racking. Who knows how many alligators were hiding under the weeds? Who knows how big the alligators were?
Shannon told me to stay and cook lunch and if I heard him yelling that he would probably be busy getting eaten by an alligator and that I should call 911. Um…okay? I guess it was nice knowing you buddy! He left camp, trekking down a spur trail and hit the river where he waded into the tea-colored water which he later said was pretty sketchy. Thankfully Shannon made it back with all of his limbs intact. No alligators made moves this time but we didn’t want to stick around to see if they would come out of their swampy home.
The water tasted clean, sweet and grassy which was a nice change of pace versus the sulfury and silty water we’ve been drinking lately. For lunch I cooked up a packet of Right Rice which is like a lentil and pea protein based rice that Shannon is currently obsessed with. The protein packed rice hit the spot on this super hot day – normal rice gives you a burst of energy but the straight carbohydrates wear off after a little. The carbs plus protein of the Right Rice not only sustain you through the afternoon but don’t have you bonk a few hours into your hike. Follow that up with the “Hiker Trash Special” cocktail of electrolyte packets plus caffeine drink mix and you’re golden for at least another 4 hours of traipsing through the woods.
As we chowed down on lunch, we noticed there was this random mailbox in the middle of the forest next to the campsite with the flag up. After lunch we checked the mail and found not only a trail journal but also a bottle of Gentleman Jack Tennessee Whiskey. Our eyes widened at the lovely surprise and as we inspected the bottle closer we saw on the outside someone had written the words in silver sharpie, “Enjoy!” I sniffed the whiskey bottle to make sure it wasn’t pee or chewing tobacco spit. All I could smell was the soft oaky vanilla scent of whiskey barrels with a tinge of alcohol undertones. Delicious!
I smiled and stared at Shannon, looking for confirmation to my question, “Screw it – alcohol kills the Covid, right?” When he started to reply something about how he wasn’t sure that’s how it worked, I took a little sipsy of the random mailbox whiskey. It was smooth and delicious, definitely a nice little pick me up. We washed down the whiskey with our “Hiker Trash Special” which is 1 part caffeinated drink mix with electrolytes (aka our “Uppers”) and 1 part ibuprofen (aka our “Numb-ers”) and headed back to the trail. I have a suspicion that our Hiker Trash Special cocktail is how we might be getting through the rest of the Florida Trail. Just a suspicion I have if our blisters don’t go away!
After lunch we found ourselves spending an inordinate amount of time dodging wild pig tracks where the nasty fast-breeding animals had essentially plowed up the trail for miles at a time, looking for roots and insects while creating huge wallows to lie in the mud puddles to cool down. The lumpy wild pig trail skirted around ranchers pastures for many miles where we passed by a few thin, skittish horses and lots of empty looking trailers and old rundown structures on the land. We passed by the campsite where one of our fellow hikers had commented that 4 black bears had come through while he was setting up his tent and they took great interest in the solo hiker. With the bears not seeming to be overly scared of the Florida Trail hiker, they might have looked at this poor hiker more as prey instead of something to fear which was scary. Wisely we didn’t want to linger long in this area in case the bear gang decided to come back for second helpings of Florida Trail thru-hikers. Yikes!
The pig rooting and holes everywhere in the trail like the place had been bombed came to almost an abrupt halt when we hit the Kissimmee River Nature Preserve State Park. We suspected that maybe the park had hired a feral hog sniper like they have on retainer in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to keep the wild pigs at bay there with all the endangered and endemic plants. Thankfully there were much fewer holes for us to trip into on the trail now and we thought we’d be able to hike a bit faster than we had been.
The fields of saw grass offered little shade for us and you could see the high water marks on the trunks of the surrounding cypress and live oaks climbing 4 or 5 feet up the trunks. Luckily the Kissimmee River wasn’t at flood stage so we were able to hike this part of the trail without having to swim or get our feet wet. Life was good! Also on the plus side were the interspersed hammocks of Live Oaks, these massive trees offering homes for air plants, ferns and Spanish moss to grow and create shade for humans and animals alike.
