Florida Trail: Day 41
Feb 16, 2022
Mile: 363.8 to 388.8 (+.7mi for 25.7 total miles)
Start: South Campsite, Richloam Tract
Finish: Croom Loop A Camping Zone, Withlacoochee State Forest
We woke at 6:15 when the alarm went off but we were both pretty tired and it was still dark out. Just as we were almost asleep is when the owl calls started hooting so loud that they woke us up. The barred owls seem to love hooting just before dawn and the birds started chirping loudly shortly after the first light and we figured it was time to wake up since we had nature’s alarm clocks going off all around us.
The night before someone had been out hunting with their coon dogs which had been howling and baying until at least 10pm. They only stopped when it sounded like they’d treed a raccoon or gotten a wild hog. Their owner must’ve picked them up and moved on throughout the WMA, using their GPS collars to track the dogs down. Coon dogs are so loud with their howls that echo far across the forest at night and if you don’t know what the sound is it can be blood chilling. We’d run into a few coon dogs on the Appalachian Trail and in Kentucky and we weren’t too worried about them. Mainly if the dogs come across us they just keep going with their mind focused on one thing: raccoons. Other hikers on the Florida Trail had said that coon dogs marked their tents when they came through their campsite and we were just grateful that our tent hasn’t been peed on by strange dogs yet!
We packed up quickly and headed out of our burnt little campsite, leaving behind the picnic table that somehow had survived the prescribed burn. Everything else in the area had been charred and blackened to a pile of ash, save for the fire-resistant trees. The Florida Trail sticker on the sign post was melted and peeled away but you could still follow the orange blaze.
We followed the crispy orange markings out of the woods, heading down some forest roads where there were the decaying carcasses of a couple dead wild hogs laying out to rot. At first we didn’t know what the decaying skeleton of some sort of hoofed animal with coarse wiry fur but then we realized it was a wild pig someone shot and just left. There’s so many wild hogs out here that I guess sometimes it’s not even worth taking the meat? Wild hogs are such a menace down here, able to reproduce at only 6 months and terrorize the farmers and dig up the forest to shreds. There is open hunting season on these nuisance animals and huge efforts to cull the herds. We weren’t surprised to see someone shoot the pig and just leave it there to rot. Personally I’d butcher the wild hog because the meat is quite tasty but that’s just me. Mmm wild bacon!
What surprised us about the dead wild pig was how tiny its quarter-sized hooves were for the 40 pounds or so of heft that the pig was. I recalled having seen much much larger wild pig footprints in the mud while hiking which must have belonged to just absolutely massive wild pigs. This one seemed like a teenager pig but had some serious weight to it for how minuscule its feet were. The hoof size to weight ratio got us thinking about how giant some of these wild pigs are out here because we’d seen some tracks that were 4-5 inches long. I thought of the story I read about a hunter down in Georgia who had for years stalked an especially wily and fierce half-ton pig called “Hogzilla.” Was there a Hogzilla down here in neighboring Florida? I’m sure there was but I didn’t care much to find out!
The trail spit us out onto the highway where huge amounts of construction were ongoing to widen the road. We waved to some construction workers and kept to the insides of the bright orange “Bob’s Burger Barricades” (my head was fixated on food) to not get hit by traffic. The trail headed into the residential town of Ridge Manor, population 1078 according to their welcome sign. It was nice to have traffic cones up while highway walking because we actually felt safer having a physical barrier up to prevent distracted drivers from swerving into the road shoulder or grassy ravines like they normally did.
We were so excited that we were going to be eating a hot breakfast soon at what other hikers had hyped up to be an amazing local restaurant called Southern Harmony Café. Shannon and I had even looked it up last night where deep in the woods we strangely had enough service to check out photos of the food, dreaming all night about what we were going to order. All morning we talked about what we were going to eat, either steak and eggs or corned beef hash with a half-and-half sweet tea for me and Shannon egg, sausages and French toast with a coffee.
Eager for breakfast, we spilled out onto the highway luckily there was flat packed sand and occasionally some newly set concrete to walk on. It was fine for hiking and when the big bulldozers and earthmover construction equipment was moving on our side of the road, we would cross to the other side. We hopped over a railroad and made good time 1.7 miles into the tiny village where we soon found the restaurant that we had so many expectations about. Outside the restaurant the lights were on but the sign outside said “Closed on Wednesdays.” What was today? Of course it was Wednesday. Dang it!
