Gorgeous Gorge: Kentucky's Red River Gorge

Winter is making its last call in the Red River Gorge in eastern Kentucky. A late March snowfall provides the last salvo of a dying season, a desperate parting shot that can’t deny the already evident imminence of Spring. I awake to a one-inch frosting of brilliant white snow, the warm morning sun caroming shards of sunlight through millions of refracting snow flakes. The mountain laurel and rhododendron, enticed by the warm Spring afternoons, have already shed their drab gray-green winter color for the vibrant waxy green of reborn leaves. Champagne snow teeters delicately atop the vibrant waxy green leaves. The contrast between the dazzling white sparkle of the covering snow and the showy green is dramatic. I am on the trail quickly--these early spring snowfalls disappear in an ephemeral mist with the rising sun.

I love the unpredictability of Red River Gorge. An isolated natural hideaway awash with sandstone arches, cascading waterfalls, and sparkling mountain streams, the beauty of the area is courtesy of the frequent rains, snows, and winds of the southeastern climate. Over 25,000 acres of rugged valleys, streams, and mountains nestled in the foothills of the eastern Kentucky Appalachians, the Red River Gorge Geological Area (RRGGA) is a long drive from any interstate highways and a good day’s drive from a major city. Because of this, it is lightly used. Which is why I have this whole spectacular day in the gorge to myself.

I stop at a wide spot on Swift Camp Creek Trail, which accompanies its namesake waterway through one of the most inaccessible areas of the gorge. Alternately descending to the creek’s edge only to abruptly reverse its slope and head back up the mountainside, the trail here provides a grand vista of Swift Camp Creek bending around on itself. Halfway up the gorge’s near vertical walls, the trail sandwiches me in a blanket of shimmering, blinding snow. Below I can see the creek bubbling clean and clear over gentle riffles. The sun-speckled snow draws me on down the trail. I feel I could follow it for days; not an impossibility since this trail is only a small portion of the hiking trails in the gorge, a network that ties in with the 257-mile long Sheltowee Trace National Recreation Trail, eventually ending in Tennessee.

This is a land of snow and water, which have combined with erosive effects to sculpt spectacular natural rock formations, including the largest concentration of natural arches east of the Rockies. My favorites are Sky Bridge, offering an expansive view from the trail on top of the span; Rock Bridge straddling Swift Camp Creek; and Grays Arch. Pristine mountain streams splash down the walls and stairs of the gorge into the Red River, part of the state's wild river system. I watch a tumbling rivulet undercut a snowy crust, the fragile edges turning from white to crystal, for a second reflecting the colors of the rainbow, then breaking into the rushing water and bobbing away. The snow is disappearing, Spring recovering from this last skirmish with Winter.

Despite its isolated location in the remote mountainous region of eastern Kentucky, in the early years of this century the gorge was occupied by an army of loggers who cut and shipped the area’s timber. Sawmills and narrow gauge railroads cut and transported the abundant hardwood to eastern markets. Logging camps housed hundreds of loggers and their families. Thousands upon thousands of magnificent oak, hickory, and poplar trees were felled and shipped out of the area and, by the end of World War I, the steep valleys and hillsides of the gorge were left shorn and abandoned. Period photographs show steep, clear cut hillsides with a few forlorn saplings and endless killing fields of ragged stumps.

In the ensuing eight decades, things have changed dramatically. The area became part of what is now the Daniel Boone National Forest in 1937 and the gorge slowly reverted to its natural state, its steep ridges and hollows again teeming with rhododendron, hemlock, wild holly, oak, hickory, and white pine. The sorry impact of the loggers is now hard to see. Their abandoned railroads, sawmills, and houses were overgrown or simply rotted away. The only evidence that remains of the gorge's former role as a logging center is the narrow Nada tunnel near the western entrance to the RRGGA. Carved out of the side of a mountain in 1912 to provide railroad access to the gorge, it now provides hikers, kayakers, and bikers access to the area.

The Red River Gorge now stands out as one of the most spectacular undeveloped mountainous areas of the eastern United States, something I savor on this cool spring morning as winter slowly loses its grasp on Kentucky. The sun rises to its midday zenith, extending its warming fingers into the bottom of the narrow gorge. The forest undergoes a rapid metamorphosis from blinding crystalline white to dripping verdant green and in a matter of minutes, I am transported into another world. As quickly as it appeared, Winter is gone.

(This article originally appeared in Backpacker Magazine)

LeConte Lodge: Sleeping Above the Smokies

The chilly September mountain air is creeping around my jacket collar, hot chocolate is steaming in my mug. I’m leaning back in a rocking chair on the deck of LeConte Lodge, near the top of the Smoky Mountains. Down in the valley below---way down in the valley, a good fifteen miles away--I can see the twinkling lights of the bustling town of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. But up here near the very pinnacle of Mt. LeConte, in the middle of a half-million acres of the pristine wilderness of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the stars in the inky black sky overhead far outshine any manmade lighting. All around me is total darkness, only the occasional warm yellow glow of a kerosene lantern dimly shining through a cabin window to break the velvety night.

LeConte Lodge is not your typical pool-and-a-fancy-restaurant hotel. The accommodations are classy and clean, but simple. There is no electricity, no telephone, no traffic noise, and no television. The lodge is actually a tiny village of cabins and sleeping lodges, striking in a rough-hewn sort of way, perched amid the pine trees and mountain laurel of the Smokies. The only way to reach the lodge is by foot—even food and supplies are transported up the mountain on the backs of llamas--so we had made the four-hour hike earlier in the day. We took the six-mile Rainbow Falls Trail up but four more trails, ranging from five to eight miles, lead to LeConte Lodge.

As soon as we walked onto the lodge grounds we knew we were in a very special place. We found ourselves standing in the midst of a small huddle of rustic cabins, arrayed around an equally rustic central dining lodge. This collection of lodge buildings and cabins is the only permanent lodging available inside the boundaries of the national park. Narrow rocky paths connect each cabin, and the entire lodge area is perched on the side of the mountain in a patch about the size of a football field. Sitting practically at the peak of Mt. LeConte, at 6593 feet above sea level, the lodge is the highest resort east of the Mississippi.

We checked into the main cabin and were assigned to one of the sleeping lodges. Our lodge consisted of a central common area with a large stone fireplace, chairs and a table. Four separate private sleeping rooms faced this central area. We unpacked in our room and found it simple but comfortable, sparsely furnished with a double bunk bed covered with fleecy virgin wool blankets, a small side table and a chair. Modern flush toilets are nearby but there are no showers and bathing consists of cold water sponge baths over a basin. But this high up in the mountains where the temperature has never reached 80 degrees even in the summer, we are not too anxious to get wet anyway. Before the night is over, we will be glad for the wool blankets on the beds.

We had barely had time to check out our room when some hikers spied a black bear wandering near the cabins. The camp was immediately abuzz with bear sightings. We decided to head out and see if we could find the intruder. What we found instead was that we were in the middle of one of the most remote and scenic areas of the Smokies. Panoramic views of gentle valleys, sweeping vistas of broad mountains, and encroaching emerald forests met us at every turn.

We were hot on the trail of the bear, spotted snacking in the middle of a large blackberry patch, when the clanging of the dinner bell summoned us to the dining lodge. The staff had prepared a sumptuous meal of roast beef and gravy, fried apples, mashed potatoes, and veggies all served family-style, with hot chocolate to warm us up. A dessert of hot peach cobbler topped the dining. In the middle of the feast, we glanced out the dining room windows and saw two whitetail deer staring back in at us.

