Flavored Water

The weekend of March 15th,  the “Analyst” and I hiked a section of the Florida Trail along the Suwannee River in White Springs, Florida.  

The weather was good and given the rarity that a father of two has time to burn (the Analyst lives with his family in Tally), we wanted to make the most of it…

“Go west young men” – And so we did, beginning our epic adventure at the Stephen Foster Cultural Center gazebo.  Wait – that sounded better in my head… 

After about a quarter of a mile, the trail flooded out – not unheard of for this time of year as spring rains in the Suwannee’s headwaters make conditions in its lower sections difficult. 

So… we turned around after briefly considering a bushwhack around the flooded area (which would have been utter insanity and so here it must be noted that bw’ing was the Analyst’s idea). After reversing directions, we headed east toward Little Shoals. 

All things considered, it was a fine hike.  We camped at a well-used site not far from the Little Shoals trailhead mentioned in the Florida Trail guidebook.  

There are a couple of real problems issues with the FT:

1. Running into sections that you have to be a member to hike. 
If you aren’t a card carrying member, you must risk being treated like a war criminal by land owners (or the military, if you’re hiking near the Eglin Air Force Base) or take an alternate road walk.  

2. Encroaching Civilization
On certain areas of the FT (and this was one of them), you may find yourself closer to civilization than you might like when camping.  We camped at a well used site and although we couldn’t SEE the vehicle traffic, we could definitely HEAR it – which was somewhat of a drag.   

In the end, we hiked as far as we could without trespassing, camped overnight and then turned back the next day (about 12 miles roundtrip).  It worked out in long run – we had great weather and the trail to ourselves.