Too late for me to learn from your wisdom. I bought a little chair. It’s rated at 265lbs. I set it up in the living room and sat in it….I didn’t die. I’m out of town, so I don’t remember what it weighs, but it’s light.

Yes, looks like we start on the 15th. One fellow had his MIL pass (was in hospice, so expected) so our start date was not nailed down. My cousin is gonna have some kind of app that will plot our progress, when we have the phones on and/or cell service.

I’ll take some pics of the wildlife and surroundings. I’ll be sure to get close ups of any gnarly injuries! Here is our last offshore fishing trip. This guy ain’t coming on the hike, he’s too injury prone.



Not fish blood…..A kingfish got him with the hook and it’s teeth…..we know how to party.

Last update until we leave in the OP.

Blast off 7am on Thursday.

I’m a bit of a germaphobe (new word) so I have 3 packs of Dude Wipes, a small bottle of alcohol based antiseptic and a small tube of silver antibacterial gel…..

Also, I made a mistake in my clothing calculations. I substituted my actual pants and shirt that I’ll be wearing at the start of the hike for weighing purposes - AND - packed them in the backpack…..so the actual total would be about .7 pounds lighter. Also the Ruger is a sturdy hunk of stainless. The dry bag I like because it’s a strong material.

No doubt I could easily take another pound off, but I’m big, strong and dumb, so why not?

As long as the gators, snakes, bears, panthers or methbillies don’t get me, I will have some pictures and maybe a story or three.

Dinner time. We should have walked further, but we stayed dry today. It looks to be wet for tomorrow.

I’ll do photos when I get back to civilization. Well, here is the start at Lake Okeechobee.

We didn’t die. I don’t have all of the pictures yet, so I’ll just post some pictures to show the uninitiated what that 60ish miles of Florida looks like.

You can’t see him, but a 7’ gator was hanging out here.
An awesome camp site. The nicest one we stayed at.
Day two was mostly wet. I don’t have the picture yet, but I had to relocate a stubborn cotton mouth with my walking stick.
We did get a bit of dry hiking in.
Lots of water, right in the trail….
Miles of corn, that wasn’t ready to eat.
Tiny little glass snake.
Typical landscape.
Not such a nice camp site. The ground was wet, but after raining for 12 hours, we had 2” of standing water under our tents.
Main water sources looked like this. Very tasty stuff, after filtering.
Bad time to be 6’3”.

Getting close to the ocean.
I wasn’t getting in that cold water.

My 50* rated sleeping bag was like sleeping in nothing on a couple of nights when it got down to about 48*. Granted, I was in a thin, cheap tent, but I was freezing even after getting fully dressed inside the sleeping bag.

My left foot developed a big blister by the end of the first 8-9 miles. No problems on the right foot even after 61+ miles. I think it was a combination of the socks being too slippery and the shoe being slightly too big. I threw them in the garbage can when we got to one. I had worn the shoes for several hours a day, for almost 2 weeks prior to the hike.

The backpack was a bit small, at 50 liters, but I knew that going in.

I had and should have brought a liter of water. I was constantly out of water and could have filled that when I filled my drinking container.

My single pole was good, but I ended up swapping with the guy that had two poles. Much better for stability in the mud, water and sugar sand.

The 25 year food sucked. The other guys had some food bags with a 1 1/2 year shelf life. I tried some and it was great. Also, I carried too many protein bars. I probably had a pound of food I never ate.

Most of the stuff I bought/brought worked out very well and I’ll keep it for future hikes. New shoes for sure.

Would recommend.

Valid points. This was my first hike longer than a 6 hour day hike in dry conditions. I learned a lot and will be better prepared next time. We had a good time and several great memories.

I do appreciate all the ideas and insights.

Not picture, as I was busy flinging this fat dude off the trail, but you get the idea.