One attraction of LeConte Lodge is that it offers probably the best place in the eastern United States to see a sunset. Cliff Top is a rocky western-facing outcropping on the brow of Mt. LeConte. After dinner, we joined our lodge-mates and strolled the half-mile up to Cliff Top to watch one of the most spectacular sunsets we have ever witnessed. We looked out over hundreds of miles of the long low valleys of Tennessee and North Carolina, over thousands of acres of virgin forests and mountains, the setting sun etching molten orange in the meandering rivers miles below.

After a full day of hiking, a delicious meal, and a stunning sunset, we close out the day rocking on the porch, gloating over those poor unfortunate souls caught in the traffic jams and whirl of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge down below.

The next morning we are up at dawn with our flashlights to make a ¾ mile trek to Myrtle Point. You want to see a spectacular sunrise over the mountains? Myrtle Point is the place. Same deal as Cliff Top, only eastern-facing to catch the early show. We watch as the black sky almost imperceptibly turns gray, blue, yellow, and finally a brilliant ginger as the tiny arc of the sun grows larger as it emerges from the horizon. The hillsides blush, the morning mist in the valley floors turns pink.

Tough to leave? You know it, but we have reservations for only one night so we load our backpacks and head down the mountains, six miles back into civilization and the modern world.

(This article originally appeared in The Nashville Tennessean)

Congaree National Park

I feel like some unseen creature is dragging me into the bowels of the earth. I’m stuck—really stuck—in thigh-deep, boot sucking mud, struggling to haul our canoe through yet another portage. With every step I sink deeper and deeper into the thick imprisoning muck. This is supposed to be fun?


Well, maybe struggling to escape from the vacuum-like grip of South Carolina mud isn’t exactly fun but given the scenery around us, it’s worth every minute. Sometimes you have to work for your pleasure.

We’re deep in the enveloping thickness of Congaree Swamp in the heart of Congaree National Park. This is no holds barred swampland, chock full of snakes, spiders, mosquitoes, deer flies, and heat. We’re paddling down the park’s main waterway, Cedar Creek, because canoeing or kayaking is the only way to really experience the National Park—with the exception of a few short developed hiking trails, most of the Congaree is a checkerboard of swampy lowlands that inhibits foot travel. Backcountry hiking is a difficult proposition given the thick underbrush, thousands of knobby cypress knees and watery terrain.

So we launch our flotilla—one canoe, one kayak—onto Cedar Creek at Bannister Bridge near the extreme northwestern border of the National Park. Cedar Creek is narrow here, the tea-colored water flowing swiftly through twisting passages fringed by Sabal palm, loblolly pines and tupelo trees. It is a hot June day when we begin paddling and brilliant rays of sunlight pierce the thick leafy canopy. There is a slight morning fog lingering in the air, hanging like a gauzy curtain in the trees. The scenery is enchanting, southern swampland at its finest, archetypical southern sloughs meandering among towering bald cypress trees garlanded in thick wisps of Spanish moss. It feels primeval, like a scene from Jurassic Park.

Congaree National Park is relatively small at 26,546 acres (by comparison, Great Smoky Mountains National Park is 521,000 acres) but they are lush, beautiful acres. Due to the inaccessibility of the Congaree wetlands, loggers were stymied in their efforts to harvest the swamp’s timber. Consequently, very little of the area was logged and massive bald cypress, loblolly pines, oak, sweetgum, ash and hickory trees dominate the park. These old growth forests harbor trees that are 200 plus years old and form towering canopies over 150 feet high. One loblolly pine in the park is over 15 feet in circumference and almost 170 feet tall.

This woodland paradise was almost lost in the late 1960s when high timber prices led private landowners to resume logging operations in the Congaree watershed. The potential loss of the forest alarmed local citizens who worked to protect the area and, as a result, in 1976 Congress authorized the establishment of the Congaree Swamp National Monument, a designation that was changed to Congaree National Park in 2003, making the area America’s second newest national park.

In keeping with the austere character of the swamp, park facilities are few. The Harry Hampton Visitor Center is your starting point and it includes the standard park exhibits on wildlife, fauna and history including a short orientation video. Other than that, facilities include primitive camping, a boardwalk loop and four hiking trails. The longest, Kingsnake Trail, scribes a long U-shaped path through the interior of the swamp.

But if you want to really see all the park has to offer, you’ll have to get your feet wet. And they will get wet. The 13 mile long Cedar Creek Canoe Trail twists and turns through the heart of the park and can be a real hull scraper if the water is low. Although the trail is maintained, storms and beavers often block the creeks with fallen trees, requiring difficult and arduous portages past blockages. High creek banks and that entrapping muck make things demanding. We had five hard portages and numerous encounters with hidden logs just below the surface that reached up and grabbed our boats. And the Congaree’s resident critters have a great sense of humor—practically every horizontal fallen tree over the creek seemed to have a giant pile of steaming crap on it—strategically placed in the exact spot where we needed to grab the log in order to portage.

Backcountry camping (with a free permit from the Visitor Center) is permitted along the creek and our fist night campsite was near Cedar Creek Landing, about midway through the park. If you’ve never camped in a southern swamp, you’re in for a real treat--that is, if you like noise because as the sun goes down, the decibel level goes up. Frogs croak, owls hoot, fish jump, otters and beaver splash through the shallows, deer crash through the underbrush, feral hogs grunt. Trying to sleep through all that racket can be a real challenge until you adjust to this new environment. Then you come to appreciate the natural beauty of a night in a swamp. For one thing, the night is dark—the only light is from the millions of stars that you forgot existed and the legions of fireflies dancing through the trees.

Courtesy USF&WS

Of course, all those critters are the other attraction of the Congaree. The place is a haven for deer, feral hogs, turtles, snakes, frogs, beaver, raccoon and coyote (and, reportedly, alligators, although we didn’t see any). I paddled around a bend in Cedar Creek and came nearly face to face with a river otter. He didn’t seem surprised to see me and we stared at each other for a while before he calmly swam behind a log. The Congaree was designated an Important Bird Area (an area recognized as being globally important habitat for the conservation of bird populations) in 2001. It’s easy to see why. We saw and heard more Barred Owls than I have ever encountered in any other place and we were continually hearing and seeing Pileated, Red headed and Downy Woodpeckers. White Ibis, Great Blue Herons, Osprey, Red shouldered Hawks and multiple warbler species (including the pretty Prothonotary Warbler) completed our birding experience. We had little luck catching the largemouth bass, panfish and catfish in Cedar Creek, but the days were hot, not the best of conditions for fishing.

We extended out trip onto the Congaree River which defines the southern boundary of the park. Cedar Creek flows into the Congaree and allows floaters to extend their trip for another ten miles. The Congaree is big, broad and fast compared with the narrow Cedar Creek and is an easy float down to the Highway 601 bridge take out point. We camped for the second night on a wide inviting sandbar. Although this part of the float is not as wild and primitive as the Cedar Creek section, it is still a nice experience and we glimpsed Osprey and feral hogs on the Congaree.

If you want to experience one of the South’s prettiest swamps without a multi-day trip that places like the Everglades or the Okefenokee entail, try the Congaree.

