Florida Trail: Eastern Continental Trail Day 12
January 18, 2022
Mile: 21.7 to 41.1 (+1.7mi for 21.1 total miles)
Start: C-111 Canal Bend stealth camping
Finish: TownePlace Suites Marriott, Kendall, FL
Animals seen: Gator, swimming iguana, deer, horses, fish, snails, anole lizard, millipede, bee
At 6:50 AM we were woken up in the early twilight to voices of our new hiking friends Cookie, Tick Tock, Cashmere and Twig walking past us on the canal. We suspected that they would be early risers as in our years of camping and hiking experience, it seems like the older folks always tend to wake up at the buttcrack of dawn. It’s okay with us to start a little bit after the sun rises as the people who head out first on the trail have to break the spider webs with their faces. It was definitely a wake up alarm as they were loudly talking exclaiming in surprise at all the bear poop that was outside of our campsite. Luckily the black bears left us alone last night but the coyotes were howling and yipping all night. The dogs from a neighboring farm were going crazy barking and howling back at them. Sometimes I think that the coyotes mess with the dogs which is kind of what it sounded like last night.
Most everything that we heard scurrying in the woods last night stayed far away from our tent except one smaller animal. I think what I heard in the bushes earlier this morning only a stone’s throw away from our tent was just a raccoon. I was hoping that we wouldn’t be bothered by any of the enormous Burmese pythons that have supposedly overtaken the Everglades. I don’t think I care very much to cuddle with a 20-foot-long foot snake that may just try to eat me. When you do a little research on the Burmese pythons that have invaded south Florida and reproduced like crazy after hurricanes and overwhelmed pet owners released them into the swamplands, it’s pretty sobering. We’d seen photos from a guy in Key West when he was biking 2 weeks ago in Central Florida of an alligator eating a Burmese python. We’d also seen news articles of a Burmese python so large that it ate an alligator. In Indonesia, a 25-year-old man was strangled and then swallowed by a massive Burmese python.
According to the US Geological Surveys, Burmese pythons released from a python breeding facility by 1992’s Hurricane Andrew have essentially eaten the Everglades. The populations of native small mammals like raccoons, opposums, marsh rabbits and foxes have declined by 99%. It’s crazy what the invasive snakes have done to the Everglades. The governor of Florida has offered bounties for dead pythons, the larger ones winning their hunters upwards of $400 per expired snake. Full time hunting positions and competitions for snakes sponsored by the State of Florida make the dangerous job of python hunting somewhat lucrative.
My work colleagues and I once had a colorful limo driver bring us from the airport to our corporate training HQ an hour away. On the long drive, our chauffeur told us about his son bringing him on a python hunting trip in the Everglades. Their guide took them out on an airboat, tracking a large 15-foot-long python that he’d been tagged. As the guide disembarked from the airboat and started walking through the swamp towards the ping of the massive snake, all of a sudden another smaller 10-foot-long lying in the sawgrass lunged and attacked him. The python bit down on the guide’s hand and attempted to suffocate him by coiling around his chest. Our limo driver said it was chaos as it was just the guide, the driver and the driver’s son in the boat. The guide was yelling and the son grabbed a knife and they cut off the python’s head. The issue was that the python’s fang had broken off and lodged itself in the guide’s wrist. The limo driver and his son had to tourniquet the guide’s arm and operate the airboat to get him out of the swamp. For some reason this insane story has always stuck with me. Now that we were in the Everglades, we were on the lookout for the massive pythons. There was no way I was going to be going out of the tent at night – no thank you!
As we debated about how big of a python we might see today, we packed up all of our gear which was soaking wet because of being so close to the canal water and camping on the grass. Last night it had actually gotten pretty cold for southern Florida in the mid 40s which is a big deal I guess. But it warmed up quickly and we had some nice hiking out to the road a mile away. After hearing from local hiker Twig, who told us about how polluted the canal water was, we had planned on walking the 1.7 miles to the Ernest Coe Visitor Center to collect tap water at the Everglades National Park. As we arrived at the road crossing, we recognized a familiar face of Twig who was waiting for us and offered to give us a ride one way to the Visitor’s Center. She had met up with Cashmere, Cookie and Tick Tock to section hike part of the Florida Trail and had offered to drive them to the wonderfully eclectic “Robert is Here” fruit stand. However it seems like they didn’t want to do any sightseeing and instead get some miles done. “Hike your own hike,” as they say in the thru-hiking world. I’m sure glad we’ve been taking time to stop and smell the roses as it would be kind of rough just to be walking highways and canals.
We gladly accepted Twig’s offer for a ride and she took us to the Everglades Visitor’s Center where we checked out the map of the park and tanked up on potable water. Twig showed us where she has been kayaking in the 10,000 Islands while working for NOAA and how she’s paddled with her friends all across southern Florida. She’s done a lot with her life and said that she loves hiking so much that it’s hard to entertain the prospect of going back to a job, which I don’t blame her.
