Hiking 30+ Mile Big Cyprus Swamp in 1 Day

Morning, we woke up around 5 AM to get ready to leave the Twin Lakes campground and head to the oasis center. The people who ran in the Florida Trail kick off fed us breakfast. I had pancakes and a croissant with egg and cheese. Then Ari gave me a Florida trail tag and I bought a small fuel canister from him. You can’t fly with the fuel canister so I didn’t bring one with me. And I knew that I wouldn’t be using fuel in the keys, most likely.

Once we are ready, four of us piled in to Fresh Grounds van. It was Punisher, Long Shot, Matcha, and I. Then we drove down the road to the oasis visitor center where the monument is, and the start of the Florida trail. It was dark when we began walking and within the first mile or so we got our feet wet and were charging through shallow water. It was fairly dry compared to last year, but there was a lot of mud. 

Let the Florida trail begin! I finished it only about a year ago today for the first time.

Our plan for the day is to attempt to do 22 miles. Which is a little bit longer than I did a year ago when I was down here. Because of all the water in the mud in the swamp typically people take anywhere from a day and a half to even two or three days to get through the swamp. I’m not putting a lot of pressure on myself to get through quickly. I’m just hoping to go as far as I can today.

Heading into the swamp!

I was impressed that the first few hours of the day actually felt pretty easy. When we passed by 10 mile camp, we stopped off for our first break. Someone had left a couple beers there on the picnic table as trail magic. I don’t think I’m gonna be drinking this year on Trail, just because of the toll that it can take on your body. At least for me   I find that drinking doesn’t help me in anyway. But it was still very cool to see. Then we continued on from there making our way through the swamp.

Modelo trail magic.

One of the first areas of shin deep water. But the trees and air plants were beautiful.

After another hour or so, the trail definitely got a little more muddy and it was slower going. Walking through the water isn’t so bad, but the mud will really slow you down. It’s just the type of mud that is very slick and grabs at your feet. So it takes a lot of energy to lift your feet up and down. And you wind up slipping and sliding all around, which can be pretty exhausting on your hips and other parts of your body.

The swamp is so hard, but such an incredible ecosystem to experience.

In the morning, everyone was very talkative and the energy was really high. But you could see over the course of the day everyone got quieter as it became more and more difficult. Around 1 PM we made it to what is known as 13 mile camp. But the camp itself is actually 17 miles into the day. It marks the point at which you only have 13 miles remaining of the swamp. Right before we got there there was a trail closure because of a prescribed burn. Fortunately thoughthere was a road access right by there so it was very easy to navigate around.

This area was closed due to a prescribed burn around 13 mile camp.

At this time, I didn’t have any cell service, which was a bit of a bummer. Because at 1:38 PM, I had a lottery appointment to get my PCT permit. Those permits can be pretty tough to acquire, and while they aren’t necessary to hike, the PCT permit definitely simplify the entire process. And I got a really early permit time at the start of when they became open. So I knew that if I used the lottery time, I would definitely be able to get any permit of my choosing. I’m just hoping that I still have an opportunity to get one later on in the year.

Back to some orange blazes for the foreseeable future.

From there, the trail got more and more wet and we were going in and out of patches of ankle to shin deep water. And many sections of deep sticky mud. It was exhausting, and my left knee was pretty sore from pushing through the water. But I was able to change my gait a little bit which helped a lot and eliminated the discomfort.

Made it to the 15 mile marker nice and early.

All four of us were hiking together for the majority of the day. But not long after leaving that 17 mile point Matcha fell behind and we wound up not seeing her again for the day. Luckily, there are a lot of hikers behind us who have been in the group that she’s been hiking with. So I knew that she would be fine and they would link up with her in the next hour or so. We really didn’t want to leave anyone behind, but at the same time we knew in the morning the type of mileage we would be doing and that it would be pretty hard for anyone to keep up who hasn’t been doing big days for the last week.

Eating a snack at “13 mile camp”, 17 miles into the day.

Then around 4 PM, we made it to the next designated campsite. The campsites in the swamp are basically just small islands surrounded by water. As we approach this site, we had been walking in thigh deep water for the majority of the time. It was really tiring and I was moving quite slow. But I was still impressed that we arrived right around 4 PM, which was fairly early on in the day. The three of us had been talking about potentially going past there because of how early it was in the day. We had even been joking a little bit about potentially doing the swamp all in one day.

When we got to this campground, we sat there for maybe 10 minutes or so to stretch, eat something, and drink some water. I definitely didn’t do an amazing job today of fueling myself with any of those things. The mosquitoes on the island were pretty bad and were biting me a lot. Just because this is the only area with land, so that’s where mosquitoes tend to congregate in the swamp.