Undiscovered Ecuador

Cotopaxi Volcano

We had just saddled up and were following Diego, our Ecuadorian mountain biking guide, down the very steep flanks of an Andean mountain when he promptly executed a spectacular over-the-handlebars face plant, sprawling in a cloud of dust and pebbles. Not a very confidence inducing beginning to an edgy ride down the side of a slippery, sliding mountain. My sea level acclimated lungs were burning from the altitude and the near-vertigo-inducing vista below didn’t give me any comfort that I would make it to the base of the mountain intact. Diego’s dump didn’t do anything to persuade me otherwise.

This was our first full day in the Ecuadorian highlands and we were getting a jump out of the gate, hitting full stride immediately with a bike ride (more accurately, plunge) down the flanks of Cotopaxi, a snow covered 19,347 foot peak in the Andes, the second highest peak in Ecuador. Our bike ride began far up the mountain’s face, at 14,000 feet. We were below the snow line but above—well above—tree line and the terrain was barren, rocky and slick with loose scree and deep volcanic dust. Not a good combination for speeding down a mountain. So we all started out cautiously, squeezing brakes till our hands ached, but as we gained confidence our speeds increased. That’s when the carnage began and practically everyone in our group got to experience Ecuadorian dirt up close and personal--wipeouts which naturally came to be known as “Diegos”.

The flanks of Cotopaxi leveled out as we continued downward, gradually turning into level doubletrack that scribed the perimeter of the mountain. Our exhilarating plummet turned into a slog through high plateaus, starkly beautiful with miles of uncluttered backdrop in all directions. Little vegetation and no trees made for a forbiddingly captivating landscape and we enjoyed the better part of the day pedaling through the Andean highlands as the weather gradually deteriorated, turning first to rain and then to a pelting hailstorm that covered the ground with a white dusting of icy pellets. Enchanting.

An excellent introduction to this small, overlooked country. Only slightly larger than the state of Nevada, Ecuador encompasses a remarkable variety of landscapes-- glacier-covered peaks, desolate high plateaus, verdant highlands, lush green Amazon jungle and the bustling cosmopolitan atmosphere of Quito. Trekkers tend to head to the more glamorous South American destinations of Brazil, Peru and Chile which is a big mistake. Ecuador has as much natural beauty as its more famous neighbors and, unlike those three countries which are huge and sprawling, Ecuador is small enough to give trekkers a chance to experience all it has to offer in just a few days.

That compactness became quickly apparent. We had spent the evening before our Cotopaxi excursion at Hacienda La Alegria, a working dairy ranch dominated by a sprawling 1911 era ranch house. The best way to experience a ranch is on horseback, of course, and we had saddled up and hit the trail, riding among the lush fields and smattering of small hovels that huddled along the narrow paths through the ranch’s backcountry. And yet within a couple of hours of leaving La Alegria we had transitioned from that inviting green ranchland to the harsh mountain slopes of the Andes. Try that in Peru, where a day’s drive often gets you only halfway to your next stop.

Tungurahua

From Cotopaxi we headed to the village of Banos--if you go to Ecuador, you have to go to Banos—the country’s adventure capital. Nestled between two mountain ridges in a subtropical cloud forest and surrounded by waterfalls and near vertical forested walls, Banos is small and charming. The village square is dominated by the basilica of Nuestra Señora del Agua Santa, a Gothic style cathedral constructed from volcanic rock from nearby Tungurahua, a still-active volcano.

We took advantage of Banos’ offerings, biking the road from Banos to Puyo and stopping at Pailon del Diablo (Devil’s Punchbowl), a hidden waterfall in a valley near the road. The ride is spectacular, traveling through tunnels and overlooking the broad and scenic Pastaza River valley. The hike down to the Punchbowl is easy and a short crawl through a low overhang leads behind the cascade.

The Amazon jungle

In keeping with Banos’ reputation, all kinds of adventure activities are available including horseback riding, bungee jumping, ziplining and rafting. We took advantage of a roadside zipline, plunging hundreds of feet into a deep canyon and across a wild river, flying like Superman above the jungle. We ended our bike ride in the town of Rio Verde, enjoying the sweetness of plantain and queso from a roadside vendor. Being a tourist center, Banos has an active nightlife with a row of restaurants and bars near city center. The Leprechaun Bar seems to be the most popular and the open courtyard with a blazing bonfire is a nice backdrop to the salsa music that keeps the crowd moving in this two-story bar.

We reluctantly left Banos to other partiers but the Amazon jungle beckoned. The terrain changed noticeably as we made our way into the Amazon basin. The high cloud forest gave way to lush rainforest as we descended into Ecuador’s Amazon jungle lowlands. We arrived at the Shangri la Lodge, perched on a 300-foot bluff overlooking the Rio Ansu, a broad, lazy flowing river that cuts through the edge of the Amazon jungle. We immediately plunged into the rainforest, hiking along the high bluffs overlooking the Rio Ansu. The contrast between the highlands of Banos and the rainforest could not have been more drastic. Heat and humidity replaced cool mountain air. Bugs and thick vegetation replaced open skies and soaring birds. A tarantula the size of a small skillet greeted us in our lodge. Welcome to the jungle.

We floated the Rio Ansu, immersing ourselves in the tropical rain forest. Experiencing the Amazon rainforest from a river is the only way to go and we spied birds everywhere before stopping along the way to make our way through the forest to an indigenous village. Visiting with a villager in the family’s hut gave a brief glimpse into the lives of the villagers and we tasted manioc and chicha, a fermented drink made from manioc.

The jungle is hot and one of the few ways to escape the pervasive heat is to climb a waterfall. Fortunately, there are many waterfalls in the rainforest and we stumbled on a pretty little stream carving its way out of the jungle. We scrambled up a narrow gorge, wading through a rushing stream that plunged over boulders and splashed over rocky ledges. A relatively easy climb with rope assists brought us to the bottom of a 100-foot cascade where a fine mist formed a rainbow in a narrow slot canyon. A picturesque finale to a cooling hike.

Many days of high activity deserved a rest and we moved onto the highlands to Papallacta where we kicked back and soaked in thermal hot springs with the cloud forest and mountain peaks framing our view. Our rest was short-lived, however, and the next morning we were up early for a hike through the cloud forest, looking for exotic birds. A rainy day and cool mountain temps made for a classic high altitude hike through thick forest and high fields.

The transition from the lowlands back into Papallacta’s high altitude prepared us for the Santa Lucia Highlands Plateau, on the northwestern side of Antisana volcano, back up again to near 14,000 feet. Antisana is typical Andean terrain; open, barren, beautiful. We hiked along a road in the national park while Andean condors, variable hawks and buzzard eagles rode the thermals between peaks and caracaras, horses, cattle and sheep grazed the open grasslands, the tableau dominated by Antisana, at 18,875 feet the fourth highest volcano in Ecuador. The summit was wreathed in clouds but the massive flanks gleamed in the afternoon sun, brilliant white glaciers reaching like fingers down from the clouds.

Sunset on the Rio Ansu, Amazon

I’ll take Ecuador. Where else can you experience 19,000 foot peaks and near sea level jungle with mountains, cloud forest, rainforest, rivers, waterfalls and glaciers thrown in—all easily reachable without grueling drives? Ecuador is incredibly beautiful, the people are inviting and friendly and the American dollar (the official currency) goes a long way. And the best part is, few people have discovered its attractions so you pretty much have the country to yourself.

