Florida Trail: Eastern Continental Trail Day 10-11
January 16-17, 2022
Mile: 10.2 to 21.1 (10.9 miles)
Start: Quality Inn, Florida City, FL via S-197 lock bridge
Finish: C-111 Canal Bend stealth camping
We were on our way out of Florida City all ready to start trekking through the Everglades National Park when one of us had the bright idea to check the weather. I blanched and did a double take when not too far from us to the west there was a tornado warning. Overnight a big storm system had come through and was pushing masses of cold air behind a warm front. We were in a tornado watch for the next 5 hours which was a pretty long time. Checking the radar it actually did seem pretty likely that we could have a tornado come through. With a tornado watch, it didn’t seem to be such a great idea to be caught walking through the Everglades which are completely flat with nowhere to hide except in the crocodile and alligator-filled canals. So with the ominous weather in mind, we decided that we were going to stay one more day in Florida City and ride out the tornadoes indoors.
We had a few hours until the rain and the worst of the storm system was supposed to hit so we walked to Walmart to pick up camping stove fuel and some supplies for the next week or so. The Walmart was crazy packed and the only fuel that they had left were two massive canisters that were the enormous 16 ounce size versus the 4 ounces we typically like to carry on the trail. Well, beggars can’t be choosers and we need to cook food since we’ll be in the backcountry for a while. With the sky starting to turn a weird purple-green color, we grabbed the giant fuel canister and got the heck out of Walmart.
With all our grocery bags, we didn’t want to carry them through the rain that was about to hit so we grabbed an Uber. Our driver came and snatched us up from Walmart after a crazy hectic experience and like many of our Uber drivers down here didn’t speak any English and I felt like a complete idiot not knowing enough Spanish. But we made do with Google translate and the basic Spanish that we knew. We told him about “El tornado” coming through and how we were nervous about that. He just laughed with his good sense of humor and told us not to worry. He was really funny and we said goodbye and thanked him as we headed back to the hotel room to sort through our stuff not a moment too soon.
Not even five minutes after we’re back in the hotel the rain started pouring down. It looks like the tornado watch was still on but there was thankfully less of a chance of a tornado actually forming near us by now. We spent the day journaling, catching up on some sleep and switching from Bloodline to Carnival Row on Amazon Prime. One of Shannon’s luxury items is a Roku remote which after having spent two weeks in a hotel on the Pacific Crest Trail recovering from wildfire smoke inhalation, we decided it would probably be a worthy investment to carry the Roku so we didn’t have to watch commercials and crappy cable TV all the time. Hey, we are not just surviving out here – we are thriving!
After the danger of tornadoes passed, we took an Uber to the “Robert is Here” fruit stand. This fruit stand was described to us as “the Disney World of fruit stands.” Not going to lie, it was amazing. We picked up some orange fruit called canistels that I had never seen before but it was heart-shaped deliciousness. You had to eat the almost sweet potato consistency fruit when it was almost so mushy that even gently touching it your finger would go through the skin. The canistel tasted like an orange custard and was absolutely delicious. We shared the canistel for breakfast the next day along with some Manzano bananas. Manzanos are a variety of tiny bananas that actually tasted like a cross between an apple (or manzana) in Spanish and a banana. We had also grabbed some of Robert’s famous smoothies – I chose guanabana or soursop which despite being an unusual fruit that I’d never heard of definitely made me feel a lot better after drinking a big ole helping of vitamin C. Star fruit, miracle fruit and jackfruit dangled from the trees around Robert’s fruit stand. Miracle fruit is this tiny red fruit that when you eat it, everything sweet tastes sour and everything sour tastes sweet for the next couple of hours.
The fruit stand was called “Robert is Here” because when Robert was 6-years-old, his family had cucumber fields that grew like crazy. With the boom of cukes, they couldn’t sell them fast enough before more would grow back. They stuck little Robert on the side of the road selling the extra cucumbers but his first day he didn’t sell a single one because he was too small for the cars driving by to even see him! So his mama made a big sign that said “Robert is Here” with an arrow pointed at little 6-year-old Robert. His second day on the job he sold out of cucumbers and every day since then he’s been doing pretty well for himself selling fruits and veggies.
