Day 0
Florida trail association (FTA) put together a 4 day hike through the Citrus Wildlife Management Area over President’s Day weekend. It was about an hour and a half drive to the trailhead, so I made my way up there the night before the hike started. There were a handful of other folks who had arrived early, so we all headed out to Angelo’s Ristorante a couple miles up from the camp. Luckily, someone remembered that it was Valentine’s day and had made a reservation. Unfortunately, the restaurant was so overwhelmed by people that they couldn’t clean the plates and glasses fast enough and there was still a long wait to get our meals. The food was worth it though, especially knowing the next 12 meals would be on the trail.
Day 1
Packs on at 7:30 am and 22 of us hit the trail.
Through the first part of the trail it appeared that the forest had burned recently, in some places it was still smoldering. I don’t know if there’d been a wildfire or if it was a prescribed burn. We found a horse cistern ~5.5 miles along the trail, which made a great lunch spot.
By this time it was only 10:30 am, we were moving ~1.8 mph which isn’t fast hiking but was sustainable enough to keep moving after lunch. Another ~5.5 miles after in the afternoon and we’d arrived at primitive camping zone B (PCZ B) around 2:00 pm. We took advantage of the rest of the afternoon to relax and get to know each other.
Day 2
Slept in a bit, packs on at 8:30 am to make our way into some deeper forest scenery. It was by far the best scenery of the weekend. We came across two different caves, big enough to crawl into and deep enough that you couldn’t see the end.
Unfortunately, one of our team fell out of the hike a mile before we made camp, he caught a ride back to the trail head due to blisters severe enough to end his trip. We made camp at 5:00 pm in PCZ D after covering ~14 miles. Another FTA member met us in camp with fresh fruit and cold beer to improve our dinner.
Day 3
A shorter hiking day, but not nearly scenic as day 2. Covering just 8 miles we found the old canal or railway bed that was the trail into the Mutual Mine campground, where FTA had again delivered us dinner.
The moon was glorious, not quite full but shining brightly. We stayed up around the fire for a while, someone threw in some “Funky Flames” creating a hypnotic multi-colored glow.
Day 4
The heat kicked up for the last day, a classic Floridian 80 deg and high humidity day. We were hiking through more thin forest, fairly exposed all day.
However, we did pass through one section of deep green woods where we found a cave large enough to walk into. After 9 miles, we finished the trek with 21 out of the 22 who’d set out. Quite a few of us went out to Golden Corral for a celebratory, all you can eat, pig out session.
Overall, it was a great trip. The new insoles still need some breaking in but I’m more optimistic about how I’ll hold up along the trail than I was before. I have decided to ditch the Osprey pack, I gave it a lot of chances, but it just doesn’t fit me right. After some research and a chance to try on my buddies pack I’ve switched to the Z Packs Arc Haul. It sits more upright and doesn’t pull on my neck and shoulders in the way that the Osprey was.
Check out the video for more photos of the trip, a tour through a cave, and some hypnotic flames.
Keep an eye out next week for a video from Kacy about the gear she’ll be taking along for the 9 days she’s be joining me at the start of the AT.
Cheers,
Paul
p.s. you’ll notice the blog formatting changing a bit, stick with us as we try out different options to find what’s going to work best for regular trail updates.