Travel – Page 4 – Richard Rathe's Reflections

Okefenokee Canoe Trip 2021

I last traveled to the Okefenokee in 2004, and I had been hoping to return sooner. My return was delayed in part by a multi-year drought and Major Fires in 2011. This year the water was high thanks to record rainfall in the late summer.

We left our car at the Suwannee Canal entrance and took advantage of a convenient shuttle service to get our canoe and gear up to Kingfisher Landing (about 30 miles north). From there we made our way south via a combination of canals, streams, prairies, sills, and ponds. Click below for an annotated video of our trip…

We started by following the Green Trail along a winding series of small canals until we reached our first campsite on the Bluff Lake Chickee. We got there with plenty of time to fix an early dinner and relax.

There are several species of carnivorous plants in the swamp, including three pitcher plants. We saw many examples of two of these: the Parrot Pitcher Plant and the Hooded Pitcher Plant. There were many standing dead trees with charred trunks left over from fires a decade ago, but the loss was not total. There were many older living trees interspersed with the dead, and lots of young Bald Cypress trees coming up underneath.

Yellow and Purple Bladderworts were blooming in abundance, occasional white Fragrant Waterlilies, and we even saw one Hooded Pitcher Plant putting up a flower!

After a brief time on the connecting Blue Trail we picked up the Purple Trail that loops out into the Chase Prairie and our next chickee.

These prairies are a mix of open water, marsh, and small islands with trees. The Round Top Chickee boasts a 360º view of this robust ecology. We saw more birds here including Sandhill Cranes and Egrets. We heard Barred Owls calling all around us in the evening. We got a bit of rain during the night so the morning was grey and damp.

There was a small box for a trail journal on this chickee, but all we found were notes written on toilet paper rolls railing about “Nancy Pelosi”?!

Turns out they were referring to the resident six foot gator who hung about the chickee the entire time we were there. This is likely because earlier visitors had fed it (a very BAD idea!). Gators that remain too close to humans usually lose their lives! Sad.

After the overnight drizzle we packed up in the grey dawn and continued on the Purple Trail to the next big intersection. The sun came out as we turned east on the Orange Trail. This is a major canal flowing to the west that got larger and larger as we approached the visitor center. We had lunch on the Coffee Bay platform just before the rain started. About a mile from the take-out it started to pour. By the time we had the gear all packed the late afternoon sun broke through.

Apostle Islands 2021

We recently went for a quick trip to Stockton Island in my friend’s new boat. Stockton has the huge advantage of partially sheltered bays with places to tie up the boat. [Full Gallery]

We made an amphibious landing to offload our gear and then moored the boat about a mile away at the pier (seen in the distance above). I pitched my hammock tent right on the beach between mature white and red pines. The level of Lake Superior had recently gone down so there was a more normal amount of beach exposed.

The highlight of this trip came early, as we took a short walk away from the visitors center and came upon this magnificent orchid, the Pink Lady’s Slipper!

“In order to survive and reproduce, Pink Lady’s Slipper interacts with a fungus in the soil. Generally, orchid seeds do not have food supplies inside them… The lady’s slipper seeds require threads of fungus to break open and attach to the seed. The fungus will pass on food and nutrients. When the lady’s slipper plant is older… the fungus will extract nutrients from its roots. This mutually beneficial relationship between the orchid and the fungus is known as “symbiosis” and is typical of almost all orchid species.
Pink lady’s slipper takes many years to go from seed to mature plants. Pink lady’s slippers can live to be twenty years old or more…”
www.fs.fed.us

“These plants require bees for pollination. Bees are lured into the flower pouch through the front slit, attracted by the flower’s bright color and sweet scent. Once inside, the bees find no reward, and discover that they are trapped, with only one point of escape. Inside the pouch, there are hairs that lead to a pair of exit openings, one beneath each pollen mass. The bee must pass under the stigma, so if it bears any pollen from a visit to another flower, it will be deposited before picking up a fresh load on the way out.”

There is a reason I’ve never seen one of these flowers before—June is bug season in the north woods. Campers avoid that month. For this trip the breeze from the lake kept the bugs at bay on the beach, but they were pretty aggressive back in the woods.

There were other plants in bloom but it was obviously the end of the season for most…

The nearby campsites were empty so we had a pleasant evening of good food, good drink, & good company!

For our second day we moved around the corner to Quarry Bay near the site of an old brownstone quarry.

Note the bear locker in the photo above. Much easier than putting the food up in a tree!

I pitched my hammock lower and more securely because thunderstorms were predicted (and came) during the night.

We visited the quarry, which is very impressive but hard to photograph through the trees.

I found another tiny orchid along the trail…

We also saw some critters…

The next day started windy but it abated somewhat as we made our way back to port in Bayfield. We saw a traditional commercial fishing boat along the way.

[More Photos…]

Kayak Trip to Hall Creek 2021

I went for a quick solo kayak trip to Hall Creek near Cedar Key (putting in at the #4 Bridge off of Highway 24. I last visited this area in 2012 with a friend.

The first mile or so is very shallow and I made a few mistakes on my way to Live Oak Key, where there is a narrow channel through the oyster beds. Surprisingly the old oak tree on the point is still alive! [compare with 2012]

The next “bay” is deeper until you approach the creek entrance. I saw lots of birds including a molting Loon and White Pelicans.

Crystal River Nuke Plant in the Distance

I hit the creek near low tide so it was hard to follow. I made several minor wrong turns.

The campsite sits on an eroded ridge of limestone that provides just enough support for several small hammocks of hardy trees. Since I last visited all the non-palm trees have died (due to hurricanes?).

I saw no evidence of recent use by humans and had to break a trail through the scrub to get to the campsite, which was surprisingly nice considering much of the remaining area has been taken over by prickly pear cactus!

There were a few noseeums in the late afternoon/morning, and a few mosquitos just after sunset. My Bug Shirt handled these with no problem. Two Rosette Spoonbills flew over just as the sun was setting.

I took several walks and saw several birds at a distance. There are small rock outcrops, tidal ponds, more hammocks, and a whole forest of dead trees as you move inland. There were surprisingly few flowers for April, but there was a lot of this ground cover I named gummy-worm plant or gummywort.

Finally there was new evidence of global warming — lots of small Red Mangrove pioneers. There were NONE in 2012 as far as I can remember. This means their range is moving north. The place would be much different if all the islands grew full mangrove ecosystems!