DETAILS:  We took this trip with Active South America, http://www.activesouthamerica.com/.  Their Ecuador trip is called the Tapir Tour.

Cedar Key, Florida

"Well, it got pretty damn grim around here for a while." says Captain Ron, "I had a couple of shots taken at my boat." We've chartered Ron's boat for the day and, while we pull speckled trout one after another into the boat, he is telling us about the rancor and conflict that accompanied efforts to implement a commercial net fishing ban in Florida. "Fishing is big around here and you don't mess with fishing without causing problems. It was the commercial men against the sportsmen."

While the rest of Florida agonizes over condo building permits, beach development, and real estate deals, the big issue in Cedar Key is fishing. That's because fishing is still a way of life here; condos, restaurants, and amusement parks have not yet arrived to destroy the key's easy ambience and convert the locals into shills for timeshares and beach front lots. A laid back vestige of the Florida of the 1950's, Cedar Key is a small unassuming town with no stop lights, fast food joints, four lane roads, or sprawling condominiums to muck up the place. Handpainted signs advertising fresh bait are the norm and many of the locals still make an honest living from fishing and sponging. A couple of bars on the main drag turn lively on weekend nights with an easy mix of locals and refugees, but for the most part the town is quiet. In short, Cedar Key is what the rest of Florida was like before it was ruined. Seemingly indifferent to the pursuit of the tourist dollar, the town is largely devoid of T-shirt shacks, trendy restaurants, and condos.

Situated at the end of a desolate stretch of two-lane highway on Florida's western coast, the town of Cedar Key sits on the island of the same name, a tiny speck of land surrounded by marshland and mangrove. Nearby, Cedar Key National Wildlife Refuge's twelve islands lie within five miles of the town pier. Isolated and lightly visited, the Refuge islands offer outstanding beachcombing and fishing. The refuge is the highlight of a stretch of uncommercialized Florida that reaches from just below Tallahassee nearly to Tampa. This western coastal area, aptly called the nature coast by locals, is a paradise of tidal flats, tangled mangrove swamp, and marshes which have stymied development. Swamps and mangrove may be nirvana for fish but they don't have the appeal of a white sandy beach on the cover of a real estate brochure.

Captain Ron beaches our boat on the soft sand of North Key and scatters hundreds of tiny ghost crabs in front of us. A short, distinctive hiss resembling steam from a boiler drifts across the bay. We look around to see two bottlenose porpoises surfacing fifty yards off of the beach. The exhaled mist from their vent holes hangs in the still afternoon air, glistening in the hot blue Florida sky. Other than the great blue herons stalking the island's ponds and the blackheaded gulls wheeling overhead, the porpoises are our only companions all day. The lack of facilities and the fact that these islands are accessible only by boat means that they are not visited by hordes of sun worshipers. So you can pretty well be assured that you will have the place to yourself if you are ambitious enough to boat to any of the keys.

If you prefer not to take the Captain Ron route, sea kayak or canoe is the way to go. The nearest island to Cedar Key, Atsena Otie (Seminole for "cedar island"), is within an easy fifteen minute paddle of the Cedar Key pier. This pretty little dot of an island is neat for exploring the old cemetery, building foundations, and the remnants of a pencil factory that once dominated the island. An ancient wooden pier extending from the west end of the island makes an excellent fishing spot and a sliver of white beach provides shelling opportunities.

The twelve islands of the refuge demand a little more exertion to reach, but most of the water, though open, is shallow and dotted with shifting sandbars that provide convenient opportunities to stop and rest along the way. Each of the islands offers solitude, wildlife, and natural beauty. Seahorse Key, the refuge's largest island, is dominated by a large central ridge that rises some fifty feet above the water surface. A lighthouse that was built on the island in 1851 and used as a military prison during the Civil War still stands on the key.

Back at North Key, we drop the fishing gear and do our Robinson Crusoe routine, walking aimlessly along the key's edge while Ron takes a siesta. The incoming tide rushes through a narrow inlet on the north side of North Key, pooling into a small natural bowl before disappearing into the palmetto, cabbage palm, live oak, and red cedar of the interior. Sitting on the edge of this impromptu pond, we watch a pair of osprey feed their fledging young, then reluctantly rouse Ron and head back to Cedar Key before the sun dips below the horizon.

After docking at the marina we grab a cold one at the local bar, then sit on the edge of the bridge to take in the sunset. I reach for my camera as the sun burns orange and flaming red over the water, silhouetting an abandoned beach house sitting on stilts in the bay. But then I say to hell with it and just watch the show. A picture can't come close to the real thing, just like the rest of Florida can't come close to Cedar Key.

Manatee Magic: Swimming with Florida's Manatees

Courtesy USF&WS

OK, I know they’re gentle animals. No one in recorded history has ever been injured by an enraged manatee. Still, when you unexpectedly come face to face with one underwater, you can’t help but almost swallowing your snorkel. So when I snorkel over a gentle rise of waving sea grass and nearly smash my mask into the whiskered muzzle of a full-grown 1,500-pound, ten-foot male, the massive looming hulk startles me. He is as scared as I am and we both flinch and stop dead, sizing each other up.


He has much more to fear than I. Humans have not been kind to manatees. Deaths due to boat strikes, pollution, and habitat loss keep the animals in trouble and the population of this endangered species is less than 3,000. But their plight has had some positive benefits--they receive lots of publicity and public support is growing to save them. As a result, they are popular animals and practically everyone knows about them: large as a cow, slow moving, gentle, appealing.

Because of this popularity, thousands of adventurers flock to Florida each winter to swim with them and watch them up close. Perhaps the best place to mingle with manatees is in the clear water of Crystal River just below the panhandle on the West coast.

To understand why this is the place to go, you need to know a little about what makes manatees tick. They are warm-blooded mammals, very sensitive to water temperatures. The arrival of cold weather finds them seeking out warm water around power plant outlets and springs. Such springs exist in Crystal River and from October through about April, dozens—sometimes hundreds—of manatees congregate in the river near the 72-degree waters of the springs.

This results in another congregation: people. Crystal River’s shallow shoals, clear water, and abundant manatees mean excellent viewing and on winter weekends hundreds of wet-suited manatee enthusiasts are snorkeling off of pontoon boats anchored around the river.

This winter, we joined the snorkelers in the town of Crystal River, about two hours south of Tallahassee, and hooked up with Diane Oestreich of Bird’s Underwater Dive Center. On a cool and cloudless December morning we meet her at the dive shop she and her husband run on the edge of Crystal River—at an ungodly six o’clock in the morning.

Two dozen sleepy manatee maniacs are milling around the dock, shivering in the early morning chill and eager to get into the water and see a manatee. But first Diane makes sure that we see, but don’t harm. We will be snorkeling around the fringes of Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge, which has stiff regulations to protect manatees. Diane shows a video and gives us a short lecture on “manatee manners”—that is, not harassing the animals.

I am not a morning person so I have to ask Diane if the early shove off time is necessary or if she just has a sadistic streak.

“The earlier you go, the better visibility you’ll have,” she says “Get one group of divers in the water and things get stirred up quick. We want to get out first while visibility is still good.”

As we pull away from the dock I look over the pontoon’s railing and can’t imagine visibility being any better. The still water is crystal clear (Hmmm, wonder how the river got its name?). If there are manatees here they will be easy to spot.

