Pink Jeep campsite at Bear Island

Back to Bear Island, but this time for an overnight camping trip.  If you read the last Bear Island entry you will know where we entered from and now the road ahead to Pink Jeep campsite.  Pink Jeep campsite has 9 campsite, a few bear proof boxes to store your food, and even a bathroom of sorts.  The bathroom is a hole in the ground with a plastic toilet over it, but it is surrounded by 4 concrete walls and a roof.  Stacey really wanted to go camping so she asked Carl to pick a campsite so they could go for an overnight trip.  Now why did Carl pick this site out of all the places they could have gone?  Well Stacey was about 15 weeks pregnant at this point and wanted to go out camping before she had her baby.  This site had everything Carl thought would make an easy campsite for his pregnant girlfriend.  Well except for 3.3 mile hike from the car to the camp with all the gear.  Below is a picture of Carl and the trail we walked.  The trail is very nice and dry plus it overlooks a lot of water.

Where there is water in the everglades you will more than likely find gators, like the one pictured below.  Now this gator was actually laying right buy the trail until we came along.  Stacey was walking close to the edge looking out over the water for wildlife not knowing what was right under her.  As she walked she scared the gator and it dove into the water which in turn scared Stacy, as she thought it was jumping out of the water at her.  After a few deep breaths and looking out at the water to see where the gator had swam to we were able to take some pictures and move on.  Now the last time we came here together Carl had got out of the car to open the gate to get in the parking area.  Only to scar a great heroin under the over pass as he closed the door.  The great heroin honked so loud that it startled Carl, who then tried to jump back in the car.  Only problem was he forgot he closed the door and slammed right into the car door.  That left Carl with a few bruises not to leave out the bruised ego.

The picture below shows Stacey looking up at a bear claw mark in a power power that has to be 7-8 feet up in the air, now that's a big bear.  This trip we did not see any bears but we did see lots of signs that they are there.

Ok so we made it to camp and first things first, we need to rest our feet.  Below Stacey is sleeping in a hammock that is covered with a homemade bug net.  The bug net was made from some cheap shear curtains and worked great to keep the bugs out. 

After our little rest we set up the rest of camp and planned our dinner, or should I say Stacey planned our dinner.  We set up two hammocks one with a bug net and one without, a tent, and then lite a fire in our homemade rocket stove.  If you do not know what a rocket stove is then look it up on you tube. We made ours from 3 food cans and one paint can.  This stove worked great and boiled our water fast and after dinner and coffee we took the twigs out that were still on fire and the made our big fire from that.  

We could hear owls starting at around 9-10 at night and a few birds that sounded like monkeys plus a few cat meows, we could not tell if it was bob cat or panther. Having timed this trip for the coldest night of the year I have to say that, yes we were cold all night and did not get much sleep.  All that aside we got our wake up call from the red shouldered hawk pictured below.  It may have been a little to early for our liking but the hawk was right over our campsite and was such a nice looking bird.  Stacey got up and fired up the rocket stove for some very welcomed morning coffee.  Now we did not bring lighters or matches on this trip, all we had was a fire starter rod and striker kit that I have listed in an earlier blog entry.  This was the only thing we used to start our fire and it never failed

to strike and made starting our fire very easy. 

After breakfast we took a rest in the hammocks for a few hours and watched all the birds flying between the trees.  We saw all kinds of birds and were just in aw of what we were seeing.  After our rest we packed up camp and started our hike back to the car.

 After getting to the car and starting to pull out we see a deer right at the exit. it was such a pretty site and makes our trips worth every minute.

The Florida trail to Panther Camp

This take Carl and Carmel on a hike thru the Florida trail.  The entrance to this one is very easy, just take I75 to the rest area in the middle of Alligator Alley and we picked the north entrance. This hike was about a 12 mile round trip hike and the goal was to reach Panther camp, have lunch and hike back before night fall. If you look at the map below our trail was the Florida trail (orange ) to the red trail and then up the blue trail to Panther camp and back the same way.

Not long after starting our hike we came across this rat/corn snake.  This snake is harmless and was just trying the heat up on the rocks on the trail so we took a few pictures and left it to warm up.

As you can see below the trail is not all dry. About half way up the red trail we hit what almost looked like a river, but it was well marked as being part of the trail.  The water got to be about knee deep but we pressed on being very careful to look out for gators and cotton mouth snakes.

 About a mile away from Panther camp is where things got a little on the scary side. As we hiked we had to be careful to look out for danger on the trail and this came all to close twice for us in about a quarter mile span.  The first one was when we where hiking and Carl spotted a cotton mouth snake hiding in the middle of the trail right in Carmel's path.  Carl stopped her and pointed out the snake which we then carefully walked around and kept on hiking.  Not to long after that we came to a water crossing where Carmel  had to grab and stop Carl from stepping on a cotton mouth snake right on the edge of the water.  This was one of the biggest wild cotton mouth either one of us had seen.   This one we made sure to be even more careful with and even made sure it got off the trail before we left the area.

In the end we made it to Panther camp and had lunch plus rested our feet a bit.  On our way back we saw the big cotton mouth again but this time it was not on the trail but close.  We made sure to give it space and walked on the other side of the trail.  Now about half a mile down the trail we ran into 3 hikers and we wanted to make sure they were aware of the cotton mouth snakes we saw.   As we try to warn them about the snakes one of them tells us not to worry because they are biologist.  Now that's fine except that the guy that told us this was barefoot and I am pretty sure that the snake can not tell the difference between a biologist and any one else.  If you are ever out hiking and anyone ever warns you about any danger just say thank you and hike on with caution.  In the end we made it back to the car and did so right before dark.  Another hike under our belt and a wonderful trail as long as you are careful where you step.

Bear Island in Big Cypress National Preserve

This hike took us to the South West of  Big Cypress National Preserve to the Bear Island area.  We have come out here a few times now in all kinds of weather and never fail to see wildlife.  If you look at the map below, you will see that the main entrance is from highway 41 and up Turner River Road. 

Now that being said this is not the entrance we use.  If you look about 4 north of I75 and about 3 miles east of 29 you will see a campsite marker.  There is an entryway straight west of that campsite and that is were we enter from.  

At this point is where we park the car and start our hike.  Pictured below is Stacey at the welcome sign.  

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If you know where to look you can find lots of evidence of wildlife.  Pictured below is a scrape mark from a bear.  This scrape mark is about 7 to 8 feet up this power poll.  There is a reason this is called Bear Island.

Not to be out done by the bears a the gators in the area, and there are lots of them. Below is a picture of a mom at here baby.  This gator had a total of 4 or 5 baby's around her .

The wild in this area is wonderful and plentiful if you look hard enough.,  As we talked to the Rangers that patrol the area we heard stories of  bob cats, bears, deer, gators, turkey, and yes even the very elusive and endangered Florida Panther  The camp site that we hiked to is the Pink Jeep camp site.  Carl and Stacey did an overnight camping trip that we will do another write up about.