Lost in the Glades

It's a late February morning in full splendor. Warm temperature, bright sun, clear skies, and the humidity won't be back until spring. Everything combines for a perfect winter day. It's a Monday, so everyone is in work mode except for a few ditch-side cane-pole fishermen on the road to Everglades City-and me. I have the day off from my job as a physician's assistant in the emergency room of a Naples hospital, and I'm in the mood for a brief walk through the wilderness.

Monday Morning

the florida trail runs 1,300 miles from Pensacola to the Keys, and a portion of it goes through the Everglades. The desk ranger at the Big Cypress National Preserve Visitor Center on Tamiami Trail (not far from Shark Valley) eyes me with a disbelieving smile. "You plan to walk the muck in sandals, do you?" he says. "Well, the entrance is out the door 150 feet to the right."

Back at the car, I drop off everything except my cell phone and keys. Put on my hydration pack, half full of water, load two Power Bars in it, grab my hiking boots, strap my sandals to the belt loops on my shorts, and it's off to the Florida Trail. I don't see a sign-in station. But I think, "So what, it's Florida, it's flat, it's early, I will be out before I'm missed." What I don't think is that by not signing in, I am not going to be missed at all.

It all seems straightforward enough. If I take the first option I recall from the map, at three miles per hour, I'm out of an 11-mile loop by 1 p.m. Even if I miss the first loop and go 22 miles on the second loop, I'm out by 4.

The muck starts immediately. The swamp buggies and Park Service vehicles have pulverized portions of the ground into a sticky, slippery silt. It's like walking on plastic-plastic with suction. Luckily, the Florida Trail quickly crosses these roadways and becomes a trail of not-so-slippery muck winding through forest-an enchanting array of pines, palms and cypress sprinkled with fields, hedges and borders of yellow, blue, purple and white wildflowers. You can't see these colors as you whiz by in a car on your way to Fort Lauderdale or Miami.

By 11 a.m., I reach a swamp-buggy shack deep in the woods. I know it is 11, but not because of a watch. A watch was among the important trail survival items-matches, compass, flashlight, map, whistle-that never got packed. But this pinewoods clubhouse with a Seminole-style chickee hut has a sundial out front. I roam around the grounds for a half-hour, checking out the vintage park signs and messages. Then my internal hiking gauge signals, "Back on the trail if you plan to get out by dark."

Problem is, as I turn back toward a trail I cannot find my blazes-the blue marks painted on trees to guide hikers like me. I begin doing bigger, concentric circles around the clubhouse and meandering down the buggy roads until I find a set of blazes crossing the trail-a single blaze to the right and another to the left. Unfortunately, the sun is high overhead, the water shines like a mirror and is disorienting, and I can't tell if I should go back or ahead. So, I punt, and go ahead. Now I am at the mercy of Big Cypress. I don't really admit it. But I sense it, because watery portions of the trail are slowing me down. Still, I ramble on, enjoying the sun's warmth, the aroma of pine needles and a kaleidoscope of migratory winter residents: shrikes, jays, bluebirds. I barely notice the ubiquitous turkey vultures, as predictable as city pigeons, but am surprised to see wintertime dandelions blooming.

I start rationing my water supply under the winter's warm subtropical sun. A Power Bar becomes the first meal. Not long on taste, but it is reassuring to have some calories. I don't have any idea it is the only food I will see for a few days.

By mid-afternoon, knee-deep water has become the primary footpath. A muscle mutiny is brewing. I think: "If this is the Pineland portion, seen on the map back in the car, then we are heading south, and south is out. Got it?"

Monday Evening

eventually, I come upon a red plastic sign: "Seven-Mile Camp." I see some blue paint on the trees but no loop intersection. I think, "Seven miles at three miles per hour; that means I'll still be out by dark." I trudge on, until I see a "10-Mile Camp" sign and realize that this is the triangle I remember on the map back in the car. Is this the halfway point between Tamiami Trail to the south and Alligator Alley to the north? It hits me: Buddy, you are spending the night in the Everglades.

I walk on, still looking for the intersection of the far loop and the northern trail to Alligator Alley. I never find any definite marking to believe that I am on the loop trail leading back south, but I convince myself that I am. By now my right knee really hurts from a full day of slipping and sliding.

I stop for my first rest since morning. Sitting on a fallen tree, I bow my head and pray: in front of me, the setting sun; over my shoulder, the rising moon. Insects and birds begin a serenade. Warm, wafting breezes dry the sweat and swamp water from my soaked clothing and exposed skin.

Looking across a wide expanse of swamp-buggy trails and roads, I surmise that this must be the largest swamp-buggy crossing in the park. Maybe one will come by in the morning. With whatever neurons are still functioning, I burn into my mind the location of my present blazes and every detail of which way I will head in the morning.

It is time to find a place to sleep in the Everglades Ritz. Looking down one roadway, I spy what I think is a deer, but when I get closer, I see it is the rusting chassis of a Plymouth truck, a true godsend. I position my body diagonally across the decaying truck bed. Who cares if it is short and lumpy? I settle in for my night outdoors.

Now I begin checking my cell-phone display for service. But all my efforts to reach anyone fail. I don't think of calling 911. I turn off the phone to keep some battery juice in hopes of a call out tomorrow.

The full moon lights up the swamp as the last strands of purple and red abandon the western sky. Reptile and insect noises begin to fill the night. Moonbeam gems sparkle in the swamp water. Owls, very close, call out. Small mammals must cringe at that sound as they scurry like soldiers in besieged cities. Compared to those field rodents, my plight is manageable.

But as the night advances, so do the mosquitoes. From dark to dawn, the buzzing and biting are relentless. I try not to move much. Every motion causes the rusting metal of my truck bed to sag and separate. Occasionally, I turn my collar down enough so I can peek out. The moon-drenched sky is too bright for the Big Dipper to show. Too bad. I am looking for some assurance of my bearing.

I am glad I don't have a watch to annoy me. Instead, the night ebbs and flows and the universe ticks along just as the Almighty set it in motion eons ago. My mind reruns my present life activities until they seem as trivial as a Platinum Visa card in the middle of the wilderness.

Tuesday Predawn

the moon reaches its zenith, then falls fast to the western horizon. Dawn approaches from the east in fiery power and possibility. Awak-ening with a shiver, I attempt to control my shaking because it's rattling the collapsing truck bed. By now I am at nearly a 45-degree angle to the ground, with my head only inches from the water.

Even before there's adequate light, I arise, put on my sandals, take a drink, try the phone, thank God for the new day and head out. I walk directly toward my blazes and say to myself, "Remember, up the road, to the right, head into the opening, across from the fallen tree." But there are no blazes! Was I so exposed and delirious yesterday that I imagined everything?

I roam up one road after another, slipping in the muck with every step. My right knee is already twinging painfully. Finally, I choose a road, thinking, "Stay on the buggy road, a ranger or Seminole will be along with a load of smiling ecotourists, and you're out."

Eventually, a set of blazes appears. It's difficult trekking these buggy roads, which the Florida Trail has been crisscrossing ever since I left the visitor center. "This is a no-brainer," I decide. It's easier walking, the knee is sore, and it's probably a shorter distance to wherever I'm going. I decide to follow the blazes. Which way? Who knows? Off into a pine stand I head.