As we were walking, Shannon was listening to his book about the Middle Ages and I was listening to a Stephen King novel that hopefully wouldn’t be giving me nightmares later. To our great surprise, we ran into another hiker heading southbound on the Florida Trail. Unlike many of the other trails we’ve hiked, on this trail it’s a big deal to run into a single hiker every week or two. This one’s name was Poptart and was very kind. He said he was heading for Key West and then would “flip-flop” his thru-hike which means you change the direction you’re hiking, heading to a different part of the trail and switching direction usually to accommodate for the weather and seasons. Poptart had started 600 miles into the trail heading south to Key West and then would flip-flop up to mile 1100 in Pensacola and head south to where he’d left off. He was very nice and also said yesterday he had run into a guy he had met last year while hiking the CDT or Continental Divide Trail. The long distance hiking community is large but it’s really not that big. We were excited to probably see him again on his way down from Pensacola where hopefully we could buy him a beer. As he headed off into the afternoon, we wished him luck and told him to check the mailbox at the next campsite for a special treat from Mr. Jacky Daniels himself. His smile brightened and he said he like the sound of that!
Grassland turned into silky sand underfoot, softer than any beach we’ve been on so far and it made for slow going on the trail. The head high swamp grass held in the heat and radiated humidity and with trekking the wide open prairie and with it being so hot out, we were getting worn out pretty quickly. The trail crossed into a shaded slough (pronounced “slew” and it’s like a big wet area where you’re going to get your feet wet) which thankfully had a large wooden plank bridge that carried us over the duckweed blanketed water, dark and deep enough where for sure there were lurking alligators.
Soon the sun was starting to set, the coppery beams alighting the fields a golden color like they were on fire. Speaking of fire, we’d been watching helicopters circling a forest fire nearby and at points the smoke got so thick and bad enough that we had to pull our Buff neck gaiters over our noses and mouths. The sky became hazy and black flakes of ash fluttered down on the trail. After having been knocked down for 2 weeks from wildfire smoke inhalation last summer in California, we didn’t want to take any chances with smoke inhalation again.
Around 5pm we assessed where we’d planned on heading to for camping since we still had 6 miles to go which would mean a decent amount of night hiking in an area where other hikers had run into bears, wild pigs and even panthers. With sunset about 1 hour and 15 minutes away and my feet being pretty tired, I asked Shannon how he was feeling. He replied that he was feeling about the same level of exhaustion from the humidity, the exposed trail and the rough terrain. I mentioned that the campsite we were aiming for other hikers had said that they’d seen panthers out there. There was another campsite coming up in a mile and sounded pretty cool with the name of Cowboy Camp. It even had a water pump, picnic table, fire pit and some benches that sounded good to us. Not being on a set schedule is pretty nice since it offers flexibility in your plans; if your body is feeling worn down from the hot and humid days, you can stop whenever you like.
Shannon got a bit of cell service and booked us a permit for a single night at this upcoming dude ranch resort as they had been giving us trouble saying on the weekend we could only stay if we booked 2 nights despite us explaining we had no reason to. From what other hikers ahead of us described, the tent camping at the kitschy River Ranch Resort was just a piece of dirt next to some horse trailers that they wanted $45 for. We figured out how to only pay for one night and the obstinate booking agents were still telling us that we couldn’t check in until 4pm and had to be out by 10am. Not sure what the 4pm check in time was all about – did the housekeepers go clean the dirt patch underneath the tents? Unfortunately we had limited options for showers and laundry in the past week so we figured based on the disgustingness of our clothes and bodies that we had to stay there. We wouldn’t have another opportunity for over 100 miles to shower or laundry. On Saturdays the ranch has a rodeo but we were fine with missing out to not have to pay $100 to set up our tent on dirt for 2 nights.
