We collapsed, sweaty and tired onto the sandy bank of the Withlacoochee River in West Green Swamp, eight miles into our fourteen-mile lollipop route.
The water hyacinths choked the blackwater into an almost-still mirror, broken only by the lazy roll of a gar and a couple of loglike gators.
It was that special kind of Florida hot – the type where your sweat sweats. The chorus of cicadas couldn’t match my kids’ soundtrack of sighs and complaints.
I looked back toward the Boy Scout cabin, then leaned against a cypress tree beside my wife. “Just think,” I said, “someday we’ll thruhike the entire Florida Trail.”
“Dad!” Aiden, my oldest daughter huffed, and a pine cone pinged off the side of my head. “How many times do we have to tell you we hate hiking in Florida?”
“The bugs aren’t as bad today,” Georgie said. “Look at this, Dad, there’s a bunch of little crater looking things in the sand.”
I turned to see June come around the cabin, staring at her feet, muttering, “Come on legs, you can make it.”
My wife touched my shoulder and whispered. “Do you really think she is up for this?”
“Pfft,” I muttered. “Why did I ever say ‘why don’t we take the kids?’
The familyFor most of my life, I considered walking without a fishing rod in hand to be a cardinal sin against efficiency. Growing up, my friend and I were Florida’s most dedicated juvenile trespassers, skipping Sunday lunch to test untouched phosphate pits with our rods.
Our crowning achievement in bad judgment happened on what is now a water hazard on the Eagle Brooke golf course. Mid-cast, a man in a Jeep Wagoneer jumped the rise like an angry god.
We dropped to the bank as he fired a shotgun over our heads. We surrendered with hands raised, fishing rods confiscated, and a heightened respect for private property that lasted at least a few months.
Much later in life, married with kids, I called Monica’s suggested hikes “pointless walking.” I wasn’t part of “the plan” when she and her friend began dreaming about hiking the Appalachian Trail “someday” when the kids were grown.
Then the housing market crashed, my building business with it. Rather than declare bankruptcy and leave my subcontractors unpaid, we tightened our belts, sold the house, and moved in with my parents.
Looking for affordable vacations, we discovered backpacking through friends who promised, “It’s basically free once you have the gear.”
Taking on backpacking as a familyOur first genuine backpacking experiences were in North Carolina. Though I initially approached these hikes with reluctance, something unexpected happened under those Carolina blue skies – I began to enjoy the walking itself.
The breakthrough came when our family tackled a 64-mile loop in the Smoky Mountains. Our children somehow managed this extended trek without dissolving entirely, growing stronger every day.
Before I could stop myself, I said, “Monica, if they can walk sixty miles, we could take the kids on that thruhike you’ve dreamed of!”
Next thing you know, we had secured permits for a 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail southbound thruhike.
With the PCT commitment looming, Florida—flat, buggy, sometimes uninspiring Florida—became our necessary training grounds. What had begun in the Appalachian highlands now had to continue in our backyard.
We explored the Dames Cave Network in Withlacoochee State Forest, the Ocala National Forest, and walked the Alafia River corridor.
We navigated Tenoroc’s rehabilitated phosphate mines (legally), and once we even spotted exotic African deer that had escaped from Brahma Island while hiking through Sumica.
We even attempted a one hundred mile Suwannee River section that ended with us huddled in a tent while ice—actual ice in Florida—coated everything outside.
A trail angel named Randy had to cut his way out of his driveway with a chainsaw to rescue us.
Somewhere between the whining and the wonder, the kids remained steadfastly immune to Florida’s charms while I began to see my home state with new eyes.
Along the Suwannee RiverMonths later on the PCT, my children transformed into hiking machines. June, who had treated our Green Swamp loop like a death march, powered through twenty-mile mountain days.
Henry, who’d complained that Florida was “too flat,” had started by complaining that the PCT followed “pointless steeps,” but eventually suggested forty-mile days “would be easy if you’d just let us go ahead.”
The wilderness changed them, but their transformation didn’t extend to appreciating Florida’s trails. Recently I suggested a weekend Ocala hike and was met with groans so dramatic you’d think I’d suggested we eat our shoes.
The greater irony? Somewhere between Washington and Mexico, I’d gone from being the reluctant walker to the one with an incurable case of trail fever.
The man who once saw “pointless walking” as a cardinal sin was now the family’s most vocal advocate for wilderness wandering. And not just in the postcard-worthy mountain ranges, but right here in Florida too.
I think often of a 72-year-old hiker we met on a treacherous scree field near the Kendall Katwalk in Washington. While we slid and stumbled across loose rock, he floated over the unstable surface, trekking poles clicking rhythmically against stone.
“Take your time through here,” he called as he approached.
We stepped aside, and I noticed the patches from long distance trails across America sewn onto his well-worn pack.
“Long way from home?” he asked.
“Florida,” I answered, half-apologetically as hikers often do when admitting to coming from the flatlands.
“Florida!” His eyes lit up. “You folks have the Florida Trail!” His voice carried the reverence usually reserved for speaking of the PCT or Appalachian Trail. “Twenty thousand miles I’ve walked on trails across this planet, and that Florida Trail—that’s my favorite of the lot.”
“Pfft,” my daughter said, “But it’s so…”
“Flat?” he laughed. “Sweetheart, the variety of ecosystems on that trail isn’t replicated anywhere else in the whole world. One day you’re in cypress swamp, the next in scrub pine, then prairie, hardwood hammock, beach… sometimes all before lunch!” He gestured at the dramatic mountains surrounding us. “This here’s mighty pretty, don’t get me wrong. But pretty gets monotonous after a while. Florida—she keeps you guessing.”
He tipped his sun-faded hat and continued north with a nod, moving with the same steady confidence over the loose rock that had clearly carried him through thousands of wilderness miles.
I stood and watched after him long after he’d gone.
Pay attention to the detailsNow my children scatter to their own adventures—Henry on a NOLS semester, Georgie and I preparing for a 3,000-kilometer HexaTrek in France.
My transformation from fishing purist to trail enthusiast didn’t happen overnight. It was more like a slow accumulation of moments that eventually tipped the scale.
Where my kids saw “endless boring trees,” I marveled at light filtered through Spanish moss, transforming ordinary forest into gothic cathedral.
On our sweaty hike in the Green Swamp, Georgie had pointed out “little crater looking things in the sand.” I’d barely glanced at them then.
Now I find myself stopping to watch ant lions at work—tiny predators waiting beneath those perfect conical pits, engineering sand traps with precision. I’ve spent entire afternoons watching them flick sand at passing insects, creating miniature avalanches that deliver dinner directly to their waiting jaws.
It’s funny—the moment we touched the southern terminus monument at the Mexican border, with the Pacific Crest Trail finally behind us, I immediately started pitching the family on thru-hiking the Florida Trail next.
The kids looked at me as if I’d suggested we walk back to Canada, but I was dead serious. The man who once saw “pointless walking” as a cardinal sin was now plotting his next long walk through Florida’s misunderstood wilderness.
And now that the kids are almost gone…
- The Reluctant Florida Hiker - March 17, 2025