Outdoors
Published: Dec 26, 2006
SOPCHOPPY - It is the source of legend, this 5.1-mile stretch of trail. It is the rare trailside campfire where Bradwell Bay doesn't come up in conversation. Rangers and trail staff alike tell of being called out in the middle of the night to search for yet another lost hiker in this remote hardwood gauntlet of tupelo, sweetbay and cypress.
"There's no point in going into Bradwell Bay at night," Kent Wimmer said. "All you'll get is more people lost. I tell them that they might as well go back to bed because they'll need their sleep for tomorrow."
Wimmer should know. He guides the Florida Trail Association's "Swamp Stomp," an annual hike through Bradwell Bay, one of a handful of federally designated Wilderness Areas in the state of Florida. When hikers run into trouble in this deepest of swamps in the Apalachicola National Forest, the U.S. Forest Service puts in a call to Wimmer.
Typically, the Bradwell Bay section of the Florida trail is a waist-deep walkabout through a primordial paradise. But an attentive ear can easily find tales of the bay's more notorious reputation. Cautionary tales of neck-deep waters, hopelessly lost gear and of mud that will suck a laced boot off a hiker's foot are common. Some hikers reportedly have lost their soles.
When the water's up, the trail weaves among the trees like an anaconda, dark and shiny wet. Most sections of the Florida Trail can be negotiated with just one eye on the lookout for the dollar bill-sized orange blazes, which most often are painted on trees growing along the trail. A traverse of Bradwell Bay demands the full attention of both eyes.
It is trail sections such as Bradwell Bay that reward an $80 investment in the Florida Trail's map series. Map 10 presents the orienteering junkie with a latitudinal stroke of orange ink across foreboding wetland topography icons. The scale reads that two inches of water-resistant map paper translate to three miles of adventure. The bold orange line through Bradwell Bay does not lack for inches.
I came to Bradwell Bay already apprised of its soggy reputation. I felt excitement at the prospect of an exploration that would return me to my amphibious roots. I had company. The night before the hike I had befriended German adventurers Manfred and Uta Weichenberger. Fresh from an exploration of the coastal roads of the African continent, they were roaming the back roads of Florida in their custom-built Toyota Landcruiser camper in search of adventure with a Florida flavor.
It was their rugged, four-wheel-drive vehicle that caught my eye, but it was their fearless adventure spirit that won my respect. The Weichenbergers are a "retired" couple in label only. Their stories of rambling down the back roads to the most remote corners of the earth was a silver-haired reminder of how much living a person should do.
That reminder was driven home for good when they unhesitatingly accepted Wimmer's invitation to join us on the Bradwell Bay expedition. Also joining us was Judd Doodlin, the Trail Association's Global Information Systems expert. Poised on the threshold of Bradwell Bay was our intrepid squad of five, all champing at the bit to reacquaint ourselves with our inner frog.
Boy, were we surprised to find the object of our excitement.
It seems that once every few winters, when rain is rare and the trees are bare, this basin ecosystem of Bradwell Bay becomes as high and dry as a city sidewalk. A basin is a saucer-like topographical feature in which water collects over the rainy season. The Bradwell Bay saucer has a crack in its eastern perimeter. As the saucer fills, rainwater begins to flow out of the crack. This outflow becomes Monkey Creek, the site of the Florida Trail F-Troop bridge project I wrote of in The Tampa Tribune several weeks ago.
Wimmer was astonished to find the bay all but devoid of water. In his many forays across these 25,000 acres of pristine wetlands, he had never seen it so. We eased on to the trail in single file, drawn in by the openness of this seemingly impenetrable swamp. On any given day inside Bradwell Bay, black bears easily outnumber humans. With our entry into their habitat, we were surrendering the top rung of the food chain to a worthy successor. Such is life in the wilderness.
Early into the journey, Wimmer stopped our column to point out an insectivorous plant nestled in leaf litter along the trail. At first glance, it looked like a flower that had fallen from a tree. Closer inspection revealed that this plant, a sundew, was no flower. Its petal-like tentacles are coated with a sticky substance from which flower-loving insects dropping by for a taste of pollen do not escape. When its prey is hopelessly encumbered, the petals slowly close around it. It is a wily and deadly ruse, but one that provides the sundew with nutrition that the nutrient-poor soils and water of the basin can not.
The trail soon led us to deeper, darker environs. We passed into a patch of ti-ti (TYE-tye), a spindly bush that grows to create dense thickets, usually along the perimeter of wetlands. These had grown to envelop the trail in a tunnel of tightly woven branches.
I realized this was the very tunnel of ti-ti that renowned nature photographer Clyde Butcher captured in a photo that I'd once seen. Our column came to a halt within it and looked around in amazement at nature's sheltering embrace of our trail. It had caught Butcher's keen eye and now held us captive in unspoken awe.
After a short downhill walk from the ti-ti thicket, Wimmer turned to us and explained that if this were any other time of year; we'd be belt-high in swamp water and unable to see the bleached deadfall hazards scattered before us. Unseen beneath the coffee-hued water, the deadfall inflicts bruised shins and stubbed toes on all who enter here. Not so in the dry season. We stepped over these obstacles with ease.
As we pushed deeper into the basin, we entered a forest of tupelo and cypress. Where most hikers slosh through a tannin-stained woodland pond that is the source of Monkey Creek, we found a stupendous glade of old-growth cypress and tupelo rising from a dry, concave depression carpeted with decaying deadfall. The soft, peat-padded ground hushed our boots as we walked in reverence among these immense, living giants.
With the water of the bay gone, we were treated to a look at these trees that most visitors do not see. Trees that thrive in wetlands have evolved special means to respire while their roots remain submerged over months of time. One trait of such trees is the massive bell-shaped base of their trunks. These can grow to several feet in diameter. The sight of these ornate wooden pedestals in this high and dry swamp drew gasps of disbelief from our guide and clicking shutters from the rest of us.
As the terrain became more heavily wooded and our path ever more occluded with deadfall, Wimmer came to the conclusion that finding one's way through Bradwell Bay was more difficult in the absence of water. The trail follows the flow toward the crack in the saucer and this flow serves as a useful aid in the search for the next orange blaze.
A dry bay serves up no such luxury. Absent of the telltale current, trail-like paths appear to lead in all directions. Blazes, easily spotted when following the flowing creek, become elusive. It was Wimmer's recognition of landmarks - aided by five pairs of scanning eyeballs - that kept us on the trail.
The slight gain in elevation in the center of the basin would go unnoticed if not for the radical transition in the ecological community. Hardwood swamp gives way to expansive pine upland. In times of water inundation, this upland becomes an island. There is a primitive campsite here, a welcome respite for sodden explorers emerging from a romp in the swamp.
Suddenly, I felt cheated. I longed mightily to appreciate the luxury this campsite offered, to pull off my wet, muddy boots and bask in the unique sense of happiness that accompanies a sudden improvement in one's wilderness circumstances. My fellow hikers and I were unanimous in that sentiment. The island campsite fell behind us as quickly as we had come upon it. Sadly, it will have to wait until spring to fulfill its true purpose.
Too soon, our trek concluded. Wimmer led us through the crack in the saucer and on to a vast ocean of saw palmetto. Just as we emerged, a stiff winter breeze whipped the endless expanse of fan-like fronds into breakers resembling incoming sets of bright-green surf. It was the closest thing to water I'd seen all day.
Keyword: Florida Trail to read Mike DeWitt's blog, see photos and video, and pinpoint his current location while he spends the next two months hiking the Florida Trail from the Alabama-Florida border to the Everglades.
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