We have hiked several sections of the 1,280-mile long Florida Trail, which we love. But while we were staying at a campground in the Lake Okeechobee area in the early spring of 2019, we decided to hike a connected spur trail, the 61-mile Ocean-to-Lake Trail. We’d heard that this trail, which runs from Lake Okeechobee in the west to Hobe Sound on the Atlantic coast in the east, is a miniature version of every habitat you would otherwise experience along an end-to-end hike of the entire Florida Trail. This includes pine flatwoods, cypress swamps, wet prairies, sand dunes and more. It is billed as “one of the more beautiful and difficult backpacking routes in all of Florida.” It certainly wasn’t a trail you’d expect to still exist on this heavily populated coast of Florida. So why not?

Day One

We got up before dawn for coffee, breakfast and a final gear check before Jim (a friend and campground neighbor) gave us a ride a few miles down the road to the trailhead at Lake Okeechobee. We were on trail by 8:30 am and this mini hiking adventure got started.

After a short but beautiful walk in from the trailhead through wild tropical vegetation, the path suddenly turned to gravel roads, then sandy farm roads between palm groves and cane and corn crops. We saw a dead rat snake there, probably run over by a truck. It was very sunny and already warm as we finally left the rural roads and after 3 miles or so finally came to some trail hiking. Then, only 100 feet in, we saw our first alligator… sunning on the far bank of a small pool about 30 feet away from us. It was only about 6 feet long, but still very cool to see so soon in our hike!

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The miles came easy but our packs were heavy with several days of food supplies at the beginning of this hike. We took frequent short rests in the shade and drank lots of water. We noticed lots of interesting flowers, black and red crickets, the back end of a wild pig dashing off into the palmetto thicker, and a wild turkey hen.

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After 8.7 miles we arrived at the Loop 4 Campground, which was our planned first stop, just shy of one o’clock. You are not supposed to stealth camp on this trail, only at established campsites. Even if you wanted to, the terrain doesn’t offer many options. So it’s best to just plan your trip around these designated sites. This campsite was just off the trail and very nice, with picnic tables, fire rings, and a water pump that had decent water, only a little cloudy and tasting slightly of iron. I washed Karen’s feet and tears came to her eyes. I think it just felt that good. Then I set up the tent while she filtered water, after which we explored the area a bit and found another gator in the canal/swale next to the campsite. This one was bigger than the last, about 9 feet long and sunning on the bank a hundred feet back toward the trail. We let it be and went back to camp to rest in the shade. It was hot now, 88 degrees but feeling like 95.

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Later, we checked in on our gator friend only to find that he’d moved much closer to the campsite, just opposite the water pump. Yikes! We decided to move our tent a couple hundred feet into the sand pines and cabbage palms behind the campsite just to be safe. We think it’s supposed to be alligator mating season right about now after all.

Day Two

We were awake at 3 am, but then dozed on and off until 7. It was a beautiful morning and overcast, which meant a cooler day of hiking. Coffee and oatmeal for breakfast, then a quick pack and we were on trail just after 9 am. Our alligator friend was still in the same pool with no indication he came into the camp overnight. We saw another turkey today, and deer and a bald eagle and a swallowtail kite. And we saw lots of flowers we couldn’t identify but took lots of pictures too.

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We stopped at the Powerline Campsite for lunch, which was nothing more than a clearing on top of a dike running next to a canal (with big gators no doubt). It started to sprinkle so we donned our pack covers and rain hats.

We were anticipating hiking through lots of standing water in the low-lying areas today, but there was only a little mud and when we got to the cyprus swamp, it was dry there too. We could see the water lines where there was usually a foot of water or more. Oh well. But the hiking was quick.

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We started to run low on water and I was feeling a little dehydrated. I was in the lead and missed a couple of turns in the trail so we had to backtrack. Karen took over lead for the last two miles and we made it to our destination at Little Gopher Campsite, 18.6 into our hike, around 3 pm just as we finished off the last of our water. Fortunately, nearby there was a small creek that emptied into a bigger pond that looked dangerously deep and dark. Needless to say, we managed with the creek and refilled our water supplies.