At this point, we decided to at least push on past here and do a few more miles to Thank God Island. Comments on FarOut had indicated that it took about 3 1/2 hours to do the previous 6 miles which we had just done. But we managed to do that stretch in about 2 1/2 hours. Then the comments indicated that it would be about three hours to go from the island that we were on to the next island. So we were hopeful that we would be able to do that much faster as well.

Around this time, Punisher sent a GARMIN message to Fresh Grounds letting him know that rather than getting there tomorrow around noon, there was a really good chance that we were going to get out of the swamp this evening. Maybe around 8PM or 9 PM. Even leaving that break spot I was absolutely exhausted though. But mentally I loved the idea of making it all the way out of the swamp tonight. I had accounted for doing a shorter day today and tomorrow because of the swamp. So going a little bit quicker would save me half a day and would pad my schedule very nicely.

Oak Hill Camp, where we originally planned to spend the night.

When we left that island, it was around knee-deep water consistently for the next few hours. We got to watch a beautiful sunset over the swamp, which was really nice. Last year when I went through, we stopped off to camp just before dark so we didn’t really get to see that. At that time, I really wasn’t interested in hiking in the swamp at night. The water through big Cypress is actually crystal clear, especially if you’re upfront in front of everyone. So while it is deep water in Florida, it’s actually not very creepy.

Entering our longest stretch of swamp which continued for 7 hours.

But walking through a deep swampy area at night is a whole different story. I think that your mind kind of just plays tricks on you and goes to all sorts of places. But everyone stuck together, which made it a lot easier. I’m really not sure if I would’ve been able to hike in the night by myself.

Long Shot as the sun set in the swamp.

Punisher in the swamp.

By about 6 PM it got dark and we all stopped briefly to get some water and to put our headlamps on. At this point, I was exhausted and was definitely feeling the fact that I hadn’t eaten much of anything over the course of the day. I just had no fuel left in the tank and it was very evidence in the way that my body felt. But in addition to that, going to the swamp is a full body workout. You’re using your trekking poles to hold you up in the mud. Every now and then your feet would slip and slide or you would trip over a root and just barely save yourself. Or your trekking pole would get stuck in the mud which would trip you up as well. Overall, it was just very tiring hiking conditions, and probably one of the most exhausting days that I’ve ever done on Trail.

The air plants are one of my favorite aspects of the swamp.

Those next couple of hours were really hard. When we had left our previous break spot on the island, we only had 7.6 miles left to go. Which if we had been on regular trail would’ve probably only taken about two hours or maybe a little bit more. But in the knee-deep water with mud and all of the obstacles in the water, we are moving about a mile and a half an hour at this point. So I just knew it was going to take a very long time and I think knowing that made it a lot more difficult mentally. Especially just knowing how exhausted I was and how ready I was to be done.

Part of me was expecting for the swamp to dry up closer towards the end. Or at least get a little bit shallower and easier to navigate. But that was definitely not the case. By 7 PM we all briefly stopped again and I was beat. When you walk through the swampy water, your shoes fill up very quickly with silty sand. The sand will fill every open space in your shoes so after a while, you can’t move your toes at all and your feet feel very cramped. Large clusters of sand and dirt gets stuck between the space under your toes and under the ball of your feet. At our previous breaks, we were cleaning our shoes out to open the space back up. But it would fill back up almost immediately once you started walking again.

There were a couple times that the guys stopped off to get everything out of their shoes and I was just too mentally exhausted to do the same. Instead, I just let my shoes stay filled because it didn’t seem to be bothering my feet at all. If it would start to make my feet sore then I definitely would’ve stopped off to empty them out. But instead, I just use those brief opportunities to rest for as long as I could. But in these moments, you’re standing in deep water the entire time. There’s no land around, so we weren’t able to take breaks where you took your backpack off or sat down. Instead, you would just stand there in the water and break briefly.

By 7:40 PM, we still had 2 miles to go. And when I learned that it was pretty disheartening. I felt like I really couldn’t go another mile and I knew that those 2 miles were going to take a really long time. For some reason, I just figured we only had a little bit left to do. At this point 2 miles might as well has been 10. Right around this time as well, the swamp started to get a little bit more dry. But the water was replaced with some of these slipperiest and most “suck you in mud” of the entire day.

I was gassed and just had nothing left in me. My mind was screaming at me to just stop and take a break. I kept telling myself that all I needed was a minute to breathe. But I knew that no matter how long I stopped for I was still going to be exhausted. So I just told myself to put 1 foot in front of the other and just keep walking for as long as I could.

After maybe a half mile or so we got to a wooded area and all of a sudden we were on pristine dirt and pine trail. I joked to Long Shot that now that we had been given real trail, the trail could not take this back from us. I was walking fine and my body felt great. It was immediate peace.

