Small Luxuries

Having a bed and shower are no small luxuries, for someone who has been sleeping on a 2” air mattress and, well, not showering. In Clewiston I sleep in until 9 am and then make my way (unencumbered by any pack) to the Clewiston U Save to resupply my food rations. This is more challenging than you might imagine. I can find no offerings of organic anything (don’t hate me because I love organic). The one “natural” (whatever that means) product I find is a Smuckers peanut butter, that I later noticed was 3 months out of date (with “natural” not even in demand I can imagine why no organics are offered). The one highlight of my stay in Clewiston is the stack of freshly made corn tortillas I purchased from a tienda (one of the first great realizations I had on this trip was that sandwich bread does not pack well at all).

Newly resupplied and packed, I head back to the Herbert Hoover Dike to continue along my way around the western stretch of Lake Okeechobee. Approximately 60 miles of the dike is paved on the top with mile markers emblazoned in bold yellow. The other 40 miles is a dirt and grass road. There are relative few trees anywhere on the dike, and thus no shade. Someone (the Army Corps I imagine) has made great effort to construct covered benches along the main path on the dike every few miles. While well built and with great intentions I am sure, these only offer shade for probably about 5 minutes of each day; when the sun is directly overhead. Not once in my 3 days on the dike did I ever pass one of these seats in shade. Most of the time, I simply put my pack on the bench and went off to sit in the shadow that it cast some 10 feet away.

Lake Okeechobee is for the most part a shallow lake with many inland marsh islands. It is ringed by a deeper dredged waterway that is called the Rim Canal. Because it is mostly shallow, it often makes more sense for boaters to travel to the opposite side (or most anywhere) on the lake via the Rim Canal, rather than by a direct line across the lake. Boats of many types abound in the lake. Airboats with their giant spinning paddles roar by skimming the surface. Occasionally a pontoon deck boat floats leisurely by. By far though, the most common variety is the bass boat. With powerful outboards, they speed through the water creating much wake and a lot of show. Fishing and boating in general seem to be the main past times here on the lake. The dike itself seems scarcely utilized, as I only come across a few cyclists and no one traveling on foot. One such, I encounter, stops for a quick chat. He informed me that there is an annual foot race run atop the dike each year at the end of January. Entrants are given 36 hours to complete the 110 mile course (I assume it is the same length as the hike). That roughly equals out to 3 mph. Now I have long given up competitive running, but I can pretty surely walk 3 mph with a 45lb pack for at least 20 miles in a day. I’m not bragging here, for I would and probably could not complete such a task, but I’m hoping that most folks competing are not just scraping by at the bare minimum.

Lake Okeechobee is a kind of reservoir. Water into and out of the lake is controlled via a large number of water control structures. I get a firsthand look at all of them and even hike over several. Many of the smaller water control structures are generally passed via a grated walkway that is the same height as the dike, but necessarily suspended well above the void where water passes from one canal to another. Many of the larger structures could seemingly be passed in like fashion, were in not for the padlocked fencing and No Trespassing signs (that's Prohibida la Entrada in spanish I've come to learn). Thus I left the dike at Moore Haven to cross an access canal on the massive US 27 flyover rather than the perfectly good, but off limits, levee. This literally makes what could be a couple hundred yard jaunt, into a 2.5 mile sightseeing trip of many of Moore Haven's closed cafes and hotels. As I passed the canal's southern shore, a rail line bridge that crossas the canal caught my eye. The Huck Finn in me of course thought "why not just cross here?" Upon closer inspection the rail bridge was, in fact, a draw bridge of sorts. Rather than lifting up the opposing sides of track, one whole section of the track separated laterally along the bank of the canal, and was in fact open. Oh well. It was probably for the best as that is not, you know, the prescribed trail.
All of this is really just to get to what I noticed while exploring the rail bridge. To get to the water's edge I walked down a concrete public boat ramp. Heading back to my original path, a kiosk I hadn't noticed previous made a sudden show of itself (I'm a sucker for kiosks, especially ones with location specific trivia). Among the many faded and torn postings was a bright hunter orange panel. It displayed a graphic representation of the lake and its tributaries along with the jurisdictional bodies responsible for each (so far so good!). The true intent of this posting (and perhaps why it was bright orange) was to inform the public that herbicides were being used to kill invasive species along many of the lake and canal banks. Oh, and that drinking the water is Prohibida. Normally that wouldn't bother me. Normally I do what everybody else does when I need a drink of water, which is to turn on the tap. Right now my tap is Lake Okeechobee! I have a water filter that is good for bacteria, but I'm sure does nothing for complex chemical compounds. It is the Army Corps who is doing the spraying. Being that it is Sunday, I take down their number, with the express intent of calling in the morning. For now I have to deal (psychologically) with the fact that I have very few options to other water sources. I have the water that I filtered this morning and have been drinking steadily all day. I can continue to use this water or to hike several additional miles into Moore Haven and buy (and consequently carry) bottled water for the next 2 days of hiking. For those who do not know, water weighs 8 lbs to the gallon. So for 2 day I would add an additional 16 lbs of weight that actually won’t fit in my pack. Potentially poison myself, or weigh myself down so that I can barely walk. Tough choice right? I’m sure you can guess which option I chose. I of course continued drinking the water knowing that it posed potential serious risks to my health. That’s what America is all about, no? The known unknowns, as Mr. Rumsfeld would so aptly put it.

