Section 1, Second Part: The Levees
The second half of week 1 traverses miles and miles of levees as the trail heads north to Lake Okeechobee. I spent the first three and a half days crossing 30 miles of the Big Cypress swamp, and now that I'm back on dry land I hope to pick up the pace. I have four days of food left, and 64 miles to cover to Clewiston where I will pick up my first resupply package and take a rest day. Should be doable, but oh boy, it seems like a long ways away!
A quick side note - what's a resupply package? Hikers typically can only carry 5-7 days of food, due to weight and volume limitations. I've sketched out 11 resupplies across the 1100 miles, and they're all boxed up and ready to mail, each containing the next section's worth of food I'll need. Yes, many thru hikers have a codependant at home, helping us with our habit. :) The resupply spans for this trip range from 3 to 8 days, and the food weights vary from 4.5 pounds to just over 11. Oddly, the heaviest carries for me are the first week of the trip and the last week; each of those were 11 pounds. The 'base weight' of my pack and gear - everything but food and water - is 20 pounds. Not ultralight by any means, but not bad either. Water, of course, comes in at 2.2 pounds per liter. So, heading out into the swamp on day 1, my pack probably weighed 35 pounds. Toward the latter half of each section, especially where water is abundant, my pack weight could easily be under 23 pounds. The difference is definitely noticeable!
The first levee north of the swamp bordered a small canal that was rich with alligators, some quite large. The ones we could see were on the other side of the canal, warming in the sun. They were all frozen still, apparently sleeping through the day and active at dusk and night. Now, having a sum total of 2 alligator experiences for a cumulative 45 seconds or so, I no longer considered myself an alligator novice. So, for a better picture of alligator number three and the largest so far, I took a step closer to the levee on our side than I had before. Turns out that was one step too close for this suddenly wide awake alligator. It exploded into action, a flurry of arms and legs and waving tail, and darted into the safety of the canal. Well, that canal was between us, so it effectively darted toward me. I jumped and scrambled and stumbled backward, and by the time I landed and collected myself the water was quiet. No sign a giant alligator was ever there. I did not get the picture :)
The rest of the levee walks were much more, uh, conventional. They crossed thousands of acres of sugar cane fields in various stages of growth. Some fields, off in the distance, were being burned in preparation for harvest. Occasionally, small bits of black ash would drift by on the breeze. The bird life on the canals was very active, with many fish-eating birds like herons, cranes, cormorants and even ospreys constantly in motion around me. Hawks and falcons watched the fields from telephone poles, or cruised low and slow over the bushes. Small ground birds kind of like quail ran in the short dry grasses in front of me, popping their heads up occasionally to see where I was. A dog charged me with great glee and lots of noise, and was quite satisfied as I clearly moved along past his property at his command. Good dog, Carl. A retired gent gave me a ride for a few miles to the local cafe because he liked to chat with the thru hikers, learn their trail names, and what they could possibly be thinking. On the last evening of the week, I came across a young couple who were moving through the levees more slowly than expected and had just run out of food, most of a day and 15 miles still outside of town. I gave them my extras: a couple bars, some buffalo jerky bites, and a package of ramen. I got an enthusiastic hug in return. The miles were straight and flat, but never boring. 7 days in now, 90.9 miles hiked, time for a rest day.
