null
Trail Wise!
Posts: 578
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Post by null on Jan 5, 2016 10:24:32 GMT -8
I will be hiking through the Appalachicola section of the Florida Trail in a few weeks and wanted to know if anyone had a trail condition update. Does anyone know how much water to expect on the trail? Is there good flow in water sources not in the swamp? Has their been a lot of rain lately? Brush on the trail?
Thanks, Steve
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T4
Trail Wise!
Posts: 100
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Post by T4 on Jan 5, 2016 12:03:09 GMT -8
Hopefully someone will come along that has some better info, but I can offer some general guidance as to how the weather has been lately. North Florida had a pretty wet spring and summer and many trails were wet, however we have been in a relative dry spell since late summer so water levels are returning to normal or slightly below normal for our dry season. We did have a pretty good soaking over the weekend, however I think that was concentrated more in Central Florida and not North Florida. While it's not specifically Appalachicola, I often use the site below to check water levels for rivers in the area. You can look at historical data to see if water is rising or receding. If you look at the 12 month plot, you can see that levels are down compared to what it was in Spring or late Summer. This can be helpful when matching up historical trip reports to actual water conditions. www.mysuwanneeriver.org/realtime/river-levels.phpHope that helps a little.
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Post by rwtb123 on Jan 5, 2016 14:30:18 GMT -8
My info from SoFl confirms what T4 said.Water levels were below normal as the wet season ended but heavy rains in early Dec brought levels up to about average but still below normal for the end of the wet season.Since then it has been dry with above normal temps though it is currently overcast with some light rain in the last 24 hours. Most tropical storms have missed Fl in recent years so we are not seeing the extreme water levels of 10-15 years ago where they had to helicopter into Big Cypress to do enough maintenance to make the trail passable. Here are the people you want to talk to: apalachee.floridatrail.orgThe contacts info shows the leaders and maintainers for Apalachicola and Kent Wimmer one of the activity leaders always led an annual trek into Bradwell Bay and knew all things Apalachicola(don't know if that's still current)
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null
Trail Wise!
Posts: 578
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Post by null on Jan 29, 2016 7:23:04 GMT -8
Just as a reprise: The Florida Trail through the Apalachicola NF was extremely wet last week. We started at Vilas and hiked East to Medart. Less than 0.2 miles from Vilas, we were already in water up to our knees. There were at least 10 spots over knee high for up to 0.1 miles at a time. Even on the forest road walks (e.g. just East of Langston House), the water was unavoidably over ankle deep.
Because of this, we skipped Bradwell Bay guessing that it would be over waist deep.
Oh and if you ever hike the area, the map and guidebook are wrong with respect to Sapling Head Camping Area. It is East of the Forest Road, not West. If you're going Eastbound, be patient it's further than you think. It's a crappy little triangle of ground, but it's better than nothing.
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Post by rwtb123 on Jan 29, 2016 7:47:20 GMT -8
Sounds like fun.Things are crazy this dry season.We just had heavy rain most of yesterday leaving standing water in the roadway and low part of my yard bordering the road.So things are probably only wetter now.Bring on Bradwell Bay.When I hiked it in 2007 the water was up to waist deep.And,I remember in 2005 when "The Wandering Bull" was thru-hiking the FT the water levels were so bad he had to aqua-blaze the Suwanee section(ie canoe)and was bragging about chest deep water in Blackwater River SP(with a picture of him wading holding his pack above his head,lol).Incidentally,he started out overweight and out of shape but unexpected to even himself completed the trail then headed up to thru-hike the AT where he was a super hiker doing 20-25 mile days right off the bat and leaving everyone else in the dust.
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