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We had a lazy afternoon of rest and yoga and messing with a weak cell signal. We finally set up camp and had dinner before the rain finally started in earnest around 6pm. There’s nothing like tired muscles and rain pattering on the tent roof to lull one to sleep.

Day Three

It rained gently all evening and most of the night. But it finally ended and we woke up early before dawn. After our usual morning chores we were on trail at half past 7 o’clock and set off toward hopefully our first water hiking. But alas, this was the dry season and the water was especially low this year. But at least it was still overcast so it was cooler walking and we got lots of flower pics, including an unidentified small purple orchid (figured it out later, though).

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After two hours of walking we got to the “hole in the wall” cypress swamp, which is advertised to always have water. And indeed it did, but it was only shin-deep at its deepest and it was only a few hundred feet across and we were on dry land again. Then the sun started to break through the clouds and started to warm the air.

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We came to an area of wet prairie, with the trail weaving between ponds but staying mostly dry. Then we passed Bowman Island, which was a designated campsite just off the trail. We decided to stop there for an early lunch and break from the mounting heat, and waded across about 100 ft of ankle deep water to the island. It was a beautiful and remote little spot, but Karen noted it would be buggy at night. Later in the day, we saw lots of birds, a black snake and a deer. At the Eyeglass Ponds there was a short wade and then again at mile 29.6 there was shin deep water for a couple hundred feet.

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Mid-afternoon, we arrived at our destination, 30.3 miles into our hike, at the Everglades Youth Conservation Camp, hot and thirsty. There was nobody there but a couple of staff and volunteers so we got to camp wherever we wanted. But the highlight of our day was access to their ice machine and clean water and meeting a pair of mating sandhill cranes and their chick. They were very forward, looking for food (we were told repeatedly not to feed them) and the chick was so cute in its fluffy down.

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The camp had showers so we cleaned up, ate a leisurely dinner and rolled off to our tent before sunset. It was a good day.

Day Four

Today was a hard day.

We got a great night’s sleep and we were clean and refreshed. We had a good breakfast with chocolate, drank our fill of ice water, charged up Karen’s phone, and got back on trail full of energy and looking forward to the day’s challenges. After that though it kind of went downhill.

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There was construction in the hungrylands so we had to detour around a long deep canal. It was sunny and hot, and even though we stopped for rests several times, the heat wore on us pretty bad. Our feet were starting to hurt and we were going through our water too quickly and accessible water sources were proving scarce. The next section was very dry scrub and sand pine with little relief from the sun. By the time we stopped at 1 o’clock for lunch at a teeny Palm Oasis (4 palms), we were not having a good time. We stayed there in the shade and rested for nearly an hour and that helped.

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Back on trail, the few clouds gave us only intermittent relief from the hot afternoon. But finally, the trail turned to denser palm forests and shade and we found some tannin infused swamp water that filtered well. With water supplies replenished, our moods improved. The day wore on and the trail began to show more and more destruction from foraging wild pigs. This slowed us considerably as we slogged through and around snout-plowed terrain. We were getting tired.

After 12 miles for the day, we were hoping to camp at the Lucky Hammock campsite but we couldn’t find (or missed) the pump which was supposedly on the trail a mile before the campsite. Lucky Hammock had a lot of evidence of wild pigs but still a few untouched areas where you could pitch a tent. But without water we had to continue on.

We came out of the forest onto the C-18 Canal and walked again in the sun for 2 miles until we found water access in a side slough just before Riverbend Park, 44.5 miles into our hike. We made for the Orange Grove Picnic Area that looked good in the pictures online. It had a nice tiki hut pavilion with picnic tables where we cooled off and drank our water. We made our dinner and waited for dusk to set up our tent since there was no indication that camping was officially allowed here. However, there were lots of walkers, runners and bikers still coming by past 6 pm and this area was very exposed. So we backtracked on the trail a bit and stealth camped in the palm scrub about 20 feet off the trail. We set up just after sunset and kept our phones (and their lights) off for another hour until we were sure nobody was still around. Karen noted how strange it was too just lay there side-by-side, quiet, in the dark without our phones. Lol. Truly roughing it.