Shannon looked like he was having an existential crisis and he kept trying to open the door despite it being locked. Finally someone in a car came around and looked at us weirdos in backpacks standing outside the restaurant suspiciously. I pulled Shannons hand to get his sad puppy dog eyes off of the closed sign and told him we’d go to the gas station to get breakfast. I think the guy in the car thought we were some homeless people trying to break in and we needed to leave before anything happened in terms of law enforcement. As we crossed construction to reach the gas station, Shannon went through the five stages of grief in about 10 minutes and I had to coach him where to put his feet so he wouldn’t fall in a ditch or get flattened by a road grader. His hopes shattered, he just started this ongoing commentary about what the purpose of life was as he waxed poetically about breakfasts that could’ve been. I don’t think I’ve seen him so sad about something being closed ever and it was kind of sweet and hilarious but I felt guilty for indulging his expectations about the restaurant without checking to see if it would be open.
We crossed the street to head to the Circle K gas station where Shannon got himself a cheeseburger, roast beef sandwich, banana, coffee and a carrot cake which I tried to help him rebrand this gas station meal as “The breakfast of champions.” That got a small smile out of him. Being gluten-free because my body just decided one day to hate me, by breakfast was a sack of Cajun boiled peanuts, Powerade, banana, Caesar chicken salad and one of those weird gas station hotdogs without the bun. We sat in the shaded corner of the parking lot wedged in between one of those vacuum stations and an automatic car wash, eating our gas station breakfast in peace. Nobody bothered us except for the grackles in the tree overhead. They’re like weird Florida crows that are very aggressive when it comes to food and we had to swat at them a couple times to keep them off our gear. Other than that we ate our breakfast in peace and the lady at the cash register even called me baby and helped me figure out how to save some money on my purchase.
After breakfast we needed to top off our water since we’re in the section of trail where surface water sources are few and far between. It’s crazy to think we’re entering essentially a desert in Florida but the pine forest and sandhill territory is surprisingly dry with most water locked up deep underground in caves. Upon inspection of the bathrooms at Circle K we decided that it probably wasn’t the most sanitary place to collect water from. We were all set to reluctantly pay money for a gallon jug of water but then found out about a mile down the road at the local ballpark there were some water fountains we could use. On our way there we passed a Baptist church where another hiker had tried to get water from there a couple years ago and commented on how the pastor came out and asked him verbatim “What the hell are you doing?” and “Are you homeless?” It was some very “Christianly” behavior and we didn’t want anything to do with getting the cops called on us, despite the Florida Trail going in front of the church.
At the baseball park, we filled up our water and sat listening to the sound of someone screaming bloody murder which was concerning. The groundskeeper told us that the sound of someone screaming was most likely a neighbor’s peacocks which went on for a solid 20 minutes. Remind me never to get peacocks for pets – sheesh! Then we skedaddled since we had a lot of miles to go still and headed into the woods again.
We followed a local nature trail as the day started heating up and the humidity getting pretty sticky in the woods. The trail spit out randomly on someone’s private property and we just kept following the orange blazes next to the highway where we had to cross a bridge that spanned the Withlacoochee River. We weren’t sure if we’d be able to cross because the Withlacoochee River bridge was on a four-lane highway where there was more construction. When the construction workers and the sheriff didn’t seem to give us a second glance, we just kept walking with the highway on one side and exposed trusses and beams with guys using jackhammers on the other. It was so interesting no one even gave a hoot us hikers were there so we crossed the bridge and then ducked back down a side road and onto another nature trail that followed the dark black river. It was cool checking out the different houses on stilts next to the river which currently was about 50 or 60 feet below the high water line. The floodwater that comes through here must be crazy and you could tell some of these yards have been eroded by the river over the years. It must be an interesting investment to start out with an acre of land and after a few decades of river flooding and the water carving out the canyon walls to only be left with maybe half that amount!
The afternoon was getting hot and sticky and I was just glad there was some shade in the forest even if it was super humid. We hiked on and ran into a random guy sitting on a bench in the woods who was nice and asked us what we were up to for camping in the woods and stuff. I told him we were hiking the Florida Trail and come 600 miles had at least another 600 more. He just shook his head and laughed telling us to, “Have fun!” Then it was only another couple miles until we came to a campground where it was mostly empty. Shannon and I were able to sit in the shade at a picnic table top off our water and dipping our heads and clothes under the cold refreshing water faucets. Since we’d been sweating so much we caught up on electrolytes and salty snacks, digging into the bag of spicy pickles that I packed out from the gas station this morning. For some reason pickle juice just really hits the spot on a hot hike and it’s probably the salt and vinegar and juicy cucumbers that make for the perfect hiker snack. We hung out until 3:15pm trying to beat the hottest part of the day and then continued on.
