Archive for March, 2010
Ralph E Simmons Memorial Hike
I’ve finally gotten the chance to get my hands on some real gear thanks to finally getting my travel voucher. I got really tired of having to take all of my computer stuff out of my normal backpack and try to fit all my camping gear in it, so I found this Marmot Aspen Mountain 30 daypack at dick’s. Along with Eureka Apex 2 as my tent, Reactor jacket by Marmot left my mighty warm and toasty while I was relaxing by the fire and packing things up the next morning.
After all the $$$ dropping I did, I flew out to the memorial park and started out of the parking lot by 1400. I took the northern trail leading to the White Landing campsite, despite how I was merely wandering around I did manage to stumble into the campsite and explore around with plenty of daylight to gather wood, start a fire, unpack the tent and food, and have a nice well-deserved break. The tent went up with relative ease, but I’ll admit now that I did put on that protective covering sideways which eliminated the whole fucking purpose of it (duly noted). The park is so remote, the animals sond so much more differently than they do anywhere else I’ve been, and the St Mary’s river running alongside the campsite (you’ll see in the pictures) just kind of levelled me off to sleep. I did manage to see some small amphibious creatures, almost left my footprint on a snake, and had a frog that was attached for dear life to the side of my pants (he’s in there too).
The return trip was a bit more enjoyable, I took the southern-trail and noticed that there were quite a bit of ore pellets (a Lorainite always knows their ore pellets) just kind of randomly placed on the path. After a while I reached an area close to a bridge where there was a 6ft pile with rather large (4-6in diameter) chunks of ore. After a chilly night I was pretty happy to be walking into the sun the vast majority of the hike back and of course the smell of the morning dew was just awesome. It was a perfect scene.
I’m curious about the whole Nassau County, Florida area. It reminds me a lot of back home where the are a lot of little pockets of malls where there used to be a bit of commerce that failed. I noticed that the trees were all of the same type (pine) and were planted in pretty straight rows, although I failed to notice any type of logging infrastructure. After finding the hotspots of ore pellets, I was really curious (I also found an old tractor tire and a steel bumber off of an old-school truck) as to what exactly the area had been used for at one time.
Irish Prayer
Our lager,
Which art in barrels,
Hallowed by thy drink.
Thy kegdom come,
I fill thee mug,
As home, as in the tavern.
Give us this day, our foamy heads,
and forgive us our spillages.
As we forgive those who spill upon us,
And lead us not, into inebriation
But deliver us from hangovers.
-Barmen
Florida Hiking Resources
As I woke up yesterday morning with a horrible stomach bug I thought I was being damned for something, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel a day later. All the pain and suffering wasn’t in vain, for in my time of intense discomfort I managed to locate a series of really interesting tools to further expand my pleasures in hiking (no, not orgy forest) but…
St. John’s River alpha list, which I’d been searching around on their site since I heard of the little park system. Even though the site is extremely archaic in its simple linking system, this one single section of the site is the Noah’s Ark for all the lands the SJR currently overlooks. Little organizations like this give me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside that for at least as long as I’m here, there will be plenty of clean, natural, and undisturbed areas that allow us normal humans to get away from the normal day-to-day hangs we’ve all got to face.
Random google listing, created by dtnagel, is a huge haul of camping/hiking/scouting data apparently compiled by this user for boy scouting purposes (for boy scouts, not to actually scout for boys…you sick bastards). I use this site to find a spot that is close enough to travel to and from during a short weekend, yet far enough away to BE away. With this person’s listings I cross them on the SJR site and see if the park is the kind of place I prefer.
I’m a little picky when it comes to places I go exploring:
- I like it to be as far away from all highways, developments, bullshit as possible.
- Camping to me isn’t pulling up in a spot in my gigantic RV and hooking up to the gas/water/electricity/internet lines and sitting in inside all weekend. Camping to me is hiking a few miles on the only path out to the site itself where there is (at most) a single burn pit and a picnic table.
- Constant urinals and water fountains don’t line my kind of hiking trails. I carry my own water supply and I can piss where I damn well please and I damn well need.
Most of those, to normal people, would be no-brainers. Unfortunately this isn’t the case, but I can guarantee you that all the places I will end up hiking through are researched. I read reviews and most importantly check the trail maps to get a feel for how the trail will actually be (if its empty its a good trail), the only reason that I might put a trail on thats a tad bit more “family-friendly” is because there was some outside attraction (ie., museum, exhibition, etc).