This is a writeup of my experience backpacking 30 miles in Big Cypress on the Florida Trail in January 2023.

This trail is tough! It’s slogging through the muck, the guck, the sludge for days. Hiking poles are essential. You will fall. There’s a four hour stretch where you have no choice but to pick up your feet and tredge on, with no dry land as far as the eye can see. The mud will form a plaster-like cast around your toes. Pulling your feet out of the mud is as hard on the calves as hiking any peak.

It’s beautiful. Epiphytic plants cling on to the cypress trunks, creating hanging gardens. You’ll see butterfly orchids and wood storks and many many animal tracks.