I proceed the six plus miles to camp, arriving well after dark (my resupply in Clewiston saw me back on the trail at 11:00 am). The camp I have chosen is on a peninsula created by the intersection of 2 canals. Here the Florida Trail Association has built a small pavilion that covers an 8 foot wooden picnic table. I have come a long way for this table. Certainly there were many flat areas where I could have easily camped, places I could have reached with ample day light to go about setting up my camp. But those places lacked one essential thing: a place to put all of my things, and cook my meal without bowing to the earth. These are no small luxuries.

Canals, suger and America's Sweeted Town

It took me two full days of hiking along canals to reach Lake Okeechobee. On the first day I am mostly walking on an earthen levee, with sugar cane fields stretching out as far as the eye can see. Like many a day that follows a storm, the air is crisp and the sky mostly free of clouds. By midday some cumulus clouds drift in from the north brightening the azul sky. Off to the east five large plumes of smoke rise up from the horizon. The sugar is burning. Sugar is burned before harvest to remove the leafy matter from the stock. The fires seem controlled as each one only last about 15 minutes. This, though, sends masses of particulates skyward. In contrast with the clouds which hold their relative form as they move, the smoke dissipates at altitude, coloring the sky with streaks of gray. This, though is just a portion of the environmental impact on Florida by the sugar industry. Agricultural runoff has led to massive concentrations of nutrients, destroying the habitat of many species and polluting the headwaters of the Everglades. The good news is that as part of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Act of 2000 (signed by President Clinton at the end of his final term and not often publicized because of the national media distraction with Bush v. Gore) called for massive purchases of sugar land to restore the headwaters of the Everglades. A major step in this process was taken at the end of 2010 when the South Florida Water Management District, purchased some 27,000 acres (a massively scaled back deal due to the state of the Florida economy,  originally intended to be 187,000). While this purchase is mostly citrus land (owned by US Sugar Corp), the state has the option to purchase the additional acreage to fulfill the project. 
As I hike these two days along the canals I wonder to myself: Are they irrigation canals, used to supply water to the hundreds of thousands of acres of surrounding agricultural land? Or, are they drainage canals, whose purpose is to drain the land so that agriculture is possible?  The zen idea of duality works well in defining the roll of these canals, they are not one or both, but one and both at the same time. Water is moved from canal to canal via massive pumps, depending on where it is needed or, just as importantly, not needed.
The land south of the Lake "O" was once a vital part of the Everglades Ecosystem. Water flowed into the lake from the north via the meandering Kissimmee River. In high water years, the lake would spill over it's banks and into it's flood plain to the south and on into the Everglades. This natural flood cycle kept most of the land south of the lake inhabitable by most modern humans. What flourished though, was innumerable species of birds, alligators, snakes, deer, otter, fish, frogs along with various hardwood forests, namely cypress and pine. Decades of drainage efforts eventually allowed for some settlement by hearty agrarians, many of whom were attracted by bogus land deals, but stuck it out. In 1928 a category 5 hurricane struck peninsular Florida causing a massive storm surge that flooded Lake Okeechobee. Some 2500 people died. The Army Corp of Engineers stepped in and built the Herbert Hoover Dike, which is 30 foot tall at it's highest and borders the entire lake. Water enters and leaves the lake through numerous water control structures via canals.
I reached Lake Okeechobee and the dike around 4:00 pm on the second day along the canals (my 7th day on the trail). With my food supplies running very thin I must decide quickly what to do. Do I a) stop in another 2 miles and camp along the dike and resupply in Clewiston (America's Sweetest Town) the next day? Or b) make a big push that night into Clewiston and get a cheap hotel and eat dinner out. The former would necessitate that I eat peanut butter for dinner and breakfast. The latter would mean hiking an additional 6 miles, mostly in the dark. I opt for the big push and pick up the pace.
I arrived in Clewiston around 8pm and found a cheap (and I do mean cheap) motel right off the trail. I dropped my bag in the room and went out in search of a descent meal. The first 3 tacerias I found only server beef and tongue; no fish, no vegetables. Finally, I find a place selling fish. Armed with 2 fillets of whatever fish of the day and a large can of Heineken, I return to my rented room to recover from the 22 miles I trod that day. The next 3 days of hiking will be atop the dike overlooking the lake, but for now I have a bed and the last 30 minutes of Forest Gump on the television to distract me from any other worldly concern.