And so they are. Barely ten minutes away from the dock, with most of us still wriggling into our wetsuits, Diane spots one. In the calm water I see what appears to be a fist-sized piece of floating bark. It’s a manatee muzzle and it disappears with a tiny swirl. Below the surface I can make out the massive outline of a manatee. We spy two manatees lying motionless in four feet of water. Diane throttles back the motor and we hover over the unperturbed creatures. They are sleeping, something which Diane assures us is their second favorite activity—eating being number one.

We head on to Three Sisters Springs, a small spring in a shady tributary and drop anchor. Diana drops over the side of the boat and swims toward the spring. I throw on my flippers, pull my mask down and join her in the water, taking care to remain out of the roped off “off limits” area that gives the manatees some refuge from divers. I barely have time to take my first breath when a huge adult manatee swims alongside me.

I have dived with manatees many times, but it is still thrilling to me. This is truly one of nature’s magnificent creatures, a huge lumbering beast with a gentle demeanor. Individual animals also have unique personalities. Some like to interact with humans, others don’t. This one wants to be touched. He sidles up to me and I oblige him. As I rub his flank, he pirouettes over on his back. I rub his exposed belly and his “armpits” (behind his flippers) while he lays motionless, enjoying the moment.

Courtesy USF&WS

At Three Sisters we watch two juveniles—there’s no other word for it—smooch. They are in a full face-to-face embrace, flippers clasped around each other’s body, rolling gently over and over in the shallow water. The less friendly ones stay within the confines of the off-limits areas to avoid humans but these two are not so shy. One finally breaks away from the embrace and swims lazily up to me, inquisitively nuzzling my dive mask.

We spend most of the morning at Three Sisters, swimming with and watching seven manatees, most of them continually coming up to us to look us over. About mid morning, we head out into the open water of Crystal River and Diana drops anchor near King’s Spring, a large spring in an open channel near Banana Island. Manatees congregate here too, but when we arrive there are two pontoon boats in the area and the water is filled with people. We see only one; a large adult with boat-propeller scars across her back who doesn’t want to have anything to do with us and quickly disappears into the off-limits area. So we amuse ourselves by swimming through the center of swarming schools of silvery mullet that part and swirl around us as.

That evening we sit on a deck overlooking the river and watch two river otters splash and play as the sun slips away. Somewhere out there with the otters a family of manatees is calmly munching away, oblivious to the perils they face but waiting to capture the hearts of another crowd of curious visitors.

DETAILS:

There are a number of dive shops in town but based on our experience one of the best is Bird’s Underwater Dive Center. They showed a strong conservation ethic and seemed to have the welfare of the manatees at heart. Contact Bird’s at 352-563-2763, http://www.birdsunderwater.com/.

(This article originally appeared in the Huntsville Times)

The Dirtiest Place in the World

In the parched savannah of Tanzania’s interior everything seems dusted with a thin film of ochre powder. Along the fringes of what passes for roads here, the dust is even worse, kicked up by passing trucks and pedestrians and hanging like a filthy cloud in the still afternoon air. I can feel the grit between my teeth, taste the people and diesel fumes and animals on my tongue as our tough-as-nails 5 ton truck, a beat up but determined blue beast, chugs through the African heat. The truck is old and primitive, a basic machine.

It’s also unstoppable, bucking and lurching along a grueling gash that slices through the African countryside. I can’t call it a road; it’s too primitive to deserve that moniker. Decades of rainy season floods followed by the hammering tires of heavy trucks make this never-maintained trail a nearly impassable ribbon of tortured earth. I’m thinking that nothing could be more punishing--except the alternative, a cross country drive across the scrublands, a near impossibility. So we keep pounding onward.

We’re on a mission, driving the beast from the dusty village of Kasulu—a town that my African friend called “the dirtiest place in the world” to Kigoma, a town hard on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. In the back a pregnant woman is bleeding—to death, if we don’t get her to a hospital soon.

We received word that a group of Tanzanians—a church choral group from Kigoma—was stranded somewhere along the road between the two villages, their truck broken down. So we set out yesterday morning, the three of us—myself; Chuck, a jack-of-all-trades type; and Jonathan, a missionary doctor from Kansas—to rescue the 30 or so men, women and children before nightfall. The thought of almost three dozen people stranded overnight in the African darkness without food and water and with bandits and predators lurking was not pretty. So we left Kigoma mid-morning, packed into an SUV with food and water, hell bent for Kasulu, white knights to the rescue.

Kasulu is 100 kilometers northeast of Kigoma, an easy drive under normal circumstances. But nothing is normal in Africa. The road is crowded with people, cows, goats, bicycles and carts. And potholes, damn potholes, everywhere. Fifty meters of smooth dirt is a blessing but even then you can’t pick up any speed lest you flatten a goat or dog or, God forbid, a mother with a child wrapped in a kanga at her breast and a basket of bananas balanced on her head.

Add another element of danger to the picture: the United Nations uses this route as a supply line between the railroad station at Kigoma and the UN refugee camps in the western region. So every few minutes a speeding truck with “UN” emblazoned on the door barrels by trailing a red cloud of dust. We see the drivers through their dirty and cracked windshields, sawing at the steering wheels as they try to keep their rigs from plummeting out of control into the bush. They seem oblivious to their surroundings, eyes straight ahead. People jump off into the bush; oncoming traffic has to pull over as the huge trucks bellow by leaving choking dust clouds and chaos in their wake.

Can the refugee camps be that in need of immediate resupply that these demons endanger themselves and anyone else on the road? No matter, the UN and the NGOs ride roughshod over the region and in addition to the supply trucks, earnest looking bureaucrats rush back and forth on the roads, their new vehicles carrying the acronyms and logo of their organization; WHO, ICRC, HOPE. I suppose they do some good but the results on the ground are not apparent, unless you count the bags of rice marked “USAID” that we saw at a duka in Kigoma—for sale.

Jonathan has been a missionary here for a year and is familiar with the roads. He managed to avoid the largest holes, some of which are deep and wide enough to qualify as craters. Nevertheless, it was well into midday yesterday before we bumped into the tiny village of Kwaga, barely halfway to Kasulu. We waved at the villagers as we motored through and less than two kilometers past the village we saw the beast. She was indeed broken down, her blue hood reaching forlornly for the sky.

All around the truck people huddled under the bed and in the lee side, seeking scant shelter from the searing African sun. We pulled up behind the truck and hopped out. I looked around, most of the strandees are women and girls but there are also toddlers and babies and a few men. The babies are obviously in distress, their mothers, some nursing, in bad need of water. I was amazed at their calm acceptance of their predicament. They patiently stood in line as we dispensed water bottles and fruit, not a word of complaint. I thought about how a like group of Americans would handle the same situation but I quickly erased that ugly scene from my mind.


The driver said the truck overheated and eventually stopped, refusing to start. Chuck took a quick look at the blue beast and figured that the water pump was dead—the truck would not go to Kasulu like this. We needed to get the women and children out of the countryside and to safe haven before nightfall so we packed as many as we could—which turned out to be twenty women, children and babies—into the SUV. This is a standard size SUV now, not some super-size vehicle. The Tanzanians were stacked like cordwood in the back, sitting on laps and atop each other in the seats. There was no room for Chuck and me so we stayed with the truck while Jonathan drove on to Kasulu, hopefully to return before nightfall to get us and the rest of the stranded group.

