Florida Trail: Day 57
March 3, 2022
Mile: 492.3 to 512.6 (20.3 miles)
Start: Holiday Inn Express, Palatka, FL via Hwy 20
Finish: Tinsley campsite, Etoniah Creek State Forest
We had made an agreement the night before that we’d leave early from the hotel but with the room being so nice and warm with free breakfast and the check out time not until noon, it was hard to get motivated to leave. Finally after packing up and calling some family members we headed out. Shannon had seen a single Uber car on the app earlier and had even requested a ride but the Uber driver who was stationed literally around the corner wouldn’t accept Shannon’s ride request. He wanted to wait until another Uber driver accepted his request but I was getting impatient since we had lots of miles to go and with our track record of terrible taxi drivers in this town, it might not pan out. Finally we hitched a ride back to the trail with a normal person who knew how to drive where we hiked on some more forest roads before eventually hitting a bike path. It was warm with the relatively mild high of 80°F today and it seems that searingly thick heat has left us for a little bit which is exciting.
We saw a couple of cyclists but didn’t see too much action this afternoon. The trail left the bike path and we hiked up a dirt road where we thought the trail was leading us through an area with three “No Trespassing” signs and another sign that ominously hinted, “Area Monitored by Drones and Cameras – Absolutely No Trespassing.” Luckily we found the correct road and turned down that walking on the dusty path dodging pickup trucks, dogs and the mailman.
The forest where the trail passed through was logged recently and so there was no shade since there were no more trees. It was a long dusty walk sneaking under fences where the gates were locked at points with like a dozen locks and heavy metal chains. At this point in the afternoon I was just kind of done with all the stupid road walking. Finally the trail eventually turned into a woodsy path following Etoniah Creek which marked the beginning of the Etoniah Creek State Forest. The endangered Etoniah Rosemary plant was only recently discovered in 1991 and it lives only here and one other place in the world. Both areas where the endangered rosemary live were slated for development but once the plant was protected by refuges it has a better chance of survival and not becoming extinct. Even though I thought I knew what the rosemary might look like, I didn’t see any growing out here. It could be that tiny brown dead looking thing or the green buds barely blooming on a scrub bush since spring is only just beginning down here. All I knew was that it was good that the endangered plant was protected.
It was nice to see surface water again after having had to really worry about water the last hundred or so miles. Even though Etoniah Creek was tinged a slight tannic brown you could still easily see the sandy bottom of and it was comforting to know in such a dry section of trail that there was surface water readily accessible. It feels like lately the Florida Trail has been kind of a desert in terms of water sources and it was such a relief that we are able to have some solace with the water being so close to the surface here.
Shannon was listening to his audiobook fantasy novel by Brian Sanderson and I was listening to a trashy novel about Hollywood to get the miles underfoot faster. Eventually we stopped at our first wooden shelter on the Florida Trail just as I ran out of drinking water. We sat outside the screened in Iron Bridge Shelter enjoying the peace and quiet at a solid picnic table under the late afternoon shadows of the tree canopy. Shannon checked out the inside of the wooden shelter admiring the bunk bed sleeping platforms while I walked over to the creek to grab some water for filtering. It was refreshing to see that there are actually shelters on this trail now instead of campsites or dirt patches because it felt a little like we were closer to civilization instead of thick wild jungles and swamps.
Personally I’m not a huge fan of sleeping in backcountry shelters as in my experience on the Appalachian Trail the shelters would not only be colder to sleep in versus a tent but they would often be filled with mouse poop and trash. Other campers would bring food into the shelters and the crumbs or wrappers would attract the mice and then the mice attracted snakes and sometimes you would look up into the rafters and there would be a 5-foot-long rat snake snaking around above your head. I knew some hikers who got really sick from breathing in mouse poop (aka hantavirus) so in a 3-sided shelter you would always sleep with your head facing out to not inhale desiccated mouse turds. Also once I got pooped on by a mouse while sleeping in a shelter on the AT and thought it was a bug crawling on my face so I slapped it away. In the morning I had wet smears of mouse shit all over my face which was probably one of the moments in my life that I can now laugh at but was quite unpleasant at the time.
