Category: Trail Adventures

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Trail Adventures

Springer to Woody Gap

Thanks to amazing friends, I have the first tiny section of the Appalachian Trail done. This was just enough to get a little taste of the trail, an appetizer, an aperitif, a tidbit.

There are so many YouTubers and Instagram personalities out there that romanticize backpacking and long distance hiking. I’m here to tell you, sometimes it’s ugly, mean, and downright painful. It is not all beautiful mountains and sunshiny wildflowers. I’m from Florida. You know what we don’t have here? Hills. Our highest “mountain” stands at 345 feet on Britton Hill. Three hundred and forty-five. That’s barely an ant hill. I did some hiking in the Colorado Rockies. Those are mountains. What I experienced in Georgia was mild compared to the 14,000 feet of elevation out west, but it was still pretty brutal for this flat lander.

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Trail Adventures

Summertime Florida Hiking

Sun shining through Sabal palms at Myakka’s Deep Hole

It’s getting hot out there. Hiking in Florida in the summertime can be a dangerous idea if you’re not prepared. There are so many elements that seem as though they’re out to get you. It’s alligator mating season from April through June. Lovebugs abound in April and October, though they’re just annoying and not dangerous. Yellow flies start becoming super annoying around the middle of May, and their bites hurt! Mosquitos are quite wide awake now and they’ll want to have a snack on your blood when you hike in shady, damp areas. Okay, actually they’ll want to snack on you no matter where you hike in summer in Florida. Noseeums swarm and attack with their teeny tiny blood sucking mouths in any area close to the shore, particularly at dawn and dusk. We have mad thunderstorms just about every afternoon. We have truly earned the title of Lightning Capital of the World. All of that, and I haven’t even mentioned the risk of sunburn, heat exhaustion and heat stroke.

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Trail Adventures

Backpacking for Beginners

On the Myakkka Hiking Trail

Have you been wanting to try backpacking, but have been a little intimidated by the idea? Hopefully this post will help boost your confidence. If you can walk a few miles and carry 20% of your bodyweight, you can backpack.

We’ll start with water. I’m not a proponent of plastic water bottles. Having said that, for a lightweight and perfectly sized bottle, I haven’t found a reusable bottle that can beat a one liter Smart Water bottle. An empty bottle without the neck band and label weighs a mere 1.32 ounces. An added bonus is that it perfectly fits the Sawyer Squeeze filtration system. (More on that later.)

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