Open up NOAA Chart 11432 and it's hard for a Wilderness Waterway
canoer not stare at the north reaches of Tarpon Bay and the
south reaches of Broad River. It's tantalizing close, only
about a mile, making the trip from Canepatch to Camp Lonesome
a half day paddle in protected water instead
of two days. As if to taunt serious backcountry explorers there
is even the printed statement on the chart: "No water passage
exists between the Broad and Shark Rivers at this point. Passage
must be made via the Gulf of Mexico."
Don't get me wrong, every Wilderness Waterway traveler should go
through the Nightmare, negotiate the tides of the Harney and Broad
Rivers and enjoy traversing a freshwater to saltwater to freshwater
environment, but for those who have already taken the long way
around the Lost Portage may be for you.
I remember the evening at Camp Lonesome in 1975 thinking, there
has to be a way. A canoe can go almost anywhere, there must be
a yet to be discovered damp passage or at least a short portage.
That was my first trip on the Wilderness Waterway and I was not
prepared for exploring. There was also the first experience with
the Nightmare waiting for me the next day so exploring the
Connection would have to be a future expedition. There are also
complications with exploring that area, it takes two days just
to get to the point to explore and usually when you're halfway
between Flamingo and Everglades City it's while you're traveling
the whole Wilderness Waterway. The Lost Portage exploration
became one of those "something I wanta do someday" items.
Thirty-three years later, armed with the modern tools aerial photos
and GPS, I anchored my small cabin motorboat in the northern
reaches of Tarpon Bay on 28 November 2008.
The plan was simple: Using the motorboat as a base camp,
probe every inlet, creek, path, etc. by canoe to determine if
a passable connection could be used on Wilderness Waterway
trips.
The aerials show trails that in other parts of the glades are
airboat trails but I don't ever recall airboats operating in this
area. Sure enough, venturing up the northern most creek there's
an obvious canoe wide trail (Old Trail) heading northwest.
It's only got a few inches of water but it gets deeper as you head
northwest toward Broad River. I abandoned the canoe and walked.
There's another trail (New Trail) roughly paralleling it to
the west and they intersect about halfway between the gap. This
trail is more intriguing since it appears on Goggle but not on
Terraserver suggesting New Trail is newer. Odd. Even on
the ground they appear as airboat trails but they terminate in deep
creeks that are overgrown by decades of mangroves, down to a point
where a canoe has to push through. These are significantly established
trails apparently maintained by traffic, yet I have only come across
one other person who has, or admits to, exploring that area.
For me it's not suitable to use these trails as a Wilderness Waterway
route, at least what I've seen so far, but I have not come across
another area that begs so much for more exploration.