But then we took a sharp right and were right back into the swamp. That really took the wind out of my sails. Within the next few minutes, I got a call from Fresh Ground. He was already set up at I 75 waiting for the three of us to get out of the swamp. He was wondering how much longer we had and at this point I just had nothing left. I told him I really couldn’t talk because the mud was so slippery. I was worried about falling. And just a couple minutes before my foot got stuck in the mud and I fell right on my butt into a shallow area of water. Luckily, it was shallow enough that I only got the bottom of my fanny pack and my shorts wet. But that was just a real buzz kill after making it through the entire swamp without getting my clothes wet or falling. I told him we had less than 2 miles to go and would be out soon.

Within the last mile Punisher had gotten up ahead so I knew he would get there first. He’s a ridiculously strong hiker and even in the deepest portions of the swamp at the end of the day, he was still flying. It’s honestly really impressive to bear witness too.

After another half mile or so we finally popped out onto the buggy road which I knew would take us to I 75. I was very hopeful that the nightmare would end here. Last year when I did the Florida trail this road was pretty much dry. There were sections of water and mud, but it was very easy to skirt around them along the edge of the road. But of course, this time around the road was flooded in many places and had a lot of mud. We would get to cruise along for maybe 20 or 30 feet on dirt, and then would go back into deep water filled with mud. I knew we were close, so I was excited about that, but the continuous water was just killing me.

We could see the lights of the highway in front of us and hear the traffic going by. And eventually, we hit dirt and it brought us all the way to the gate where we were officially done with the swamp. Last year, I only managed to do 10 miles the first day in the deepest portion and then 20 miles the second day through the portion that is slightly less deep and has more periodic mud. I cannot believe that we did the entire swamp in one day. That is truly something I never expected to do and if you had asked me a week ago, I would’ve never said that I was going through the swamp in one day. But here we were, on the other end.

When my feet first hit pavement I’ve never been happier. We still had to walk another half mile or so through a parking lot and then across the street to the rest area. We went under the highway which runs over the road. Then I could see Fresh Ground set up off in the distance in the recreation area. My body shockingly felt really good though when we were walking on the road. All of the soreness that had arisen from the water was gone. I really wasn’t sure what was going to happen and if the soreness was going to last. That was certainly something that concerned me a bit. But apparently it was just soreness from pushing through the water and slipping in the mud. Because right now I felt very good, just incredibly tired.

The swamp was a full body workout. All of the muscles in my arms, shoulders, and chest were really sore from using my trekking poles so much. I caught myself and stopped myself from falling, probably 20+ times. That takes a massive toll on your muscles and your whole body as well as your mind.

But now we were here! In the presence of the one and only Fresh Ground, who was going to feed us and make everything better. Punisher was there already and I could see that he had gotten his new shoes and already thrown his swamp shoes away. I’d contemplated flying with an old pair of shoes to use just for the swamp. But I wasn’t sure who would be down here and how I would get them to myself. If I had known how many people were going to be down here helping us then that would’ve been a fantastic idea.

Finally making it to the gate, which marks the end of the swamp!

Once we arrived I immediately went behind the van to change. My shorts and underwear were soaking wet from falling. So I put on my Sambob alpha 90 pants and then top. Then I took off my socks and shoes and sat down by the propane fire that Fresh Ground had going. He immediately made me a hot chocolate, and I sat there toasty by the fire. Then he served me a massive burger on buttery toast with all the fixings. Along with some french fries. I hardly drink anything today in the swamp for some reason. Maybe just because it was so hard to use one of your hands to grab at anything. You really needed both hands gripped firmly on your tracking poles at all times. I actually have a small blister on my right hand already from holding my trekking poles so tight and having them be covered in dirt and water.

I ate as much as I could, and then I decided to set up my tent before eating more. There was a patch of grass just off to the side next to his van so I set up right there. I got everything pitched and ready super fast. Then sat back down by the fire to relax and eat some more. I wish I could’ve eaten even more but because I ate so little food today, my stomach just couldn’t handle it. But I know that would be getting a nice egg breakfast in the morning and some really good sleep tonight. Rather than waking up around 5 AM like we have been doing, we’re going to sleep in tomorrow morning until about the time that the sun comes up. Then we’ll have breakfast and will hike as far as we can for the day.

Eventually, I retreated to a tent. It felt so good to get warm in my sleeping bag and I even used my silk liner for the first time. I was so warm and comfortable and this was exactly what I’d been waiting for all day. My body felt good. I was just exhausted. This day was probably harder mentally than the 85 miles that I did surrounding the flash flood in New Mexico and even the 120 mile push that we did in Wyoming. It was just utterly exhausting and disheartening that the water never ended or let up until we were done.

But we still did it. Now I just gained myself an entire half day that I wasn’t expecting. That’s a whole lot of time in the grand scheme of things with the plans I have for this year. That basically bought me a day off already in the future.

As I laid there, I had just enough energy to get a little bit of video work done. And I know that will be doing a lot of road walking tomorrow, so I’ll be able to get my blog written up over the course of the day. And after a while, I just couldn’t stay up anymore and I finally headed off to bed.