In the late afternoon we were able to hike side-by-side as we hiked on a wide sandy trail next to a bike path. As the trail narrowed, we popped in our audiobooks with mine about some girl making a deal with the mafia and Shannon was listening to a business podcast. The trail was loose dirt and sand and we dodged dirt bikers and followed mountain bike tracks. We had to take a blue blazed trail (aka a side or alternative trail) a bit because water is so scarce in this section that you have to sometimes take one of the alternate trails to have access to water and a safe place to camp. We took the Croom Loop trail which cut across beautiful hilly pine forest where we had more elevation than we’d experienced the entire Florida Trail. It’s funny because I had forgotten about elevation being in flat Florida and we trekked up and down hills which was nice to have a change of pace.
The four or so miles to the next water source was Tucker Hill Recreation Area which was beautiful. Alongside the hiking path we spotted a very old armadillo and lots of deer who threw their white fluffy tails up like flags as they took off across the pine barrens. It was cool and did not feel like Florida – maybe more Appalachia than anywhere. The side trail was hard to follow sometimes because there’s so many mountain bike, horse, dirt bike, hiking and animal trails that cut across it.
Around 6pm we got into Tucker Hill day use area which is normally $2 a person to use. The area closes at dusk and luckily it was just about dusk so no one was there to ask us for the fee. It had a cool fire tower and I went to go see if I could climb but the park service doesn’t allow you to ascend the 5 stories up which makes sense from a liability standpoint. It would’ve been a cool sunset though! We each filled up 4 L of water from the water fountain, used their bathrooms which were some of the cleanest outdoor I’ve ever seen. I guess those $2 are really getting out to good use! We crossed the street and headed downhill to the trail for .4 miles to the campsite which luckily we had to ourselves. We set up tent in a big wide open pine grove, spotting a small armored armadillo rustling under an oak tree. A handful of deer grazed nearby while we ate our own dinner. Shannon ate a whole packet of Right Rice by himself and I just had some Ramen and electrolyte drink. I was too distracted, taking some starry night photos and probably should’ve eaten more and caught up on my water intake because during the night I had awful headaches no matter how much water I put down. It’s probably not a good sign and with it being so hot and humid I’ll definitely have to keep up better with my electrolytes and water. Dehydration does not equal fun times.
After dinner the owls were hooting as we hung up our food from an oak tree branch and tucked into bed. During the night Shannon got a little nervous by what I think was a bobcat call as a big screech and growl echoed through the woods. I was half asleep and told him it was just a night hawk even though I don’t even know what those sound like and just learned about their existence like a couple days ago. It sounded good to both of us and we fell back asleep. The moon came out so full and bright and I thought a hiker was walking past our campsite shining their headlamp at our tent because of how bright the sky was.
During the night only a deer came by but we were still glad we hung our food up as usually thru-hikers seem to lean towards sleeping with their food in their tents because they don’t think animals will bother them and maybe are a bit lazy. Usually they’re right because these backwoods campsites don’t usually have tons of trash left by careless campers which attracts animals. Sometimes we don’t hang our food when we’re in the desert and there’s nowhere to hang out food or if we’re camping on the east coast of the United States with other hikers who have dogs. With all the wild hogs and raccoons in Florida, we usually hang our food.
Speaking of raccoons, at one of the campgrounds we stopped at for water today, other hikers had commented on how aggressive the raccoons were and we were sure glad we didn’t linger there. The hikers had left food in their tents and come nightfall, gangs of raccoons clawed at their tents and bit at the fabric to to get at the food inside. One hiker said even after they removed their food from their tent and hung it in a tree, the raccoons wouldn’t stop circling their tent and still spent all night circling and trying to get inside the tent, biting and scratching for hours. Raccoons can get big like 20 pounds or more and I would not want one of those trying to get in my tent! Plus they don’t give up and they have long memories. I was sure glad we hung our food and that we weren’t paying $25 at a campground to be harassed by raccoons all night.