[at-l] Palm Beach Backpackers

[lorac4491 at linkamerica.net (Coosa)]

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/sports/content/auto/epaper/editions/thursday/sports_04b210097632215300c6.html


Dirty, smelly and delighted

By Willie Howard, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 12, 2004



HOBE SOUND -- The scene on the morning of Jan. 25 seemed out of place: a group of hikers wearing boots and loaded backpacks on the beach, chatting and snapping photos as the sun rose over the ocean.

After the greetings and the photos, the backpackers from the Florida Trail Association started walking. They headed west down Bridge Road, crossed the Intracoastal Waterway and walked south to Jonathan Dickinson State Park, where they picked up part of the Florida Trail, continued west and eventually set up camp at the Kitching Creek Campground.

Their mission: test the Ocean-to-Lake Trail, a 70-mile backpacking hike that Florida Trail Association member Dean Drake of Juno Beach has been trying to piece together for seven years. By planning and completing the inaugural hike, the FTA members found and marked links between sections of existing trail and helped raise awareness about the need for easements or land purchases where the trail crosses private land.

"We're trying to create a wilderness experience for people," Drake said. "We've had a lot of help from friends in different places."

By February 2005, the FTA, the South Florida Water Management District, Palm Beach County and other land managers along the Ocean-to-Lake Trail route plan a grand opening at Riverbend Park. The park harbors a section of the trail west of Jupiter that remains closed to the public but is expected to be open by next year.

To prepare for the test hike, Drake and fellow hiker Bea Rogers of Lantana spent days in the woods, finding and marking trail segments to fill the gaps between existing trails at Jonathan Dickinson State Park, the J.W. Corbett Wildlife Management Area and the Dupuis Management Area. About half of the total distance needs to be formally blazed and trimmed -- tasks usually performed by FTA volunteers.

During the test hike, nine backpackers walked 10 to 14 miles each day. They braved rainstorms, spent nights in the woods (except for one night in cabins in the Corbett area), slogged through knee-deep water and shuffled carefully across a fallen log wearing 30-plus-pound packs on their backs to cross a creek.

After slogging through water in the Corbett area on the fourth day, several hikers put their wet socks on sticks and dried them the fire at the Little Gopher campsite. They heard a barred owl hoot as they cooked and ate supper from their packs and discussed the possibility of a future pizza.

It had been a long fourth day. Wet, rugged terrain in the southwestern part of Corbett made for tough hiking but also provided some of the prettiest scenery, said hiker Sandra Friend, who has written several books on Florida hiking.

"I never expected the cypress strands," Friend said. "It was like Big Cypress."

A day and a half later, just after noon on Jan. 30, the nine hikers climbed the dike at Port Mayaca to view their destination -- the vast expanse of water known as Lake Okeechobee. Many of the hikers threw a ceremonial beach shell into the lake before having their photos made. They were trail pioneers: proud, but also hungry and dirty.

"If I took a swim in that lake right now, I'd probably leave a slick," joked hiker Bob Coveney of Boca Raton. "We'll see if Tide will clean the socks I put in that Ziplock the other day."

The first stop after the hike was the Happy Hour Grill & Tavern near Okeechobee, where many of the trekkers feasted on steak as they exchanged phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Most agreed that the entire 70-mile trek is not for beginning backpackers, but that segments could be hiked by beginners.

Jack and Liz Hailman of Jupiter Inlet Colony proved that you don't have to be in your 20s to be a long-distance backpacker. The Hailmans, both 67, are experienced weekend backpackers who wrote a book on hiking in Wisconsin. They seemed in good spirits during lunch on the final day.

"We're not necessarily the toughest in the world, but we know what we're doing," Jack Hailman said.

Hailman, a retired zoology professor, said he watched an eagle fly over the campsite on the fourth day and learned to identify some new wildflowers from fellow hiker Beth Burger of Boynton Beach.

Burger said she liked the different plant communities she saw during the hike: the sand pine scrub in Jonathan Dickinson, the wet pine flatwoods and cypress sloughs in Corbett.

Said Burger: "It is so good to have a place to get a way from it all in nature... our own little Appalachian Trail."

willie_howard@pbpost.com