It’s almost fall in Florida...or at least I can dream that the temperatures are dropping. In preparation for more backpacking over the winter, I did an overnighter in Ralph E. Simmons Memorial State Forest. I camped here before. I’ve bought some new gear, handmade some stuff, and learned a few things on youtube I wanted to trial.
The first thing I don’t want to use much is “how to camp and hike in hot weather”. With low 90s and high humidity, I sweat a LOT when hiking. I wet a bandanna and put that around my neck. I have a water filter now, so I didn’t need to haul all my drinking water. I kept the top layer off the tent so I was sleeping within the mosquito netting but otherwise open. Most of the night I just slept on the sleeping pad with a sheet. Way too hot for a sleeping bag. I survived.
Most of the other things I trialed are fairly small but I came out with a list of things to fix. Some of it falls under TMI. Did you know you can buy a backpacker’s bidet (no picture!)?
It was actually more hiking than I expected. After rejecting a further campsite, I backtracked to the first campsite so I ended up hiking ~5 miles to get to a campsite only 1.6 miles away. The 2nd day I took the 5-mile portion of the loop that was closed during the last visit. It was definitely more difficult. It was wet where you had to walk through the water at times (I’m experienced with that). The picture below is from the trail. It was buggy (but I got to use my new head net). And the blazes were quite spread out with a VERY weak trail (high grass) so I lost the trail more than once. It took me much more time to hike this portion since I spent so much time peering around trying to find the trail. An adventure!
Some cool pictures from the trail or from the tent.
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