Greetings from Flamingo

[Geoffrey H Kendrick]

New member, been lurking a couple years. My name is Geoff and I live and work in Flamingo. Have gained lots of useful info from this site. Trips are usually 1 or 2 days as I don't get a lot of time off.

Thanks to this site I had an uneventful first trip to Craighead's Pond yesterday, lunch on the old platform and back to 9 Mile. Only two surprises; VERY few bugs and the solitude was loudly interrupted by the Park's Airboat! Was the last thing I expected and the Captain felt pretty much the same, he said all the time he's been running the boat he's never seen anyone out there. I suggested he work some weekends when paddlers are more likely.

Geoff

[Terry]

Note the water depth,  the two stations are 251338080421500 at Craigheads Pond and the one you pass

halfway on the trail is 251432080444100.  These stations have about the same ground level so they report

about the same water level, that is, you only need to keep tabs on one of them to know if the trail is passable.

I have Halfway Station bookmarked.  On 24 May the level jumped from 0.0 to +0.3, that's good

water.  I have paddled Craigheads Pond at -0.15.  The water will stay up now and you report few bugs out in the

open which means Craigheads Pond Canoe Trail is good to go for the next 6-7 months.

If anybody sees an airboat on the trail again tell them to take a spin past Halfway Station and go over

to Marker 65A, that stretch needs mowing.

[Geoffrey H Kendrick]

Terry, thanks for the reply. I just looked at the water level at the 9 mile parking lot and figured it would be good to go. As far as the bugs go, Tony Terry and I agreed there are not enough blood meals out there to support a formidable force. The only time I was harassed was in the mangrove tunnels of 9 mile, even then, far less than I experience walking the dog here. As far as the airboat goes, it left no trace! was kind of dissapointed, had to keep navigating, which was pretty easy thanks to your charts Kieth posted. I did it primarily with compass and a ten year old hand held garmin. Long story short, there are things to do here in summer.   

[Jay]

Geoff,

Thanks for the report.  A friend of mine and I went out there today.  Wow - what a day.  About an hour into  the trip the tail end of the front went through (do we get these in June?) and we had a spectacular blue sky day.  Of course the wind shifted out of the west - which made for a bit of a slog on the way back in.  I echo your comments on the bug report.  I would rate it a 1 out of 10 (10 would indicate they show up on MIA radar).

That research station is a mess. They really should clean it up.

Jay

[yakmaster]

Instead of removing it, they should reconfigure it & turn it into an inland chickee. The wood's already out there, just need put it side by side, instead of lengthwise!

Think of the possibilities...

[Jay]

It would be a nice spot. I wonder how they would service a port-a-john on that side road in that area?

[Kim Gass]

Maybe day use only..and with a warning that there are no facilities. An opportunity to stretch legs without trampling in the water would be nice.  Just thinking..

[Geoffrey H Kendrick]

Well, it would give the airboat an excuse to go out there, but , more seriously, it wouldn't be the first place to require a honey bucket or, for the kayakers, wag bags.   

[vivian]

Good luck enforcing that rule, park can't even keep the illegals from taking tarpon and out of season fish out of bear lake trail.

[yakmaster]

Like everything out there (but the portapotty filler on chickees & ground sites), carry it in...carry it out.

 

It would be good to be able to develop sites that are not serviceable by the honeybarge. Another one on Shark Valley Slough or Homestead Canal would be excellent!

 

No roof, no porta potty, carry it in, carry it out, but TRULY spend the night in the middle of nowhere!

 

These would be low use sites and probably more hard core users than the general sites. If we could show that we have the discipline to maintain them & not turn them into trashpits, NPS could do these at very little cost.

 

Real Backcountry sites!

[yakmaster]

The difference is, ya gotta get there.

 

You can't walk, ride your bike or motorboat...all of a sudden, you have a lot less players in play.

 

Hell, you could even provide a potty kit when you reserve the site, like they do with bearproof containers in Alaska.

[vivian]

An excellent idea! I hope the park is listening....

[Kim Gass]

We have had pretty good success with pack it all in and pack it all out here in Maine .There is a water trail some 400 miles long where its expected that you take your number two with you.

The system is not infallible but with a group of trail monitors who have the capacity literally to clean up "mistakes" it can work. We have NO rangers.  We have found that its tough to kayak full wag bags out.

One of our Maine Island Trail members found some dozen Wag Bags full and reeking but could not fit them in the yak for a 12 mile crossing. So he notified the main office of the Maine Island Trail Association who  put that task in the hands of a motorboat equipped island Monitor ( they are all volunteer)

 I bet something could be worked out with airboat  captains.  Its all about an organized cooperative effort.