As Jonathan fired up the SUV he leaned out the window. “Try to be inconspicuous, white people stand out here.” And smiled and waved as he drove away. And that’s how I came to be stranded in the wild interior of Africa, surrounded by Africans, with no transportation, night approaching and one bottle of water.

We played mechanic and climb into the yawning engine bay of the beast. The water pump was indeed dead, the engine nearly drained dry. However, the engine had cooled down in the intervening hours and we were able to get it started. The remaining church group scrambled into the bed of the truck and we limped back into Kwaga. There we found a fundi—anyone who can fix things in Tanzania is called a fundi—and arranged to have the water pump repaired.

We started looking for a place to sleep when Jonathan rolled into the village. He had made it to Kasulu, found a church to house the Tanzanians and returned for us. Good news for all—a night on a dirt floor in Kwaga was not appealing. We wedged ourselves into the SUV, twelve people stuffed into one vehicle. The heat and dust and smell—we all reeked from sweat—was overpowering.

And then the most wondrous thing happened. The Africans—a choir group remember—broke into a joyous lilting African hymn, their voices cool and sweet. Here we were in the most miserable of circumstances, a day marred by mechanical breakdown, lack of food and water, numbing heat, frightened children and crying babies, and these people were rejoicing and singing. I was stunned beyond belief. That one charming, ephemeral moment will never leave me. When I am faced with a difficult time in my life I never fail to think of that moment of unfettered hope and gratitude.

It took us two hours to reach Kasulu, the Africans singing nearly the whole way. We stopped in front of a small Catholic church as dusk swept in. I hopped out of the SUV and pushed the double church doors open. The interior was dark and I was silhouetted in the headlights, undoubtedly a frightening apparition. Shrieks of “Mzungu!”—“White man!” echo through the church and terrified children scurried to their mother's safety. The mothers laughed as the rest of our passengers filed into the church.

The local priest offered us cots to sleep on in a stark dorm room and I stepped out into the night to watch the light fade over the African grasslands. And then the day’s second wondrous thing occurred. Hundreds, then thousands, then millions of African termites began to hatch. There were no electric lights and in the total darkness I could clearly see their delicate silvery wings catching the moonlight. The ground was covered with a shimmering silver carpet that rose into the darkness—an enchanting snowfall in reverse, the snow rising up to meet the sky. It was a blizzard of the most fragile life, entrancing and captivating, and I watched it for an hour before sleep pulled me to the cot. The next morning I stumbled out of the dorm and the ground was littered with millions of paper-thin termite wings.

Today we are heading back to Kigoma. Eight or so of us pile into the SUV and bounce out of Kasulu on the long and aching trek home. We finally pull into Kwaga to retrieve the beast. It is, naturally, fixed; the resourcefulness and ingenuity of these village mechanics never ceases to amaze me.

We fire the beast up and pull onto the road when a large and boisterous group of villagers rushes toward us, yelling and waving sticks. I briefly think we have committed some unpardonable transgression and are about to be beaten to a pulp but then I notice them carrying a prone body on a platform over their heads. It is a woman and she is obviously in great distress. She opens her eyes briefly and weakly struggles to raise her head. I am not a doctor but this does not look good.

Jonathan makes a quick assessment. She is pregnant and bleeding heavily and without help she will surely bleed to death. She needs more medical help than is available in this remote village--she needs a hospital, and soon. We load her into the back of the beast and take off for Kigoma, the poor woman writhing in terrible pain while we bounce over the rutted road for hours.

We make it to the hospital and she lives.

And I think: What if we had not happened to come through Kwaga today? What are the odds that on a rarely traveled backroad, a truck heading toward the only hospital in the region would happen through an isolated village at the exact time that a desperate woman needed emergency transportation? Infinitesimal, I say. And that was wondrous thing number three.

African Dreams

The setting African sun backlit the spreading acacia trees with a blood red wash. After a hard day of trekking over the Serengeti plains, all I wanted to do was melt into my canvas camp chair and mellow out. I had just slipped into a dreamy, staring-into-the-campfire reverie when the distinctive half-roar, half-cough of an African lion startled me out of my trance. Somewhere, just beyond the faint glow of our campfire, a lion was lurking in the waist-high grass of the savanna. The fading sun cast a cinnamon glow on the waving grass and I was certain that a huge maned male was going to lunge out of the grass and devour me. Of course, it didn’t help that I had watched “The Ghost and the Darkness” before setting out on this safari.

Needless to say, I didn’t get eaten by lions, but in Africa that is still a possibility. It’s this collision of brutality and beauty that draws visitors to the continent. And nowhere is this dichotomy more evident than in northern Tanzania where three of the most evocative places in Africa converge; the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, and Olduvai Gorge.

Located at the center of these three areas is Lake Ndutu, an expansive soda lake on the edge of the Serengeti Plains. Lake Ndutu draws migrating animals by the thousands and is a prime wildlife viewing area for giraffe, lion, leopard, hippo, elephant, and the largest wildebeest herds on earth. Huddled on the shore of the lake is Ndutu Safari Lodge, a cozy enclave of gray stone and wood buildings. Legendary big game hunter George Dove originally established a bush camp here in the 1960’s. The lodge retains the humble feeling of its origins and it has become a favorite with visitors who prefer isolation and access to untrammeled areas to five-star lodging and luxurious trappings. The main building, dominated by an airy dining room and bar, is a low open stone structure with exposed beam rafters that faces the glimmering waters of Lake Ndutu. Small but comfortable stone cabins have replaced the original tents.

We first glimpsed Ndutu Lodge as our bush plane made a low pass over the dirt airstrip to shoo any wayward wildlife away.  We banked steeply, circled around and landed, coming to a stop in a swirl of dust. Our hosts, Paul and Louise White, loaded our bags and shuttled us to the lodge. The Whites are energetic and pleasant Brits who have found their niche in the African wilds. Paul is an outgoing fellow with a dry, understated wit. Louise is down to business, immediately taking us under wing, settling us into our stone cabins, and setting out our afternoon tea.

The Whites being Brits, they offer us afternoon tea, which we quickly gulp down—after all, we came to see animals-- before jumping into Land Rovers and bumping off into the Serengeti. Simply put, the Serengeti is Africa’s most spectacular destination, a bustling stew of wildebeest, zebra, lions, gazelles, giraffe, elephant, birds, Cape buffalo and dozens of other species of birds and mammals. At the height of the annual wildlife migration the nonstop parade of wildebeest and zebra followed by ever-attentive lions and cheetahs is unforgettable.

It’s mid afternoon, a sweltering and dusty day in the height of the dry season. The huge herds have left on their annual northward migration to the Masai Mara so our expectations for spying wildlife are low, especially in the heat of the day. We anticipate an uneventful drive into the interior with the hope of stumbling across animals later in the evening as the day cools and life stirs. But we’re barely ten minutes out of camp when two giraffes step out of a stand of acacia trees. Three kilometers further we nearly run over a lioness sitting alone in the middle of an unshaded savanna.

Paul heads for a nearby marsh, an oasis of green in the unending brown plains, where wildlife congregates in the dry season. Clouds of birds swoop low over the verdant grass and Paul is energized. Birds are his thing and he calls out several species in rapid succession--birds we’ve never seen before, and some we’ve never heard of--Secretary birds, Bustards, African kites, and on and on, colorful birds, colorful names.

