Aucilla to Appalachicola
The Aucilla River section starts another long section of beautiful, varied trail. It arrives after a 51 mile roadwalk, and I'm excited to reach it. Overall, this next stretch of the Aucilla River, St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, and the Appalachicola National Forest will span 134 miles and take me 7 days, every one of them awesome. Well, except the surprises in the Appalachicola Forest, but we'll get there.
I like the Aucilla River section right away because of the lush vegetation. The trail is soft and loamy, and also crinkly with dry, brown leaves underfoot. There are pines and palms and oaks and maples overhead, and palmettos below. The trail is dry, which I will come to greatly appreciate soon. In the latter part of the trail, the Aucilla dissappears into limestone sinkholes and then reappears later. In each of these reappearances, you might think you were just looking at a long pond, but there is a fast, visible current, moving right up until the next limestone wall, where it disappears again. You can see upwellings and small whirlpools, and I move slowly through this section, admiring the now you see it now you don't river. It is quite the unique area, and I make sure not to rush through.
A short highway walk spans the 5 miles or so from Aucilla to St. Marks, broken up by JR's Aucilla River Store and Roadhouse. I stop for a long lunch - cheeseburger, sides, and chocolate cake(cake!) - and watch a John Wayne movie on the big screen above the bar. I ask if I can refill my water bottles and man at the register says yes, but he wouldn't drink it. I check, and sure enough, the tap water has the strongest sulphur smell I think I've ever run across. I buy 3 liters instead, fill up my bottles, and start up the two lane highway again. It's late afternoon, and there's little traffic.
I see the trail marker ahead on the left, and I'm happy to be off the road. Soon it will be quiet again, and I look forward to more nice, easy trail like along the Aucilla. But no, instead I'm faced with slippery black mud puddles which I try to skitter by, but soon I give up and wade through stretches of calf-deep water. It's slow, but there's probably only a few hundred yards of it, and soon I'm up on a short levee (old train track, probably), and cruising along happily.
Around 5 I reach the camp I'm going to stay at, and see another hiker there. Christine, 80, from New York, still backpacks on her own and has been section hiking the Florida Trail for the last few years. We have an awesome chat over dinners until it gets too dark to see. The next morning I'm up and out earlier than she, but maybe if I'm lucky our paths will cross again.
The levee soon takes me out into coastal areas of saltgrass prairie, tidal flats, and expansive views. I especially like the saltwater breezes, the light wind is very refreshing after the still, humid air of the past few afternoons. At the St. Marks river, the marina provides a quick boat ride across, and shortly I'm doing laundry and thinking about dinner.
I stealth camp in town(not a great idea, but the tenting option I thought was there was no longer available), and am at the post office early for my resupply box. The lady very nicely gives it to me before opening, and I sort and repack my things at The Shack coffee shop a mile down the road. Super friendly owner and very tasty food(reminds me I need to leave a 5* Google review). A few miles and one big turtle later on a paved bike path, and I'm back in the St. Marks NWR forest again.
And it's my favorite kind of forest. Tall pines, palmetto and other undergrowth, sometimes thick, dense, and dark, sometimes open and airy. I hike through an area named very appropriately "Cathedral of Palms", and have an early dinner at a slightly sulfury spring pond. It's all very enjoyable, very refreshing, very invigorating. That evening I camp under the tall pines, and notice that the moon is waxing toward full again. Soon it will be too bright to sleep well at night, but over these several nights, I do.
The next morning I enjoy a couple cups of coffee, a breakfast sandwich, and some nice conversation at gas stations on a short stretch of roadwalk. That afternoon I enter the Appalachicola Forest, and it looks tall, sparse, dry, and hot. I’m in the mood for what promises to be fast, dry trail.
I don't know why I thought it was ALL going to be that way. I knew the next section contained Bradwell Bay, a sometimes very wet, very deep, swampy area, but I'd assumed that the rest was dry, cruisy forest. Nope! Not even close. After a dry afternoon and an equally dry morning, the next 30 miles are as often swampy than dry. Interspersed. Alternating. Get used to one, and now you've got the other. Going back and counting now, there are 30 areas listed on the map as swamp or bog in the last 30 miles of the Appalachicola. Some slippery and tedious, some dark and beautiful, every one of them wet. But in the end, I enjoyed the section, met a couple of local section hikers(twice!?), and they even waited to give me and my soggy, wet feet a ride into Bristol. Thanks, Deb and Sandman!
