Mud, Swamp, and Tears -1,100-Mile Thru-Hike On The Florida Trail – Part 2
As you walk up to the desolate gates, North of Big Cypress you come upon the trail register. You grasp the mailbox door. It is warm from baking in the sun. You have made it… You kept going despite all the challenges and pain. The trail has provided you with more than you could have ever imagined. You fill out the notebook tucked safely inside and then reinsert it into the mailbox for the next hiker’s passage. It represents a form of permanence they can never take away from you. This pilgrimage is your mark of history. It is written and can not be erased.
Then it hits you. It’s a sucker punch in your face from Muhammad Ali. Your positive outlook suddenly takes a nose dive off the Empire State Building. You still have 1,070 miles until you finish your journey. That number when you began this hike didn’t seem so far-fetched. Now it seems about as realistic as if you were to walk to the moon.
This trek has been an emotional rollercoaster and it seems to continue on a free fall from space. You take a breath and ground yourself by pushing all of those negative feelings away. You fill yourself with the positivity of being alive in the beautiful sunshine. How many people get this opportunity to hike across the entire state of Florida for months? You remind yourself that this is a journey and not a race. You will take the trail one day at a time.
Read Mud, Swamp, and Tears -1,100-Mile Thru-Hike On The Florida Trail Part One.
Table of Contents
Heaven Sent Down Angels and Hamburgers
You pick your head up, look forward, and continue to walk on. Up ahead you see your first audition of trail magic. There is a group of altruistic trail angels waiting for you to emerge from the stewing swamp. They are parked near the I-75 rest area waiting to show you the kindness of strangers.
You see this amazing set-up. Your limp turns into a sprint, a sprint of creature comforts. There are glorious smells of grilled meat wafting from one of the canopies.
You look down and see other thru-hikers shoes laid out to dry in the sunshine. The smell of the shoes roasting hits your senses and makes you pause. Is this how you smell? You just realized that you have not bathed in over 5 days and have hiked in swamp water which must be extremely offensive. You begin to feel self-conscious about your ripe exterior.
Slowly you walk up to the others gathered and sheepishly say hi. The overwhelming acceptance and smiles on all the faces make you feel welcome. The angels offer you snacks and cold beverages. Glorious cold, cold beverages! Oh my gosh, there’s fruit! You haven’t eaten anything fresh in forever, so you shovel the goodies down the hatch. They also offer you a chair to sit on and rest your aching bones.
This trail magic experience gives you a newfound appreciation of what the trail community is. Now you understand why people choose to hike hundreds of miles in the wilderness. It is the community that is part of the machine that drives long-distance hikers. You feel accepted and part of something bigger for the first time in eons.
Filth, Mud, and Grime Contamination from Hiker Trash
After you gladly accept the trail magic you gather yourself and continue over to the rest stop next to the highway. It is the perfect place to charge your electronics and wash your face in the sink. The stark white interior of the restroom is about to be rocked by your layers of muddy funk.
As you pump the soap into your hands, droplets of black suds land on the white porcelain bowl. Your filth is evident and continuous. You have washed your hands at least 3 times and filth still streams down the drain.
You pull out your swamp-soaked socks and continue to wash and rinse them for 5 minutes. With each squeeze black gritty mud escapes the fibers. Your eyes are popping out of your head from disbelief at the amount of grime trapped in the fabric.
Clean and sweet-smelling motorists enter the restroom and witness you washing your laundry in the sink. You can only imagine what they must think at the sight of you. They politely stare at the destruction of the once-clean bathroom. So this is what they mean when they say “hiker trash”. You have officially hit hiker trash status.
Once you finish your hiker trash laundry you walk over to the vending machines to grab some tidbits that are covered in an artificial glowing cheese powder. These are definitely on the thru-hiker food pyramid.
Tramily Unit
You spot another hiker and her companion hanging out next to the outlets charging their devices. You met them at the Florida Trail kick-off party before starting your adventure. With a smile, you strike up a conversation about hiking and how this trail compares to others.
Her trail name is 1800. She acquired that name because she attempted a thru-hike on the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) and made it 1800 miles before she quit. Her companion is named Jason, no trail name as of yet. This is his first thru-hike. After conversing, you all decide to hike and camp together for the night.
Your new Tramily (trail family) will hike another 8 miles to the Seminole Reservation gate where you plan to camp for the night. From there you will have no campsite to rest until you are completely through the reservation, 20 long shadeless miles. Tomorrow will be your first time hiking that distance in a single day.
Who Was Mostly Harmless?
As you hike towards the reservation gate you come across Nobles campsite.
Every trail has a history and comes with stories. Even the Florida Trail has ghosts. There is sadness here. Above your head, you see a wreath made of twigs and sticks artfully crafted. A memorial for the soul that moved on from this spot.
What We Know About Mostly Harmless
His name was Vance Rodriguez and he went by the trail name “Mostly Harmless”. His body, weighing a delicate 83 pounds, was found at Nobles Campground by two hikers on July 23, 2018. It took detectives more than two years to finally identify his body.