We left the hotel around noon where our Uber driver from yesterday brought us back to the trail. We talked about “el tornado” and Shannon learned the word “Los ronquidos” which means “snoring” in English telling Walter about how much “Los ronquidos” I made last night when I was sleeping. Walter was very sweet despite us both having language barriers and after he saw how remote and crazy of a place he was dropping us off at, he told us that he would see us “mañana” and we all laughed. We said we were “muy fuerte” (very strong) and that we would hope to not see him tomorrow.
Once back on the trail we hiked across a canal lock where a bunch of people were out fishing with their families. Down in the calm water a bunch of manatees were nestled in a group at the water’s surface. A momma manatee with her baby and their auntie were taking care of their little manatee in the slow moving canal. As we took the time to look around we realized that there were probably about 5 or 6 sea cows out swimming which was really cool. It was cute watching the mama manatee nuzzling her little baby as they came out of the water to breathe.
A local fisherman chatted us up and despite not having much luck on the water today he told us that he comes out here a lot and that the manatees almost always are hanging out. It was no big deal for him to see the sea cows but I guess when you live here it’s kind of like seeing something as ordinary as squirrels or birds. Seeing the manatees was kind of cool and special for us, especially since not even 30 seconds into our hike today we’d run into the sea cows.
We said goodbye to the manatees and continued on up the trail, walking alongside a canal with a strong headwind starting our hike. The side of the canal was lined almost entirely with Poisonwood trees so camping was definitely going to be interesting tonight. A single drop of Poisonwood sap can cause severe burning and blistering. I’m pretty sure that some Poisonwood sap dropped on my backpack because I now have a mysterious burned spot on the outside and I know we weren’t around a fire or embers in the past week.
Out in the canal, a couple of families were fishing from their shallow johnboats and we kept an eye out for alligators and crocodiles but didn’t see any which was 100% okay by me. We did see quite a few fish jumping out of the water and someone told us later it was mullet. You’d hear the giant acrobatic fish leaping out of the water a couple feet in the air before you’d see them bellyflopping back into the canal. It was crazy!
The afternoon was spent literally walking in a straight line for miles and miles along a canal. The exciting parts of the day were the curves on the canal as it bent north. Thrilling stuff you guys! The trail was flat and wide on an old dirt road and forests of Poisonwood trees lined the trail in droves. You couldn’t go anywhere out here without running into a Poisonwood tree with its patchy multicolored bark and oozing acidic black sap dripping from its trunk and limbs. We were getting better at identifying the tree and it was easy to see the Poisonwood with the yellow stripe running down the central vein of the dark waxy leaves surrounded by yellow highlighted outer edges.
We popped in some audiobooks to make the walk a little more interesting while we admired the quiet beauty of the canals, the clear dark water and the waving fronds of sawgrass and swamp plants. Later in the afternoon about 10 miles into our hike, we noticed a couple of people hanging out in the shade at one of the canal locks. We thought it was maybe some fishermen but didn’t see their car and became a little bit nervous. I think the most dangerous animals on these hiking trails are the humans. Cautiously we approached the group of people and with incredulous eyes we noticed that these people actually had backpacks on! It turned out these were actually four Florida Trail hikers. Being Hiker Trash ourselves, you can pick out other Hiker Trash pretty easily. They look a little more ragged and fit than your average person (aka “Normies”) but also not quite as rough as people living in the street and with better quality gear than your local homeless population. In Tavernier Key, we had shouted at another thru-hiker heading south as we were both crossing a highway bridge and congratulated him on finishing his southbound Florida Trail hike to Key West. It was really cool meeting up with these Florida Trail hikers today since we hadn’t seen any other hikers out on the roads or canals. We met Tick Tock and Cookie, a retired couple who had Triple Crowned (aka thru-hiked the AT, PCT and CDT which is 8,000 miles of trail) and completed all these other long-distance trails all over the world. We also met Twig from Miami and another girl named Cashmere who were out hiking with the trail family. Turns out they all had Triple Crowned and done all sorts of other hikes.
