Myakka River State Park

One word can sum up today’s adventure: Gratitude.

As I sit here and reflect on the day I can come up with more than one reason I am grateful for this group. Every time we meet for a group hike I learn something new. Not just about hiking, but also about myself. Today I learned that I’m much more brave than I often give myself credit for. Florida hiking is probably not all that dangerous or adventurous, but that all depends on how you look at it and what you attempt to do during any given hike.

I’m pretty sure that some people would have told us to turn around when we encountered water on the trail. We’re not talking about a few puddles – we’re talking about all of us being submerged in water, sometimes up to our upper thighs. And no, not just once or twice, but the entire length of the trail once we turned off the gravel road.

We started our hike at Ranchhouse Road on what is known as the Myakka River trail on the Alltrails app.  This particular 10+ mile loop is pieced together by utilizing several sections of all kinds of different trails, and from my experience these trails are utterly confusing. We saw blue blazes and red ones…..but hardly any signs of when and where to turn, other than two signs pointing in the direction of the campsites. Had it not been for our trusted Alltrails app I’m sure we would have gotten lost…..(and perhaps it’s time to get serious and learn about land navigation!!)

Ranchhouse road was actually dry for about half a mile but then it all changed. For some odd reason I ended up leading the group through the first deep sections of dark amber colored water. For the most part I was able to see the ground underneath, but the sun’s glare often had us walking “blind”. When I turned to ask if anyone else wanted to forge ahead I got a quick “nope!”. We giggled and laughed out loud – we knew we’d get wet, we just hadn’t expected it to be this bad.The signs warn of alligators, snakes, and other wildlife. Nothing new, right? The problem is that with a majority of the park’s trail system submerged in water, wildlife has nowhere else to go. So every time we stepped into water we accepted the dangers lurking therein. And although it’s understood that most critters will likely run/slither away when given the chance, there was also a good chance we were on a direct collision course with whatever was out there.

Every time we encountered a dry-ish portion of the trail we hoped that it would stay that way, only to be disappointed around the next turn. There was hesitation at first, especially from one of the girls in the group; but once she realized that her shoes would not stay dry on this hike, and how much fun it can be to jump like a kid into a big puddle, she was on board (almost anyway).

Eventually our positions changed. I went from leading to happily following after my near head-on collision with a fist size banana spider, just off to the left. I screamed first, which sent the rest of the group screaming behind me since they did not realize what it was that had me so freaked out. Jessica, our fearless leader, quickly found a stick with which she would remove other spider webs that crossed our paths. She’s now my hero, by the way.

 Despite our fearlessness we decided to cut our hike short once we arrived at the section where we would have otherwise turned north. We’d had enough of the water, we’d had enough of the heat, and – after Jessica had lost her phone in knee deep water we’d had enough adventure, period. Out gut was telling us that we probably weren’t missing out on much – other than perhaps more of the same (water)….

We did however stop once more at the popular canopy walkway, and I’m glad we did. The view from the top is nothing short of amazing:

Where did I hike next? Find out on my next blog post!