Twig was super-friendly and very informative, telling us stories about all the different campsites and trail conditions coming up on the Florida Trail. Up ahead there’s a section of 7 miles of trail that we were a little nervous about as it hadn’t been maintained in several years. Down here in the thick humidity of Florida, trails can become overgrown in a few weeks, let alone a few years of neglect. We weren’t sure if we were going to have a good time on it. I think Twig’s on the Florida Trail Association board and she told us that a couple of the FTA guys went to walk the trail last week and it said it took them all an entire day to hike 7 miles. The trail hadn’t been maintained for several years and the swamps grow fast and thick down here so you had to basically crawl and swim for a good long chunk of your day. The navigation app comments also echoed the same sentiment that you have to bushwhack through overgrown vines and swim and crawl through deep gator holes. She suggested that we take the roadwalk around it like the hikers ahead of us are going to do.
We told Twig that we wanted to go putz around inside the Everglades Visitor Center for a little bit so she left to go back home and get prepared for a big kayaking trip coming up this weekend. Inside the Everglades Visitor’s Center we learned so much about the Everglades which is actually a huge sheet of water like a river instead of an actual swamp. Do you know there’s a thing called a marsh rabbit that lives out here? That little bunny has Shaquille O’Neal sized feet that help it swim across the marshland. Also we learned that alligators dig deep holes with their tails and feet to create pools for mating. I had heard about people talking about alligator holes and having to swim across them on the Florida Trail but I had no idea what they meant until now. It sounds like we’ll definitely have to bring out our swim floaties for the deep water slog through Big Cypress Swamp in the next few days.
Shannon and I grabbed a couple postcards and an iced tea, topping up all of our water capacity for the next 20 miles. We were going to take Twig’s and the other hikers’ advice to spend tonight in the Miami suburb of Kendall where we’d leave our stuff at a hotel and slackpack tomorrow (aka hike fast with only with a day pack filled with water, first aid, snacks, etc.). With Uber and Lyft being available out here, it would help us get around the long waterless sections and work around the fact that we weren’t technically allowed to camp on the Miccosukee Tribal Reservation.
Leaving the Everglades office, we walked the 1.7 miles back to the canal and continued trekking north in the footsteps of the three hikers we had run into yesterday. We kept an eye out for gators but only caught a glimpse of the jumping fish that someone told us were mullet. These guys launch themselves not even kidding you 5 feet into the air only to splash back down, their yellow fins sparkling in the spray of the water. I’ve never seen anything like it!
We passed lots of farms with people picking beans and papaya trees and coconuts that were growing out there. The interesting part of the day was crossing a couple of canal locks, one of which had its gate bolted shut so we had to do a little bit of trespassing to keep on the trail. We shimmied alongside the barrier, gazing down into the clear freshwater to see a giant bowfin fish swimming in the depths. A twisted cone snail sparkled on the metal gate and we launched ourselves over the railing, through the back fence area past the “No Trespassing” signs and then up and over the other side back out to safety. Kind of strange that they’ve put a national scenic trail through blocked off land.
In the afternoon we must’ve been walking by a bunch of airports as we saw a bunch of planes circling practicing their landings and takeoffs. There’s also a fire burning trash and yard waste which blew in our faces until we passed by. Maybe the planes were circling to make sure the inferno didn’t get out of control on such a windy day. One side of the trail was the Everglades, the other side were people’s homes and huge farms. At one point I spotted something weird like a copperhead snake lying in the floating weeds in the middle of the canal. Turns out it was in an enormous iguana hanging out in the lakeweed that was growing in the canals. We thought it was dead as we’d never seen an iguana swimming in the water before. Shannon tossed a rock in the water near the invasive iguana where he promptly scrambled over the canal’s urface and dove into the black water not to be seen again. I didn’t know that iguanas could swim or hold their breath. No wonder these things are so invasive and hard to get rid of down here in southern Florida. They’re like cockroaches – they can survive anything!
We spotted some deer munching on pickerelweed and tasty plants amongst the tall sawgrass. Guess the Burmese pythons haven’t eaten all of the mammals out here! They were grazing on grass and hanging out in the open in the middle of the day which was interesting because usually you don’t see that. They were pretty nervous but it was cool to see them and they were some of the biggest mammals we’ve seen so far in the Florida Trail outside of the buffet station at some of the hotels.
The afternoon turned sunny, a little bit dusty and bright but not too hot which made for decent hiking weather. As we trekked past busy farmland and houses bordering the canal, it was a little tough to find a place to stop to even use the bathroom. Our side of the canal was Poisonwood trees so you couldn’t step foot in there without risking being burned by acidic tree sap or if you went farther back into the marsh one of the venomous snakes or giant alligators found you. Plus there were lots of trucks going back-and-forth on the canal today asking us about our hike so despite being next to 1.5 million acres of wilderness, we were finding it a bit tricky to gain even a couple minutes of privacy for a pee break.