OK, this is great, but this is Africa and we’re after the big guys. And then less than 100 meters away we come upon a herd of elephants, milling around the edge of the marsh, kicking up clouds of dust. We edge closer and suddenly out of the middle of the herd a juvenile bull, full of bluff and bluster, charges us. All I see is a massive gray hulk, huge ears flared out and a roiling veil of dust as he stampedes toward us, bellowing and shaking his massive head. We frantically dive onto the the floor of the truck. The bull stops thirty feet away and swings his head from side to side, very pleased with our distress.

That’s enough elephant viewing for us for a while so we’re off across the plains again and as we pass under a spreading acacia I see—no I sense—a presence overhead and look up into the piercing yellow eyes of a leopard crouched on an angling limb. I yell for Paul to stop and we skid to a halt directly under the big cat. If the cat wanted, he could hop right into our open truck. He decides differently and scampers down the gnarled trunk and disappears into the golden grass. The odds of seeing a leopard are slim; we see two before the day is over, plus hippos, foxes, cheetahs, dikdiks, impala, and enough other animals to call the day a complete success.

At dusk we head back to the lodge and a delicious meal of fresh salads, wine, tender beef tenderloin, and desserts. Ndutu Safari Lodge may have its roots as a hunting camp but there is no corner-cutting here, the service and food is first-class. While we eat small genet cats scamper over our heads on the rafters. Later, over drinks around the campfire we hear the nightly serenade of the lions in the darkness. Paul points out the constellations, weaves tales about wildlife encounters, tells lies, and keeps us laughing with a string of jokes that we’ll forget by morning. Conversation wanders to the next day’s itinerary; we’re heading to the Ngorongoro Crater, where Paul assures us we’ll see more wildlife than we ever thought of seeing today.

He’s right. As we drive up to the rim of the crater, a long, slogging climb that rises out of the Serengeti, the land gradually changes from savannah grassland to volcanic hills. We pass Maasai tribesmen herding their cattle, their bright red robes bringing welcome relief to the monotonous brown scenery. This is a sparsely populated area but the imposing Maasai seem to dominate the landscape. We round a curve in the road and two young Maasai stand on the roadside, faces starkly painted in black and white, a looming and eerie presence. The painted faces are part of the Maasai coming-of-age ritual, young men on the cusp of manhood.

We finally crest the rim of Ngorongoro Crater and spread below us, as far as we can see, is a vast concentration of wildlife, 250 square kilometers of zoological paradise. Thousands of ant-sized dots (we are still 1500 feet above the crater floor) are telltale signs of herds of wildebeest, zebra, and impala. Too many ants we think; there can’t be that many wild animals here. But as our Land Rover grumbles and bucks down the narrow rim road to the crater floor, the dots become larger and we can begin to make out distinct shapes: Cape buffalo, Thompson’s gazelle, eland, more variety and numbers than we had dared hope to see.

Ngorongoro is a constant stream of African vignettes. A daft lioness stalks and then charges two massive adult Cape buffalo who initially flee and then, coming to their senses, turn on their attacker and chase her off. A drying waterhole, one of the few remaining open bodies of water in this dry season, has become a grim charnel house of dead and dying animals. A large family of hippos dominates the shrinking open water. Around the open water is a large ring of deep and entrapping mud and in this mud is a scene of sickening carnage. Hippos, Cape buffalo, and zebras have become mired in the thick muck as they try to reach the water for a drink. Hyenas have waded in to feast on the trapped animals and have themselves become victims. Vultures swoop in to pick at the dead and the dying. It is a sad and sobering sight and another reminder that this is not some amusement park but Africa at its rawest.

Such tableaus are contrasted with scenes of captivating beauty and thirty minutes later we watch a troop of more than one hundred baboons parade single file past our truck while a huge bull elephant thrashes nearby, furiously tearing arm-thick limbs from an acacia tree. The show never ends and before the day is over we have spotted extremely rare black rhinos, a family of cheetahs sitting atop a termite mound, herds of wildebeest and zebra, huge flocks of brilliant flamingos.

On the way back to the lodge, we pass by the Olduvai Visitor Centre, snuggled in the middle of the Olduvai Gorge, made famous by anthropologists Mary and Louis Leakey who found evidence of 3.7 million year old Australopithecus Afarensis. This could be the cradle of human existence and standing at the bottom of this 300-foot deep, 30-mile long trench it is impossible not to be awed by its meaning.

Our last night in the Serengeti I was gripped with a sense of melancholy, knowing that the next day I would be leaving Ndutu. But then I remembered something a British mountain climbing guide once told me. “Africa never leaves you,” he said “Once you visit you leave a part of yourself there.”

He’s right of course, Ndutu is unforgettable, a dreamlike memory that I return to frequently.

(This article originally appeared in Marco Polo Magazine)

Safer to Jump

The usual comment when I tell someone I went skydiving is,“Why would anyone jump out of a perfectly good airplane?” In my case I have the perfect reply: It was safer than staying on board.

That’s because “perfectly good” would not be used by any sane person to describe the plane that we were taking us up for our first jump. My first look at the plane was unsettling to say the least. It looked like it had been through the Battle of Britain. I half expected to see bullet holes in the fuselage and Nazi swastikas painted under the pilot window to signify enemy aircraft victories. I know the FAA requires annual flight inspections but this plane apparently hadn’t been anywhere near an inspector since the Korean War. No competent inspector would have allowed such a raggedy aircraft anywhere near a runway. It sat, unpainted and forlorn, the tarnished aluminum fuselage wrinkled and patched, off the edge of a small Kentucky runway. I peered inside; with the exception of the pilot and co-pilot seats, the interior was completely absent any seats, belts or panels. Just a bare outer skin and a scuffed up floor. Yikes!

I double-checked my parachute packing and crossed my fingers that the plane could at least gain enough altitude to allow my chute to open before the plane corkscrewed into the ground. It would be a race to see which of us impacted first. I didn’t need this anxiety on top of my raging fear of heights.

Which brings up the obvious question: Why was I doing this? The usual reason; my friend Ed.

This was just another in a long string of adventures—or misadventures—that we have shared over the years. From mountain climbing, to rafting, to glacier hiking, to racing cars and a dozen other adventures, we’ve dared and bet and ridiculed each other into unreasonable activities. A recurring theme is to find ourselves on the precipice of some peak or flailing through big whitewater asking each other why the hell we’re here. Skydiving was perhaps the stupid pinnacle of that long litany of escapades.

But, I was committed. Backing out now was not an option. Ed would never let me hear the end of it. So we went through ground school, which was a short classroom period explaining the basics of what would happen after we stepped out of the plane (a greasy spot in the worst case), how high we would be jumping from (too high), how to pull the ripcord (I paid particular attention to that topic) and how to guide the chute (in essence, pull on various random cords and pray). Then we adjourned to a nearby field and practiced how to exit from the aircraft and hit the ground. This involved jumping off a six foot high wooden platform and landing and rolling in the Kentucky dirt. Next we were hooked up to a static line and stepped off a platform to experience the feeling of a parachute opening. I closed my eyes before I stepped off the platform—how was I going to step out of an airplane at 6000 feet? I stood on the ground and watched Ed step off after me. I think I could see his lips saying a prayer.