He did not have a cellphone, credit card, or any form of identification. Detectives found hiking gear, two notebooks (with coding notes), and about $3,640 in cash inside his tent.
He was an IT worker in New York with roots in Louisiana. Rodriguez appears to have died of natural causes, according to investigators. He began his hike on the Appalachian Trail in 2017, using paper maps to navigate south toward Florida.
There are so many questions that run through your mind when you think about the demise of Simply Harmless. What went on in this poor man’s mind over the last few days of his life? How did he get here? Why did he die alone? Why did it take so long to identify him? Did he choose to die this way or did it just happen?
To begin to understand these questions you need to dive into the meaning of his chosen trail name.
Have you ever felt like there’s something hidden deep inside you, something that others might fear or struggle to understand? If so, you might have a commonality with the characters in Douglas Adams’ “Mostly Harmless” from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. In this novel, the characters carry demons and secrets with them as they navigate a chaotic and absurd universe.
Mostly Harmless shares a commonality with your spirit. There have to be demons and secrets hidden inside you. Thru-hiking is not a normal activity in the eyes of society. Most people who choose to hike across long distances for months and months with only what they carry on their backs have something inside that people fear or can’t understand. A thru-hiker is a special breed, uniquely walking towards enlightenment.
Maybe some people can handle the secrets of enlightenment and use it to progress to the ultimate purity and purpose of spirit. In contrast, others wither away and die from the truth. Who lives and who dies does not represent winning and losing. Spirit is an individual entity and something that cannot be changed. It is something you are born with and a burden you carry through this life. As you go through life your spirit begins to pull towards the light or the dark. Spirit decides life or death.
Mostly Harmlesse’s spirit chose death. And with that death, he took with him the answers to why he withered away and chose the Florida Trail as his final resting place.
Walking Alone, You Can Only Move Forward
The music of the night starts to quiet as the sun slowly begins its ascent into the sky. You can hear the crunching of leaves and the sounds of air being let out of a mattress. The sounds of hikers beginning their day.
You wipe the sleep from your eyes. Slowly unzip your bag and begin the morning ritual of new beginnings.
Starting your day would not be complete without the deliciousness and bitter slap in the face from Folgers instant coffee.
You are still in the comfort of your tent as you sip yesterday’s adventures away and make room for a new adventure today.
You step out of your tent to stretch your legs and find out what everyone’s plans are for the day. Your Tramily decides to hike separately and meet up later at a gas station located 20 miles away inside the reservation.
You watch each person pack up and leave as you finish your breakfast bar. The day starts like the rest, with one foot in front of the other. You can only go forward from here.
This section of the trail is entirely road walking on pavement. You quickly begin to feel different aches and pains than you have been accustomed to. Your feet start throbbing from the hard bang of the pavement. Only 19 more miles until your destination.
The temperature quickly rises as the sun in the cloudless sky beats down on you. There is zero breeze and not an inch of shade for relief. Your water quickly disappears as you sip and sweat. There are no places to safely filter water. You still have 8 miles until the gas station and you have officially run out of water at high noon.
Panic sets in. Dehydration would be the ending of your hike and hopefully not your life. Up ahead you see an irrigation reservoir. But you know that it is most likely not safe for human consumption due to agricultural runoff. Now you need to make a decision. Do you risk hiking 8 more miles with no water in the blazing heat or gamble drinking contaminated water?
Water is life. You scamper down the hill to the murky stagnant water. It has a little bit of a funky smell. But you pray that your water filter will remove all the nasty “god knows” from the water.
With your newly acquired liter of chemical poo water, you proceed forward toward your destination which promises tasty snacks, cold beverages, and a hot meal.
All you hear is the crunch of pavement underneath your feet with a curse word off and on from your mouth. The pain is all you can think of with each step. Your feet are screaming for the love of everything holy please stop walking. You just ignore their cry for mercy.
All of a sudden the bark from multiple dogs hits your ears and you realize it is getting closer and closer. You look towards the sound and see three dogs running right at you from a property with an opened gate.
Defense mode kicks in and you are ready to fight. Running is out of the question. You thankfully brought pepper spray to defend yourself and grabbed it ready to strike.
The dogs are running full speed, drooling phlegm and foaming at the mouth. You decide to yell at the top of your lungs f@ck off! They suddenly stop about 6 feet away. They continue to bark but do not proceed forward.
You take that as a truce and quickly walk away not taking your eyes off them until you are far enough away to call it a bad memory.
The romantic idea and fantasy of a thru-hike has completely been turned upside down over the past week. Your expectations of what you saw in movies or the photos of clean smiling hikers have been shattered. The true trail is something not for the faint of heart. Every day you are looking death in the face. All it takes for you to take that carriage ride to the other side is one mistake or wrong choice.
Mostly Harmless was right, the trail is not meant for the indecisive, you have to know if you want to live or die before you take a step onto the Florida Trail. Otherwise, the trail will choose for you.
Keep an eye out for Part 3.