Wow I can only say that this trip was one to remember!
I had been tossing around the idea of a long distance hike for a while. Well relatively "long" generally speaking. So me and a new trail buddy Jim put together a nice hike on the FT between Hopkins Prairie campground and Lake Delancy campground. You can find this section of trail on Map 19 of the Florida Trail System Maps. Both campgrounds are easily accessible by vehicle on well maintained forest roads. You just can't go wrong by seeing this section of the Florida Trail!
We had planned on meeting before lunch on Monday afternoon and finishing the hike on Wednesday afternoon for a total of three days and two nights on the trail. But as they say even the best laid plans fail. We were both running late so I didn't arrive at Lake delancy until around 1:30 PM and Jim was about an hour later than me. He had stashed a water resupply at the junction of the FT and CR314. Anyway we picked a campsite in order to leave a vehicle to shuttle us back to Hopkins after the hike, but I forgot to drop the payment envelope in the box at Delancy so we had to drive all the way back to pay. After all the delays we were at our campsite at Hopkins Prairie around 4:30 PM. It was too late to get any real trail time in so we decided to camp there the first night.
We ate dinner via heat from our handy Alcohol Stoves, go to
http://zenstoves.net/Stoves.htm to see how you can make your own! You'll be happy you had one when your 15+ miles into your hike and your pack is weighing you down! After dinner we revised our hike plans to compensate for the lost time earlier that day. If we could make it to CR314 before about 2:00 PM we might be able to be at Grassy Pond by sunset, which was our planned campsite for Tuesday night. So after some conversation we hit the sack for a brisk 38 degree night which was incredibly windy. I left my tent stakes at home in order to drop my pack weight and now I was regretting it. But I didn't blow away, so in the end no loss! FYI the water pump at Hopkins Prairie Campground is chained and padlocked so if you are thru hiking don't count on water resupply there, at the best you will have to filter water from the prairie.
We were up with the sun Tuesday morning with anticipation of getting on the trail. We broke camp and made for the trailhead at the campground by 8:30 am. I was carrying about 41 Lbs which seemed pretty comfortable but I was concerned about how I would feel 6-8 hours later. I'm still pretty green on the trail so I'm still setting limits on pack weight and distance. Grassy Pond was 18 miles away! I was optimistic and amped up for the hike, but I still had some doubt about my ability.
Hopkins Prairie is some of the best trail I've yet to see. Juniper Prairie was beautiful but Hopkins just seems to dwarf the other prairie by size and splendor. Hopkins Prairie has its own special alure and when you exit at the north end your almost saddened to see it go. That prairie becomes almost a part of you. I'll be back to see it again soon!
Out of Hopkins we entered thick scrub oak/Gallberry bush(?) forest covered by tall pines. The trail was well worn, and well blazed. We later found out at CR314 that the trail blazes at Hopkins had been repainted the previous week. Some time later we arrived at the junction with the Salt Springs Spur trail, and this was the only place we actually saw other hikers on the trail. We stopped there, doctored our feet, and chatted with the day hikers briefly before continuing on to 314.
Between the Salt Springs Spur and CR314 we seen a lot of hilly pine land. It was fairly open territory which was crossed by Jeep or ATV trails several times. As we came upon CR314 we saw a few vehicles and several people along the road. We were concerned that they may have tampered with our water stash which was right off the road about 50-80 feet into the forest. The north side of 314 had been burned so anything not black stuck out like a sore thumb. When we got up to the road we realized the people were doing trail maintenance. We were relieved because the trail blazed were gone in some of the area above 314. We stopped and chatted with the crew for several minutes about trail conditions before moving on to our water point and stopping for lunch. We had made it to 314 about 1:00 PM like we'd hoped so we made the call to push on to Grassy Pond. We hoped to at least make it to the 88 Store for some refreshment. We followed the trail maintenance mower tracks for much of the way to the East-West Corridor Junction. The trail was fairly worn but the added assurance of the tracks where no blazes appeared was nice.
Around 5:00 PM we arrived at the 88 Store with sore feet and shoulders. We were beginning to feel the trail taking its toll on us. But we didn't mind much since we were having such a good time. We enjoyed some liquid refreshment in the 88 Store and some conversation with the locals which was cool. They had a nice big screen TV that was on the Weather Channel. According to the report instead of getting warmer on Tuesday night it would likely be colder! Around 34-35 Degrees! My 50 degree sleeping bag had held up fairly well the first night but I wasn't sure how another colder night would do. We hung out there for about an hour, signed the register, and resupplied. If you hike through make sure you sign the register, it's behind the counter. I put a special shout out to FloridaHikes.com in my entry so check it out!
We set out around 6:00 PM and headed for Grassy Pond arriving there a little later than we'd planned. We had hiked 18 miles!! That was a record for both myself and Jim. The sun was quickly setting and we had to eat dinner and make camp. Grassy Pond would have been a great spot but it was thoroughly trashed by what I imagine were weekend party's. We renamed the place "Trashy Pond" on account of all the beer cans, styrofoamplates, and other trash. We briefly contemplated trying to pack some of it out but soon realized it would be impossible to help the situation. We'd make sure we packed our own trash out at least! Also like Hopkins the water source at Grassy Pond is non-existent. There is a well but the pump is rusted away leaving only a cement slab and a hole. If you can get into Grassy Pond through the grass you can probably filter water.
We ate dinner in the open camp area there and hung our food in a bear bag close by as not to have any goodies in our camp that might attract bears. Finding an adequete campsite was difficult unless we camped in the open amid all the trash, which we were unwilling to do. We eventually settled on a nice place about 1/4 mile down the sugar sand road running by Grassy Pond. If was dark by the time we had our tents up and we were in bed by 9:00 PM. We both slept fairly well except for the aching 18 miles our bodies endured.
We awoke Wednesday morning to find bear scat right between our tents! At first I wasn't sure that it was from a bear but upon inspection of our camp I found bear tracks entering in and leaving our camp. The prints were about the size of my hand! We never heard a thing, so we assume the bear bag we hung away from camp kept the bear from hanging around to look for food there.
We took our time breaking camp and eating breakfast since we only had 4.3 miles to arrive at Lake Delancy. It seemed as if the trail just kept getting better and better. The ecosystems kept changing every few miles, usually back and forth between Pine and Oak. The terrain became hilly just before Lake Delancy, accompanied by some large Pine and Oak trees. There were a lot of ATV trails in the Delancy area so be on the look out for them. We arrived at my vehicle about 1:00 PM and ate a quick lunch before heading back to Hopkins the quick way!
Some things we learned, 1) Eat out of a ziplock bag, no dishes to wash, 2) drink lots of water 3) don't forget to look for the blazes 4) blazes on oak trees last longer, the ones on pines burn or flake off easier, 5) don't depend on map info like water sources, have a back up plan, i.e. water filter/water stash, 6) enjoy yourself!
Check out the link below for some picture we took along the way, hope you enjoyed the report!
Travis
http://picasaweb.google.com/gmcclain20/
HopkinsPrairieToLakeDelancy041408To041608P.S. if you have any questions about this section of the trail feel free to email me and maybe I can answer them, plus if your looking to take a hike let me know, I'm always looking for partners.
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