To my surprise, Shannon lingered with the group talking with them instead of excusing us to hike on our own to make more miles. I’m not always a fan of socializing with other thru-hikers since sometimes they’re kind of obnoxious and I’m pretty sure I’m becoming a curmudgeon. However I really enjoyed my conversation with Tick Tock & Cookie telling me all about their family and adventures they’d been on. It was nice because they weren’t just talking about themselves but also she asked me questions, I asked her questions and we had a nice conversation. I don’t know why I was so taken by the conversation but maybe it’s because we’ve been isolated by Covid and living in the backwoods of Minnesota for too long.
This group of hikers had already done a big hike today coming all the way from Key Largo today so they were going to set up camp pretty soon. The water situation is a little bit of a struggle coming up and we had a nice 29 mile long stretch of trail without water tomorrow. That was longer than the longest waterless section in the Mojave Desert on the Pacific Crest Trail which is crazy to put in perspective. Technically speaking, there is water in the canals but it’s so polluted with agricultural runoff, pesticides and heavy metals that even if you filter the water you’ll still get sick. Plus there are some freakishly large alligators in those canals that might mistake you for deer as you dip your water bottle in. No thanks to losing a hand and no thanks to pesticide poisoning!
With my 3 L water bladder having popped the first day of our hike, I was out the 5 liters capacity I probably should have had and only have my 2 L water bladder and two 1 L Smartwater bottles. I just didn’t know if 4 L was going to get me through 29 miles of trail and was a little anxious especially if it was going to be hot out. Back on the PCT we had a 20 or 25 mile stretch of hike where the temperatures were a lot hotter but I had a 7 L capacity of water to do 20 miles and was averaging drinking 1 L of water per 3 miles hiking. Now here we were where the terrain was a little bit flatter and the temps a little bit cooler (for now) and I was hoping maybe I could stretch 1 L of water per 6 miles. Yikes! We asked our new friends what they thought about this next water carry and what their plans were going to be in this next section. They weren’t sure yet but were thinking that they would get creative to survive. Who would’ve thought we’d be worrying so much about water in humid Florida?
It was fun talking to the new group of hikers who had already seen a venomous cottonmouth snake sunning itself on the trail today. We swapped different animal sightings and what our experiences have been like walking through the Keys. They seemed pretty beat this afternoon which I don’t blame them after having done the long highway slog from Key Largo to here. They stopped at a somewhat Poisonwood free area and we said goodnight while Shannon and I hiked on. We had a decision point to make coming up shortly as the only water source was 1.7 miles off trail one way and then it was another 29 miles stretch where you could only filter water from the polluted canals. With the canals draining everything from animal poop to the fields actively being sprayed in the area with who knows what, not even our fancy-schmancy water filter could filter out those chemicals. It was going to be interesting.
With it starting to get dark, an option for us was to camp a little bit before the next road crossing and walk to the Everglades National Park visitor center tomorrow morning where there were bathrooms with potable water. We agreed that even though it would add 3.4 miles round trip to our day, it would probably be our best bet since we didn’t want to get sick so early in the trip drinking pesticide and cow poo water. Our feet chewed up a couple more miles and then about a mile or so before the road crossing, we set up camp in a mowed grassy spot and cooked dinner. I had wanted to spray our bags, shoes and tent with permethrin which repels ticks, chiggers and mosquitoes and helps you stay Lyme disease free. Permethrin is a powerful chemical but not a good one to get on your skin so you have to wait for the chemicals to dry after spraying them. We wanted to treat our gear at the hotel but with the rain/tornadoes and then all the people coming and going it seemed like one of us would have to sit out back next to the swamp for a couple hours to let our gear dry so no one would steal it. Well tonight since we had stopped earlier than anticipated, we sprayed our gear with permethrin and let it dry as we cooked dinner.
We only had one fuel canister so after rocks, paper, scissors Shannon got to cook his food first making a spicy quinoa concoction from Walmart. I then cooked some soup tortilla soup mix without tortillas in it and added some gluten-free pasta to it. I forgot how to cook since it’s been a while since we’d made trail food (at least that’s the excuse I’m going with) and I burnt some of my soup so it had a charred flavor to it which I told myself was “smoky flavor” as I crunched on crunchy pieces. The sunset over the canal was as pretty as you could hope for and we searched the glassy water to see if we’d catch a glimpse of a crocodile or alligator. All we saw was a jumping fish or two occasionally breaking the surface tension and slapping back down, creating a big splash. It was still pretty cool until the sun went down.