No turning back now, we’d paid our money, spent a morning learning the basics, now it was time to hit the sky. Six of us, most first timers, clambered aboard the airborne version of the African Queen. Much to my astonishment, the engine sputtered to life and the plane actually managed to taxi onto the runway. My last hope for not jumping was dashed. I mean, I never thought this thing would actually fly.

We bumped down the dirt runway, I could feel the bald and patched tires clear the safe embrace of mother earth and we were airborne. The pilot took us up in a lazy spiral to jump altitude and I peered out the open jump door as the lovely farm fields of Kentucky became more and more distant.

The jumpmaster looked at us and asked who wanted to go first. Much to my shock I saw my hand, seemingly detached from my body, shoot skyward. I think at that point my brain said “we’re going to die anyway, may as well go out looking brave”. I lined up in the doorway, Ed next, the others behind us. The ground sure looked a long way down. I felt a tap on my back and the jumpmaster pointed to the door. Wait a minute, did he really expect me to go through with this? I gave him a look: “Who me?”

But I had come too far to turn chicken now. I grabbed a deathgrip on the wing strut, stepped out into the rushing air stream and onto the license-plate-sized platform, looked down at the fields below and let go. I think I heard Ed whimpering above my screams as I exited the plane.

What followed was terrifying. I was falling to my death. I would never see my family again. My friends would remark on what a stupid way to end a life. My wife would live a life of luxury and idleness from my life insurance proceeds.

And then I remembered I was supposed to be counting before pulling my ripcord. How many seconds had I been falling? Four? Ten? I was supposed to count to six but in my panic I forgot everything except my imminent impact with the earth. Pull!

What followed was the most wonderful feeling I’ve ever experienced. The chute popped, immediately putting the brakes on my plummeting body. After the initial jolt, my fall turned into a gently drift and as my heart slowly returned to a rate of something less than 200 I actually began to enjoy the feeling of floating above the earth. I could see for miles in all directions. I picked out the landing field far below and jockeyed my controls to guide the parachute to my target. This was awesome!

I landed near the target, hit, dropped and rolled. The landing was a little hard but I was pumped. What an adrenaline rush! Ed landed shortly after, one field over. We high-fived, whooped and recounted the jump over the next few hours.

Five weeks later, the plane crashed during another jump flight, slightly injuring those aboard. Like I said, not a “perfectly good plane”.

Trekking the Florida Panhandle

Florida’s white sand beaches, lazy rivers and Spanish moss-draped forests offer nature lovers a wide variety of places to visit and play and some 200 miles of beaches and scrubland from the Florida panhandle eastward to Crystal River are still wild and undeveloped. This stretch of Florida, which roughly parallels Highway 98 along the gulf coast, is home to a diverse array of outstanding natural areas in a part of the state best described as retro.

The condos, souvenir joints and beach homes that dominate the state’s coastline are mercifully few here. Unbroken pine forests line the highways and a chain of wildlife refuges and state parks adorns this corridor, offering beautiful natural destinations within easy driving distance of each other.

Linking these stops provides days of exceptional outdoor adventures interrupted by slow-as-molasses towns and out-of-the-way mom and pop restaurants. We took a week to trek through the area, starting at the western reaches of the panhandle near the city of Destin.

We made our first stop at Topsail Hill State Park and its three miles of beaches secluded behind the park’s claim to fame--towering 25-foot white sand dunes. The park is well visited but somehow retains a relatively untrammeled ambience. It is a nice spot for a day hike and as we lace up our boots we spy a few tourists walking the beach but on this cool March day the beach is anything but crowded. We hike between dunes down to the surf and head west along the packed sand where we see dozens of shorebirds scurrying along the beach. Following a faint trail inland through patches of wispy sea oats, we stumble on a tea-colored freshwater lake shrouded in a thick stand of pine trees. Warily tiptoeing around the edges, we keep our eyes out for hungry gators but instead we are greeted with a cacophony of birds irritated at our intrusion. We spend way too much time hiking through the trees and we have to race a gorgeous setting sun to reach our car before dark.

Topsail gets us pumped up for more discoveries and we are not disappointed at our next stop, St. Joseph Peninsula State Park. Most of the park is a wilderness preserve—no vehicles allowed—so we ditch our car and backpack into the peninsula. The park is a 7.5 mile-long finger of sugary white sand that follows a low ridge line north, the Gulf of Mexico on the ocean side, St. Joseph Bay inshore. The narrow peninsula features high dunes and pine scrub and wide beaches. We are delighted to find that the thousands of acres of beaches and scrub are virtually deserted. On our two-day backpack into the peninsula we see six people. It is hard to believe there is still a place this deserted in Florida. The isolation is refreshing and we delight in scanning the beach both ways and realizing we are the only humans as far as the eye can see.

But we aren’t alone; on our return we follow a trail along a low ridge line traversing the spine of the park and we are repeatedly interrupted by the noisy shuffling of armadillos rooting through the forest duff for tasty grubs. We see a dozen, comical looking critters that momentarily halt to shoot us quizzical looks, completely unperturbed by our presence. We hate to leave St. Joseph but the word is that St. George Island State Park is just as wild and we want to backpack there also.

Our stomachs get the best of us however, and we are delayed getting there. Highway 98 passes through Apalachicola, a quaint town famous for its succulent oysters and we take time to enjoy plates full of these local delicacies. Oyster restaurants are liberally sprinkled along the highway so we pick one with a waterfront view and suck down oysters to our heart’s content.

We linger too long, arriving at St. George Island late in the afternoon. The day turned overcast and a front has blown in and by the time we load up our packs we are fighting a blustery, cold offshore breeze that makes hiking uncomfortable. Like St. Joseph, St. George Island is an anachronism—a wild, undeveloped gem that attracts outdoorsy types. Even on this cold blustery day, we stumble on three other groups of hikers and swap stories with them as dusk settles in. We set up our tent in a light rain and a storm rages all night.

The next day brings typical Florida weather, bright and sunny, as we pull into St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge. To use the old cliché, this is one of Florida’s best kept secrets. The road from the entrance shoots seven miles straight through the heart of the 68,000 acre refuge, past thick pine forests and tall palm trees and as we drive we are confronted by a veritable ark of wildlife: hundreds of birds everywhere and where there aren’t birds, there are alligators, or turtles, or otters, or snakes. We run across a ten foot gator on one trail; on another we step gingerly over a pygmy rattlesnake coiled on a wooden foot bridge.

The refuge road ends at St. Marks Lighthouse, a picturesque 19th century structure sitting on the edge of Apalachee Bay. Gunslit-like window openings at the base of the gleaming white lighthouse provide convenient sunning spots for snakes and every windowsill is occupied by a logy grey rat snake soaking up the warm March sun. Pelicans dive in front of us as we eat lunch on the water’s edge.

Final stop: Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge, home to one of our most appealing wild animals, the West Indian manatee. These ponderous creatures are very susceptible to the cold so through the winter they congregate in Crystal River around a spring that pumps 600 million gallons of warm 72 degree water out daily. Snorkeling with these huge animals is a real treat and we spend the better part of the morning carefully observing them from a distance until a mother and baby approach us. These close encounters are thrilling and we are approached numerous times.

There you have it: one week, five outstanding natural areas. Easy driving, good food, lots of old Florida ambience, beaches, lakes, rivers, gators and manatees. And you thought Florida was all about Disney World.

(This article originally appeared in the Huntsville Times)