Bucket List 2013/14

[Amazon Bill]

Looks like another Fall and Winter season has come to an end.  

      What trips do you hope to do this coming season?

This was my 2nd season with EEN, added a couple of minor events to the bucket list went to Mud Lake and volunteered one day. Best trip was camping with my son and inviting old friends to Mud Lake and introducing them to the Backcountry. Biggest lesson learned, double check the meet up site before the last day!

• Goals this year
• Get down Taylor Slough
• Help find a Mahagony to Shark short cut to set up future one day Shark Slough runs
• Family holiday trip
• Find back route to East Cape via Bear Lake Canoe Trail
• Volunteer again

 

[Terry]

If you're interested in a group, I will be taking a group down Taylor Slough early in October.

I've had a lot of requests for this one, it's turned into a annual run.   Except for

the pre-dawn vehicle scuttle between Pine Island and Nine Mile Pond, it's the perfect one-day

dry-foot slough trip.  

Not to discourage you, but I think you mean connect Pahayokee to Rookery Branch.

Numerous probes from both directions between Mahogany Hammock and Rookery Branch have all come

back with a solid nega-tory. 

More time needs to be spent probing a connection between Pahayokee to Main Street.

If something reasonable can be found for this tiny 4 mile stretch, this would make a one-day

Shark Slough trip kind of possible.

Everything about a one-day Shark Slough run would be Herculean.

Start with a vehicle shuttle between Pahayokee and the France Taylor Wildlife Management Area parking lot.

From Tamiami Trail / L67 using Outlaw Route, then corner-cut as much as possible at Gumbo Limbo Hammock

to get to Main Street, an almost ruler-straight route, would still be about 30 miles.   L-67 can be paddled in

pre-dawn darkness but light is necessary as soon as you turn onto Outlaw Route, which means the daylight

clock starts ticking as soon as you hit the grass.    Anyway you measure it that leaves you with a 4-mile hard

push/slog in the dark coming into Pahayokee.

Crazy as this is, a one-day Shark Slough run has been and continues to be probed and planned.   There were

3 probes launched last October to nail down the best possible route (Outlaw Route) to connect

L-67 to Main Street.   Next season one more probe needs to be done to survey the deep corner cut

(not the little corner cut that everybody uses) east of Gumbo Limbo Hammock.

This will complete the surveys necessary for the north end.

All probes of the south end, from Main Street to Pahayokee, have come back with little hope.

The last known traverse, a number of years ago, was done by brute force but did report back that

the best hope is staying to the north of the shortest line.   Probes to find the best Pahayokee passage

will start as early as possible in the 2013-2014 season.

Family holiday trip - just do it.

East Cape / Bear Lake - just do it.

Volunteering should be regularly scheduled,

the park service runs on volunteers.

[Jay]

64m is all that stands between Bear Lake and East Cape.  I have been down twice.  You need enough water on both sides of that area..and the right boat to try and pull through.  I'll try again next fall.

Would like to do the Taylor next fall too.

Toying with a through trip beach run this summer if I can get the right weather pattern going....what doesn't kill us - makes us stronger.

[Terry]

I can tell you exactly when we'll go down Taylor Slough, the first Saturday after the first cool front.

This usually happens early in October.   It's a 21 mile trip so an early start is required, we meet

at Pine Island an hour before dawn to get vehicles shuttled.   The target is to be paddling at sun rise.

There's no tight twisty stuff but the first quarter of the trip is paddling/pushing through grass so

the longer skinnier boats are best.   Canoes should be tandem, solos get slowed down by the grass

and the pace has to be kept fast.  More details as we get closer.

I didn't look at the stations on the slough but the water was high at the road on my last trip to the

Jungles in late April.   I'd bet you could paddle Taylor Slough now if you could put up with the

heat and bugs.

[Jay]

Thanks Terry.  Been toying with the idea of building a skiff (just got to figure out where I will put it)....otherwise I guess I will bring a Yak.

[Amazon Bill]

Thanks for the correction Main Street to Pahayokee not Mahagony.  I started some GE route searching last Fall when the last expedition was going on. I blocked out my Saturdays in October for Taylor Slough, but need a committed 2nd paddler. Jay, what is 64M?
 

 

[Jay]

Bill - 64 meters.  If you go out the west end of Bear Lake and into those connecting lakes, you can get to a point that is only 64  meters from some other lakes that will connect to the old Homestead Canal where it is open to East Cape.

I have been down to the end a couple of times. Both times I had started at Coot Bay to do the loop back up Buttonwood canal and really hadn't planned to try and break through.  One of those times the water was too low and the mud is very deep.

I am not sure it is something you can break through - but I am willing to take another look.

[vivian]

Lost portage is on my list next season!

[Amazon Bill]

Jay, The blue flag titled 64m/ marks a spot 64m wide, is that the spot? Launching from Bear Lake Trail/Canoe launch would make a one-way distance of 4.5 miles to 64m. Is that water depth affected by the tide? Is low tide able to float your boat? I'd like to get that route passable, so my open canoe has an inside passage when the open Gulf is not passable to/from East Cape.
 
Jay said:

Bill - 64 meters.  If you go out the west end of Bear Lake and into those connecting lakes, you can get to a point that is only 64  meters from some other lakes that will connect to the old Homestead Canal where it is open to East Cape.

I have been down to the end a couple of times. Both times I had started at Coot Bay to do the loop back up Buttonwood canal and really hadn't planned to try and break through.  One of those times the water was too low and the mud is very deep.

I am not sure it is something you can break through - but I am willing to take another look.

[Jay]

That's the spot.  I have been all the way up to the end once and probably 50m from the end the other time.  It is very skinny - I think there is a little tidal change.. and I don't know what's on the other side. I do not recall anything resembling an opening at the trees...but 64m or trying to push through 3.25 miles of overgrown canal.  I think I would try the shorter option first.

I might go down there in the next couple of weeks and take a look at it coming from the west.  See what the what the water looks like on that side.

BTW - the last time I was there was a good school of Reds and some baby Tarpon.

[Gary M]

Yeah... I've looked at your 64 M spot a few times too. Both up close and from GE. There is water flow through the trees when the water is high but there is no "route"... just flow through the roots. Although I was very motivated I never pushed through as to go through there would require breaking my personal rule of not cutting.

I've been on the western side too... at least as close as I could get. The area between there and Gator Lake used to be called the Soupdoodle prairie. I don't know who came up with that name but it is appropriate. Maybe you could get through there when the water is high but I could not get half way from Gator under conditions I thought were about normal.

Years ago, there were two official back country camp sites along the canal near Gator Lake. They were, by far, my favorite camping. There were numerous crocodiles and even a flock of flamingos back there... and this was before anyone was talking about crocs or flamingos.

I think you will find that the water levels back there are highest after late summer, like they are just about everywhere else. When the plugs were breached the area became somewhat tidal, but when I went back there  a lot the plugs were still intact. Maybe now that they have been rebuilt things will go back to normal?

[Gary M]

By the way... coming into that area from the west is no picnic either!

The main canal immediately below Gator Lake was silted in even way back when.

If you read the book "Dredgemen of Cape Sabal" you will see why. Once they started south after making the canal almost straight west past Bear Lake, the money behind the project got impatient and offered bonus for quicker progress... so they started to cheat a bit and did not dig as deep.

Except when the water was high, I seldom was able to continue east past Gator Lake when I tried to get back there from East Cape Canal.

[Jay]

Gary - thanks  - all great info.  I think I will take a look at the area from the west just for kicks.