Somehow we forgot we’re in south Florida and that we’re currently camping next to the massive swamps of the Everglades. It was like clockwork that as soon as it got dark, hundreds of mosquitoes came rushing out of the marshes in search of blood. I had welts the size of golf balls on my legs, all over my hands and my feet. I should’ve put my rain pants on but I put on some bug spray instead and hoped for the best. Spoiler alert: the freakishly large Everglades mosquitoes don’t even seem to care about 100% DEET. We didn’t let the permethrin dry on our tent all the way and just chalked it up to our lifetime occupational chemical exposure as we threw all our gear in the tent and jumped in as quickly as we could. At some point Shannon stepped on a fire ant nest and was dancing and yelling about how much his foot hurt after the tiny but painful insect chomped down. I was running around while brushing my teeth so I wouldn’t die from blood loss and death by a thousand mosquito bites.
We heard all of the birds settling down for the night just before sunset as they squawked and chirped from the tree branches. Then all of a sudden everything went quiet. It was a little unnerving but I guess all the animals were just going to sleep. My thoughts went to how when big predators like panthers are in the area all of the animals go silent. We had also seen a couple of big piles of dried bear scat next to where we were camping and when I walked a little bit further up the road to go pee I caught a glimpse of a much larger pile filled with berries that looked kind of fresh. But it didn’t look fresh enough to warrant us to hang our food so we just stuffed our food bags in our tent and hoped for the best. Plus the only places we could hang food were the freaking Poisonwood trees! I guess when you’re faced with certain injury (ex: having your hands burned by acidic Poisonwood sap) versus less certain injury (ex: black bears out patrolling for human food where there’s typically not humans hanging out). So between the choices of getting caustic burns all over our bodies or having to chase off a bear during the middle of the night, we decided we’re just gonna take the risk of throwing our food in our tent since the bear poop didn’t look super fresh.
Shannon and I threw all of our gear into our tent as quickly as it could, letting our freshly sprayed permethrin clothes hang on the outside of the tent where we knew that they would probably collect condensation from the grass during the night. Tonight we were definitely giving off more of a homeless person vibe instead of regular old Hiker Trash with our socks, shorts and shirts covering the outside of our tent and our packs spread out on the grass like a minor explosion had happened. With everything generally in the area of the tent and out of the immediate vicinity of the fire ant nests, we dove into the tent and zipped it up as fast as we could. Then it was mosquito squashin’ time! Shannon and I started smashing the few skeeters who had snuck inside accidentally decorating their bodies and legs all over the inside of our tent, their guts and wings smeared across the fabric. Blood-filled mosquitoes were crushed under our frantic Fruit Ninja chopping hands, the fat mosquitoes bursting open like freakish Gushers candy. It looked like a crime scene as blood was streaked across the roof of ceiling, the floor and the walls. I suspect that by the time we’re done with the Florida Trail the inside of our tent was going to look like a murderous Jackson Pollack painting.
It’s starting to get surprisingly chilly for South Florida and the temps definitely dropped deep down into the 40s during the evening. As we scrambled into bed the full moon rose higher and the bright light beams felt like a spotlight was being shown directly on our tent. As we were cooking dinner next to the canal, a couple of good ole boys in their 4×4 buzzed by on the other side of the canal but they must not have seen us or something and didn’t acknowledge us which was probably for the best. Maybe they’re up to no good but they hadn’t come back so we were hoping that they wouldn’t return. We planned to wake up at first light and get the heck out of dodge. During the night I wondered if all the sounds of breaking branches and leaves in the woods and marshes were something small like a raccoon or one of the giant invasive Burmese pythons who supposedly hunted only at night. Who knows – it’s always the first night in the woods which is the hardest to sleep. We made do with what we had and tried to get as much sleep as we could before the long stretch of non poisoned water tomorrow.