Dawn chorus in heavy mist. Squawking Catbird, tweeting Carolina Wren and the flutey, familiar call of a Northern Cardinal. The Barred Owls bark a bit more, sometimes just the “y’all” at the end of their song.
It’s not far now out of this “Big” swamp, but I’m mixed with elation I got through the worst and nervousness about how much more of this I can take.
My spirits are lifted though when I remember that there’s a hose with fresh water to wash off the mud at I-75.
It’s time to get up but my bug screen is packed with hungry mosquitos. I can’t tell if that’s the highway I hear or their collective wings.
Many of them got in, the crime scene of blood smears all along the walls of my tent as testament. I made the mistake of wearing my sandals without socks and tiny – and hungry – black flies leave dozens of red dots where they feasted.
I’m damp and dirty, but well fed and packed up. At the very moment I prepare to leave, a mosquito lands on exposed skin. I squash him, hurling a stream of choice expletives just as a young woman enters the camp.
“You didn’t hear what I just said, did you.”
“Uh-huh,” she replies with a smile. “Let’s walk out of here together!”
Torry is adorable in a sleeveless blue top and black leggings. Her pack looks far smaller than mine and she appears to be using an umbrella rather than a hat. I imagine she’s encountered her fair share of biting insects.
She tells me she started from Oasis Visitor Center yesterday. I notice her pack does look a bit smaller than mine. That’s all by design, because she needs to make good time. Torry is setting out to break the FKT or Fastest Known Time.
Since the Florida Trail begins with the hardest bit, it’s tough to break many records at the outset. But an FKT is accumulated over time. She’s hoping to walk it all in thirty days.
For the next four miles, anyway, I keep up with a runners pace. That’s mostly because there’s a limit to how fast anyone can kick through water.
It’s misty this morning, eerie in the cypress domes where spider webs catch the heavy dew. We talk non-stop like we’ve known each other our whole lives. That’s one of my favorite parts about hiking, that you make fast friends.
She dropped her phone in the water so is really glad we met since her maps are on the phone. That’s not to say navigation is difficult since the Florida Trail Association has done a masterful job with painting bright orange blazes well within sight of each other.
But our map app – called Far Out – has so much description, much of which I shared with you yesterday. And as a crowd sourced app, hiker comments are extremely important. Like how the grassy savannah ahead will be sucking mud or how one hiker is so delighted to come across a random bench on a tree island, she wants to have its child.
I’m happy to meet Torry because it’s way safer in two’s. Plus, the time goes faster.
We slosh through water just below our knees, mostly easy walking. There was heavy rain last week and I can’t imagine this in a dryer patch as thick mud. Mud certainly slows us way down.
Way, way down.
I try to follow her tracks, but some sink deeper than others. It seems the lighter the color, the more suction. I almost lose a shoe in one spot and make sure to tie it tighter when we hit clear water again.
Yesterday was long and hard and my body is hardened to this exercise, but I’m breathing heavily and ready for dry ground.
As we slosh through a particularly lovely grove of bromeliad-festooned cypress, Torry tells me she saw an alligator yesterday.
“Holy smokes! Where?”
“At the Black Lagoon.”
She was probably only a few hours behind me, but a big gator decided to swim over to the Florida Trail channel and position himself looking straight into the eyes of the next hiker.
She screamed and high tailed it back to Oak Hill which was fairly close. After a few tears and gathering her resolve, she headed back in. And he had moved on.
She also saw a snake.
You know, I’d love to see creatures. But not when I’m sharing their personal space. I’m not sure I would have ventured on. Way to go pushing forward, Torry!
We cross the vast expanse of grassy savannah which is indeed a mud fest. I share with Torry my various adventures in mud including on the Te Araroa in New Zealand, which was the longest most frustrating slip-n-slide of my life – though still one of my favorite adventures of all.
Eventually we meet a small pine island – 100 feet of joy! – some more mud-water-mud followed by mud, then one more island with the beloved bench and we’re home free.
Torry’s mom meets us at a swamp buggy road. She had intended to walk to Ivy Campsite, but was stymied by the sheer level of mud and deep water.
The three of us walk the final mile on road with deep water-filled ruts, somehow cool this morning. Torry likely needs to buy a new phone so I venture forth on my own to the I-75 rest area and the promise of vending machines.
I ask a janitor if there is somewhere to rinse off and she offers their industrial sized sink where I send copious amounts of mud, sand and one leech down the drain.
My shoes take on so much muck, it’s like I have two feet in there. My sandals feel wonderful and I take my whole operation to a covered picnic table.
Even in this humidity, my tent and sleeping bag dry quickly. I eat and drink three sodas from the vending machines, call Richard and post a few photos. There’s a light breeze and I revive enough to move on towards Nobles Camp.
Let me tell you friends, it is five miles on bone dry forest road. My body could not be more grateful.
Next to me is a slough with enormous gar fish and alligators, mostly sunning on the limestone banks. Birds hang out in the trees and one brave deer blinks at me as she goes for a drink. Ah, maybe she’s too big or too fast for those gators.
I pass a couple of guys exploring hoping to see a panther. We are warned they hang out here and if you see one, do not run! I don’t see one now in the blazing sun, but maybe in the morning…
It’s just five miles to Nobles, a beautiful shady spot under oak and palm. There’s a pond nearby for water with no trace of gators.
I set my tent all alone here then make dinner, wondering if Torry might show up. If she gets her new phone quickly, she’ll probably keep hiking until dark.
But I am cozy in the alicoop, more barred owls and catbirds making a racket.
And what a beautiful racket it is.
