October 19th, 2007 Sandra Friend
The third edition of the Florida Trail Companion Guide for Long Distance Hikers is now available, and it’s grown by a third from the last edition to 224 pages, and includes full-page town maps with pinpointed services, more towns covered, and greatly expanded information on lodging, restaurants, and attractions in towns and along the trail. With more than 100 photos and 50 maps, it’s as detailed as you need to plan a weekend, a week, a month, or an entire season on the Florida Trail! Available now from the Florida Trail Association … resellers welcome.
On a more personal note, this is my third time working on this guidebook, and I’m pleased to say it’s the best yet. We found a Florida-based publisher that specializes in small press runs, A&A Printing in Tampa, and now have a product worthy of any bookstore: the exterior does the content proud. I had eight field editors canvassing their home areas, plus a lot of fact-checking by fellow FTA employees and myself while traveling. I did the design of the cover and the layout of the interior. While I receive no royalties on this book, all profits benefit the projects and programs of the Florida Trail Association, so pick up your copy soon!
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June 2nd, 2007 Sandra Friend
Today’s National Trails Day hike on the Florida Trail at Withlacoochee River Park marked my return to the hiking life. I’d been offline for more than a month squeezing every moment of my spare time into the completion of Exploring Florida’s Botanical Wonders, my latest book. It’s done! It’ll be next year before it hits the bookstore, but meantime, my new work with Johnny Molloy has hit the bookshelves: The Hiking Trails of Florida’s National Forests, Parks, and Preserves. Check it out!
Also, you might have noticed the revised look to the site. I’ll be adding new hikes AND making some radical behind-the-scenes changes this summer to make this a truly useful online resource. Stay tuned!
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May 8th, 2006 Sandra Friend
Mahogany Hammock Boardwalk
Visit the Everglades late in April? To me, this was absolutely foolish but, due to personal circumstances, necessary. I prepped like I’d never prepped before. Long sleeved shirts. Long pants. Mosquito headnets. Gallons of water. Many cans of bug spray. A healthy paranoia about getting out of the car. We stopped at Robert is Here for shakes, and jumped out of the car at the Ernest Coe Visitor Center, figuring we’d dash right in and beat the mosquitoes … and there were none. The sawgrass prairie: dry. The sloughs: dangerously low. The periphyton: dried to a crispy crust, a muddy webbing across karst and grass.
This was not the Everglades I expected. But the lack of mosquitoes were only the first of several surprises. I’d not been to Flamingo since September of 2005, and in the interim, Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma did their dirty work, with storm surges of 6 and 9 feet crashing over the seawalls at Flamingo. As evidenced by the photo to the right, the canopy of the tropical hammocks suffered rather badly, and the forest floor at Mahogany Hammock was littered with the fallen. It was unsettling to see these drastic changes to the ecosystems and yet, nature kept to its own pace of life. Lush ferns filled the spots where large trees had crashed, and vines (a lot of poison ivy, I’m afraid) plugged the gaps in the verdant wreckage strewn across the forest floor. A bright blur in yellow and black, perhaps a finch, flitted from tree to tree. Green anoles lazed on the stone-like shapes of strangler fig roots. And for the first time ever on this boardwalk, which I first set foot on when I was about eight years old, I noticed the paurotis palms in abundance. Not just in their spectacular stand at the beginning of the boardwalk loop, but poking out of the tangled understory all along the walk, especially on the southern side of this lush tree island. 
As we drove south on the Main Park Road, I noticed islands of palms all along the south side of the road. I’d never noticed them before.
At West Lake and around Flamingo, the white mangroves and buttonwoods are dead. They aren’t salt-tolerant, and the storm surges pushed enough salt inland to wipe them out. But it’s all a part of succession of habitats in the Everglades. The marly muck of the coastal prairie is typically deposited by hurricanes and becomes a base for salt-loving plants like saltwort and glasswort. As they draw out the salt, the buttonwoods and white mangroves can take root here again. In the meantime, it was interesting to see the thick coating of salt on the red mangroves fringing West Lake. A new and different phenomenon, which reminded me of reading that in parts of India, table salt - a precious commodity - is collected from mangrove forests.
West Lake mangroves
I was sorry to see the jumbled mess at Flamingo. The cabins are being torn down, and Eco Pond was destroyed by salt intrusion and the storm surge - the boardwalk wrecked, trees dead, birds gone to find another roost. The lodge and restaurant won’t open for a couple of years, if at all. They may need to be rebuilt. A chunk of the Guy Bradley Trail washed away, and the Coastal Prairie trail is closed, probably because of the amount of new thick muck deposited there from the storm surges. It isn’t something I’d want to struggle through. Part of the campground is open. Walking the shoreline, I looked off into Florida Bay and the water was murky. I don’t recall it being like that before. But there in a tree, a young osprey tore apart a freshly caught mullet while a crow fussed. Over at the marina, which is partially open, an American crocodile snoozed just offshore. Life goes on for those who actually live here. The Wilderness Waterway will reopen again, and the Gumbo Limbo Trail will get its canopy back someday. But for now, the Everglades are in recovery, at nature’s pace and in nature’s way.
PS. Good news! I’ve finished my part on the second edition of A Hiking Guide to Florida’s National Parks, Forests, and Preserves with Johnny Molloy. Watch for it next year. On to the next project!
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