Poisonwood trees grew on both sides of the trail so if you had to use the bathroom you had to be pretty careful where you’re stepping. The acidic burns from this tropical tree’s sap can leave blisters and scars. The smoke can cause permanent blindness if it gets in your eye and respiratory issues if breathed in. We’re supposed to be leaving the poisonous trees behind in the next week which will be kind of nice to not have to worry as much about if the trees can kill you or not. We have enough to worry about with the venomous snakes, enormous spiders, freakishly large Burmese pythons, alligators and crocodiles so I think we’re okay with having one less thing that can kill us out there.
There seems to be an impressive amount of wildlife around here and we saw what appeared to be lots of bear, coyote and even big cat droppings as we hiked. This place is also a birder’s paradise and we even saw advertisements for the nearby National Birding Trail or something like that. Trail Angel Twig told us to keep an eye out for rare pink birds called Roseate Spoonbills that resemble flamingoes. Florida’s famous flamingoes actually don’t even reside in the state and are found much further south in the Caribbean. Occasionally a flamingo is washed up on the shores of Florida from a hurricane or storm and there was rumor one was actually hanging around the Florida Keys now.
As we walked, I checked the comments on the FarOut navigation app and some hiker said he had been camping out here and during the night someone hunting the giant Burmese pythons with a spotlight that woke him up in the middle of the night. I guess the giant snakes really do exist! We haven’t seen one yet and heard they’re more active at night then during the day but we hope if we do see one then it’s from far away.
We were maybe a mile from where the python hunter encounter was when we heard gunshots going off across the canal on someone’s private property. It sounded like target practice but it was pretty close to the trail. I became a little on edge with how loud the shots were and Shannon definitely ducked down a couple of times out of instinct. We were trying to walk past the shooting range, attempting to just get through this section as fast as possible when another round of bullets were shot. One of the bullets whizzed by so close overhead that I could hear it tumbling through the air so close that it must’ve been within a 50 foot range of us. It was so crazy and I had to stop to ask myself if we just got shot at. Shannon looked at me, his face pale and eyes wide with horror and said, “Run.”
And we f**king booked it. We didn’t know if this guy was intentionally shooting at us like some crazy Florida redneck or if he just had one of his bullets unintentionally ricochet and almost kill us. All we knew was that we didn’t want to stick around to find out. Our adrenaline spiked and we sprinted for a good 10 minutes away from where the shots were still going off. We’ve had close encounters before while hiking like unknowingly hiking during deer season in Kentucky and having to scream loudly in the woods as we hiked in order not to get shot. On the Pacific Crest Trail we had someone shooting across the forest road so loudly that I thought he was aiming for us but this was different. The bullet was so close to our heads that you could hear the whirring sound as the bullet shattered the air overhead. It was pretty freaky and we were just glad to get out of there without injury.
As we put distance between us and the wild target shooter, stopping for a quick snack break under the shade of some Poisonwood trees to give our beating hearts a rest. Across the canal a couple of horses stared at us curiously from their yard. Shannon made his purple drank concoction of 1 liter of water, 2 caffeinated drink mixes and 1 electrolyte packet to kind of balance it all out and make sure we stayed up on our salts. It replenished our electrolyte balance from all that we were sweating out but also put a little pep in our step to finish the last 5 miles.
We sat in the shade and were already planning our stay tonight at a hotel in Kendall which is a suburb of North Miami. This way we didn’t have to go the entire 29 miles without water. We’ll have some options to refill water that isn’t polluted canal water and then maybe even slackpack tomorrow a good section of the trail, leaving behind our heavy sleeping bags and tent behind. With a mouth full of granola bar, I told Shannon that I was so excited to have Uber Eats delivered to us tonight at the hotel and he couldn’t stop laughing at what a little fat kid I was. We washed our snacks down with some ibuprofen and went fullbore down the trail all jacked up on caffeine, electrolytes and ibuprofen. The trail miles flew by as the sun started to set. We ran into 3 or 4 road bikers on a cement bike path but we weren’t sure where they came from because the bike path ended maybe a mile after it started and disappeared into an extremely rocky and rugged road on the levee.
I practiced my daily Spanish lesson as we walked, making a good pace. The sun was starting to golden and we passed behind some housing developments where dogs were barking and roosters cock-a-doodling and people yelling. We continued on past without making eye contact with the random guy peeing behind the bushes. Soon we neared 136th Street where we were going to catch an Uber and meet up with our friends at the hotel to see if we could do some slackpacking with them tomorrow. Just before the place where we were going to get picked up by a rideshare there was a guy camped with a couple tents and a full barbecue grill who looks like he’s kind of living out there on the levee. We didn’t make eye contact and continued walking, both of us ignoring each other and minding our own business.
Finally we caught an Uber and went to the hotel where we showered and chowed down on some bowls with lots of veggies, rice, chicken and fish. I think I had a little bit too much caffeine from the purple drank and was only able to sleep 3 or 4 hours. We’d made plans with Cookie to meet up the next morning leaving by 7:15am to catch an Uber for the 5 of us and hiking around 20-25 miles. It had been a long day but a decent day and we were just glad that we didn’t get killed on the trail l, despite having a very close call. I think we earned the soft bed and the food that we ate for dinner tonight.