At the Cowboy Campsite, there was a beautiful water pump that was tall enough for us to both take what we called “bird baths” using the sponges we had recently purchased at the grocery store to scrub down our dirty legs and toes. It felt nice to hillbilly shower and wash some of the day’s dirt off of us under the pump spigot. We had picked up the sponge trick from a couple of experienced PCT hikers Mosey and Aria and it is a game changer. I had cut my sponge in two – ¼ for cleaning out my cooking pot and kept the other ¾ as my bath sponge. Two birds, one stone!
At the campsite we cooked dinner and I started a small fire, clearing out the built up pile of ash that was packed up to the rim of the fire ring. It’s pretty dry out here and I wanted to make sure no embers blew out of the fire ring and accidentally set the whole place on fire. Shannon had his favorite Right Rice for dinner and that was Thanksgiving Stuffing flavored which was pretty good and I had something coming out from one of my survival food buckets that lasts like 50 years. If it’s gluten-free, it’s good with me! I didn’t realize how hot today was and we had tried our best to keep up on our electrolytes at lunch. Now at dinner I could feel the effects of being in the sun all day and halfway through my potato soup I felt like I was going to barf everywhere so I just moved onto water and electrolyte drink mix and was able to keep that down. I put the rest of my potato soup in a plastic bag to toss out tomorrow at the Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park ranger station. Pack it in, pack it out!
With the fire dying down, we hung up our food, packed up gear into the tent and was about to pour 2 L of unfiltered water on the fire when a group of headlamps bobbed amongst the trees at the entrance of the campsite. It was a dad, his daughter and his daughter’s boyfriend who showed up after having gotten lost in the dark for a couple of miles. They had walked right past the water pump on their way in and asked about where the campsites were. I showed them some flat spots that I thought were good and asked if they wanted me to put out the fire or show them where the water pump was. The dad offered to tend to the fire and I asked if he also wanted my 2 L of unfiltered water to drink if they didn’t want to go to the water pump. They looked pretty tired and spilled about half of the 2 L on the ground before the other half got into their water container. It turns out that the father had some issues with the FarOut navigation app and didn’t check before he left if some of the GPS settings were correct. They didn’t have paper maps either, just relying on the dad’s phone app and it sounded like they just kind of walked around in the dark prairies and woods for a few miles until they found the campsite. Pretty nutso that they actually made it.
Shannon and I said goodnight to the group and read a little bit before going to sleep. I had practiced my astrophotography with some photos of the stars before the clouds rolled in as the skies out here are supposedly some of the darkest in the whole state of Florida. The storms seemed to have been brewing all day with it having been so sticky and humid. In the tent it felt like you could hardly breathe with the thick humid air sticking to you and making you feel like you’re trapped with no hint of a breeze. We had all the doors open as we laid down on our sleeping pads, only a tiny part of our sleeping bags touching our skin. I snuggled up and sighed, knowing that I probably would have to blow up my sleeping pad a couple times during the night. It seems like over the past few days that something sharp had pierced through the floor of the tent, the tent footprint and my sleeping pad, popping a small hole that slowly drains out the air throughout the night until I’m lying on the cold hard ground at 2am. Hopefully at the River Ranch Resort we can blow up the sleeping pad, submerge it in the pool and find out where the stream of bubbles are coming from in order to patch the hole up. I’m also hoping we don’t get kicked out of the campground for doing something like that as it seems like they are quite sticklers for rules and regulations.
We heard the three hikers talking as we tried to sleep and the stupid boyfriend was bragging about he was sleeping under an ultralight tarp. It was kind of idiotic because a tarp doesn’t offer you any protection from the mosquitoes which currently are out in full force being so close to the swamp. Sounds like he’ll probably have a real fun night. I don’t think they hung up their food and we’d already heard a couple of wild pigs in the woods so hopefully these guys wouldn’t be screaming during the night as the wild boars try to steal their food. We just went to bed hoping that the 0.1 inches of rain forecasted tomorrow is actually just a dusting of rain. Unfortunately we’ve found out the hard way that you should always expect significantly more rain than is what is predicted.
