10 January 2018
It must have been a cold night. When I got up this morning, there was a sheet of ice on the top of the ice chest. Apparently the dew froze. However, with my down sleeping bag, I was plenty toasty. Only around 4:30 am did I reach over and pull a blanket over me and the bag. The only real problem was getting up in the middle of the night for bathroom breaks!
After two cups of coffee and a bowl of cinnamon/apple oatmeal, I started my hike. I left the campsite at 9 am and finished the hike at 2 pm, so that seems to be around 5 hours of walking. Of course I took breaks but never longer than 5 minutes.
The trail begins near the campground. It then loops around Mac Lake and then crosses the road and begins to meander through long leaf pine forest with saw palmetto as an understory.
There were a couple of open fields here and there but most of the hike was in the shade of pine trees. The temperature was perfect – hovering around 60 most of the day.
For the first part of the hike I had a jacket, gloves and a woolen watch cap to cover my head and ears. I needed all three. By the time I circled Mac Lake, the sun was getting higher and I came out of the jacket, gloves and watch cap and shifted to my beloved Tilley hat.
They have warning signs for alligators and bears posted all over the park. The only problem with the bear warning is the park showsa map of bear areas in Florida and north of Lakeland is not in one of the bear areas. Since they were so dedicated about the bear posters, I did carry my bear spray with me. I have to admit, it certainly looked like bear country with all the berries available with the saw palmetto.
The trail is pretty well marked except in three places. Once you get near Mac Lake, it assumes you know to loop around one of the smaller lakes next to Mac Lake. Later, I did take a side trip on the loop accidentally. There was a marker and underneath the marker was a sign that said “trail” and pointed one direction. It was not the way to go and I had to backtrack. I suspect it was for horses. Most of the trails in the park are open to bikes, horses and hikers. No motorized vehicles are allowed on any of the trails.
The last area that signage was poor was where you loop back toward the campsite. I took the horse trail by mistake but the trail was marked with white and blue markers. White markers generally refer to the main trail. Blue markers are connecting trails. The blue mark under the white mark was the letter “H” so I assume it as a horse trail. There was certainly enough horse poop.
My major concern on the hike was the distance and whether my ankle would hold up from the sprain from April of last year. It did!. The park brochure says the loop trail is 10 miles. My gps said 10.7 miles and that could account for the side trip I made accidentally. In any case, I made it the distance without any ankle problems. One favorable point is that it is very flat. The only real problem was some mud. I am tired and plan to take it easy for the rest of the day. A hot shower sounds wonderful at this point.
Tomorrow, I pack up and head home.