Day Five

We were up early at 5 am this morning. We skipped breakfast and packed up the tent in the dark and hiked out of this nice little municipal park before anybody was the wiser. We thought we were going to have a mile road walk on the Indian Town Rd (a highway really), but the trail meandered in the woods beside it and as the trail was ready to turn north, a Sunoco came into view.

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Yeah! So we walked down the highway to snag some coffee, diet Coke and loaded hotdogs for breakfast. We sat at a table in front of the closed pizza joint in the nearby strip mall. There were several stores, of which a hardware store and a small market were open. We took our time, refilling the diet Coke, getting water, cleaning out our water filter. I got us some fruit, avocado and sugar snap peas from the market. And then I got potato chips from the Sunoco. Karen was quite happy. We finally left at 9 am, hydrated, with just 6 miles to our planned campsite for the night.

We walked a couple shaded miles through a palm forest along the Loxahatchee River, and then passed under I-95. Karen thought the underpass was kind of creepy and loud, but better than going over. My only complaint was that some misguided volunteer had painted all the Cyprus knees in the nearby trail blaze orange. Not good. Then the trail opened to a very dry savanna full of palmetto and sprinkled with pines. It was sunny and hot again, but not as bad as yesterday.

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As we approached Johnathan Dickinson State Park, wherein lay out destination campsite, we learned from a bicyclist that they were doing a prescribed burn on our trail between us and the campsite. At the park entrance, we called the ranger office to confirm the burn and register for tenting. But the ranger on the phone was exceptionally unhelpful and said if we hadn’t pre-registered, the campsite was full. We doubted that and just continued on. Except we had to take the alternate route around the burn, which was an extra 2 miles of sandy and buggy service road that was very hard and slow to hike in. It was doubly hot with the sun reflecting off the light-colored sand. It took us an extra hour but we finally made it to Kitching Creek, 52.5 miles into our hike. And it was the nicest campsite yet with plenty of empty tent sites. There was good water at the pump, a composing privy, shade, picnic tables and fire pits.

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Water first, washing our feet and socks, and filtering drinking water. We wiped our bodies with wet bandanas and cooled off in the shade while we ate a late lunch. All was good and nobody was around. The burn was, in fact, just south of the campsite and was still smoldering. It was probably an active burn a day or two ago. But the wind was blowing southwest so no worries. We slept well that night with no rainfly, exposed to the moon and night.

Day Six

We had only a little more than 8 miles to do today, so we didn’t rush this morning. But we were still on trail just a little after 8 am. We walked the spur trail from the campsite to the main trail through the prescribed burn area. There was one small hotspot left. The trail continued on through some sand pine forests and palmetto savannas with very little water to be seen.

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Eventually the land turned to sandy dunes with few trees, scrub, palmettos and cactus. We encountered a large day hike group that had been organized by The Florida Trail Association. One of the women had been following us on Facebook and recognized Karen.

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The last mile or so through the sand was harder hiking before we got to the final road walk along highway A1A and then Bridge Road out to the beach. We reached our final goal just before noon and found a spot amid the regular beachgoers. Karen dipped her toes in the salty water, while I stripped to my shorts and went to play in the surf. Satisfied with our achievement, we cleaned up and hiked another mile and a half to find a cold beer and a grocery store while we waited for our ride back to our van.

Epilog

This trail was both more and less than we’d expected. Clearly, it was a dry year, water was scarce in places, and much of the wet hiking just wasn’t as intense as it can be. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful representation of the best of Florida hiking, packed into a short 61-miles adventure. We’re still not quite ready to dive into a 1,300 mile thru-hike of the entire Florida Scenic Trail. But we’re definitely better informed and prepared for it when we do.

~ Rusty