The sun splattered across the trail in warm patches as I backtracked down the side trail to the creek where I scooped drinking water from below the shelter’s namesake iron bridge and filtered it. Shannon readied a snack of Publix gluten free chicken wings and salad that we had packed out which was a real treat. As I chowed down on flats and dummies, I felt something brush against my leg and looked down in horror at a dog tick that was colored red with a white blotch in the center of its back. I pinched off the tick with my fingernails, grabbed my lighter and burnt the disease-carrying tick to a crisp. I really hope that this wasn’t a Lonestar tick which is a species of tick that looks just like the one I picked off my leg. When a Lonestar tick bites you, one of the more notorious diseases it can spread to you will cause something called an Alpha Gal reaction which causes your body to develop an allergy to consuming red meat. It would be such a travesty to leave the Florida Trail with the inability to consume a ribeye steak ever again!
As I sat contemplating the severity of the bullet I just dodged, I felt something else crawling up my leg. It was another tick! This was a tiny tick that probably was one of the Lyme disease carrying ones so I burnt it as well and continued eating. We didn’t stick around much longer because of all the ticks and started to pack up to get out of Ticksville. I definitely have to remember to reapply permethrin on our gear to ward off ticks as they really don’t like the chemical. Once you apply the permethrin on your clothes, shoes and backpack you usually have zero issues with ticks but it wears off after 6 weeks or 6 washes or rainstorms. Currently it’s been about 7 or 8 weeks with lots of laundry and rain showers in between our last permethrin application down in the Everglades so we’re about due for a touch up on our gear.
Shannon and I headed out of the shelter area to do another 5 miles to what appeared on the map to be a nondescript campsite. We really have to start stepping up the mileage to finish the rest of the Florida Trail before a good friend’s wedding the first weekend in April so we put the pedal to the metal and slogged down the trail as the shadows lengthened and the sun started to set. The trail darkened as it wound through the swamps filled with the dense canopies of cypress and gum trees tangled overhead. It was kind of fun winding our way through the cypress strands balancing over a deep dark water that luckily had some bridges and wooden planks we could use to keep our feet dry if you were paying attention and quick on your feet.
As we were balancing across one of the wooden plank bridges we heard a huge eruption in the still water and the sounds of something large and four-legged running and splashing. Shannon saw the tail end of the creature bounding away through the swamp which was dark furred and bulky but definitely not a deer. We’re pretty sure it was a black bear and from the sound of the splashes it wasn’t a huge one but it was big enough that we didn’t want it to come our way. It was cool because we’ve seen bear scat and tracks but hadn’t yet seen a bear on trail. At least we knew that they weren’t lying when everyone said that there are lots of black bears in Ocala National Forest!
The trail left the swamp and crossed under buzzing powerlines and down flat forest roads. We spilled out of the woods and onto a dry sandy path just as the sun was setting. I stepped on a stick which emitted a sharp cracking sound and scared something big which took off through the tall golden grass and thick growth the brushy meadow next to the trail. I’m pretty sure it was a large wild hog or a bear but thankfully the creature took off and left us alone. We decided with all of the critter activity that it would be a good idea to get our headlamps out the last 20 minutes of our hike so we could tell if the big animals were running towards or away from us.
In the hotel in Palatka we had started watching the superhero show Peacemaker starring John Cena which is kind of messed up in a dark humor and gory kind of way. In the show John Cena’s sidekick/pet is a bald eagle named “Eagly” which is slapstick funny in the simplicity of its name. While hiking to the campsite tonight, Shannon met his version of a superhero animal sidekick. As we were walking in the dwindling light after sunset, the trail took us from a tall grassy prairie and into the dark forest. A small owl was startled by the leaves crunching underfoot and alighted from the tree branches, its wings spreading wide in front of Shannon’s face as it jumped out from the tree in front of him. He screamed and jumped back into me as the winged predator silently swooped in front of his face and back into the forest.
I just chuckled as I caught his backpack in a bear hug and observed, “Look it’s ‘Owly’ your owl superhero sidekick!” Shannon looked back confused before laughing with me at the stupidity of it all. Hey, I’ll take whatever we can get that make the miles go by faster or funnier.
Soon we found ourselves at a not so exciting camp spot that was so nondescript that we accidentally walked by it the first time. We had to backtrack using our GPS as the wooden sign announcing the campsite was long gone. But it was quasi-flat ground and it would do for camping for 8 or 9 hours. We set up our tent on sloped dry leaves in what sounded like someone’s backyard as dogs barked and the sounds of slamming car doors echoed in between traffic noises. Since we were still full from chicken wings back at the shelter, we hung our food bags and went to bed mentally preparing ourselves for the next week which is supposed to entail tons of road walking and not so exciting terrain. Hopefully these not so fun miles will get us closer to the beaches of the Florida panhandle which will be a little more exciting!