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[at-l] Re: Florida Hiking

Having spent a lot of Saturdays in the past three years on Florida Trail work
hikes, I guess I'm qualified to respond about the Florida Trail.  First, I've
been in Florida 30 years and still miss hills and crave mountains.  I've
loved the bits of the AT, the LT, and the PCT (and I do mean bits) I've
gotten to try.   However, if you learn to appreciate the subtleties of the
Florida landscape, hiking in Florida (in winter, puleeeeeze!) can be a great
escape.  There's a 5-mi. (half official FT) loop 10 minutes from my house
that I'm especially fond of.  Half of it follows the Little Big Econ River.
 There are pines and palmettos, magnolias and massive live oaks dripping
Spanish moss.  In the spring there's a great stand of wild iris.  Right now
the beauty bushes are covered with mulberry-colored berries.  

Hiking in Florida I've seen deer, river otters, gopher tortoises, box
turtles,  snakes, armadillos, possums, a variety of snakes, raccoons, a
couple of kinds of squirrels, wild hogs, gators, and bobcats--and lots of
bear sign.  There are all kinds of birds, especially in the winter. 

The hiking is easier because the land is flat (unless you hit a stretch of
sugar sand, which is tough slogging).  If you crave solitude, the remote
stretches get very little traffic. 

There are a myriad of micro-ecosystems along the FT--from the wet Everglades
to sand pine uplands.  It's not magnificent vistas and big views.  It's
smaller things--soldier moss and wild turkeys strutting, ancient Indian shell
mounds and abandoned clay pots from the days when turpentine was a big
industry.  It's tanin-stained rivers with cypress trees standing knee deep in
their slow-moving water.   It's stopping to swim in crystal clear 72 degree
springs and enjoying the banks of the Suwanee.  It's uncovering shark's teeth
around a tiny spring 45 miles from any present ocean.   If you read Marjorie
Kinnan Rawlings' Cross Creek, she described the backwoods of Florida the
best.  Not all people like it: some people love it.  

Rich is right; it's best to plot your hikes around hunting season.  You can
get information about hunting dates from the Florida Trail Association in
Gainesville.  However, I hiked into the Ocala NF in the middle of  deer
hunting season on my first ever backpacking trip and am still alive to tell
the tale; though I wouldn't recommend it.

Last winter we put up two FT long-distance hikers for about a week each.
 They were having a great time.  (And one had had such a great time hiking
the AT that he hiked down here from Springer!)  When others are snowed and
iced out of the vistas and views, they can take a winter hiking break where
the mornings are sometimes frosty and the midday is usually t-shirt warm.    

Joan
bluetrail@aol.com


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