I realized in March that I was not going to tale off the month of May to hike the southern portion of the Appalachian Trail (AT) as I had planned. Responsibilities at work would not allow me to be gone that long. This was a depressing development. I took a few weeks off from hiking on the weekends. I was doing this to get in shape and prepare for the AT.
Started to get over it by hiking a short section of the Florida Trail in the Green Swamp East Tract. Parked at the Rock Ridge Road entrance which is at the intersection of Tanic Road. (It is also called Main Grade Road on some maps.) The approximate address is 18038 Rockridge Road, Polk City FL 33868. The lat/long is 28.312834, -81918574. The portion hiked was in the northern part of Polk County, FL. The property is part of a large public preserve and is owned by the Southwest Florida Water Management District.
There are several free (yes, no charge) campsites along Tanic Road just north of Rockridge Road. Registration for the free campsites is about 1/2 mile north of Rockridge Road on Tanic Road.
A few weeks ago I was planning on doing a 50 mile plus loop in the Green Swamp to learn and test the skills and gear I would need to do the southern portion of the AT. The loop started here and followed the FT northeast to Richloam, east to near the Van Fleet Trail, and then south to the starting point.
The Florida Trail (FT) crosses Rockridge Road and roughly runs parallel to and on the east side of Tanic Road. After crossing the Withlacoochee River it heads east and then northeast. The Florida Trail splits south of Orlando and this is part of the western corridor of the FT going around Orlando.
There are many old roads and old railroad grades in the area. I am assuming they are from back when the area was logged many years ago. I have read that the logging companies would build narrow gage railroad tracks to get the cut logs to the sawmill, then remove the tracks and ties to be used in a new area.
The FT follows some of the old railroad grades. It also followed Tanic Road for a section and crosses the Withlacoochee River on the Tanic Road Bridge.
The photo below was taken looking north and shows a section of the FT that follows Tanic Road. On the right is where to register for a free campsite.
Below is a photo of the trail going through pine trees.
Here is a photo of the Tanic Road bridge over the Withlacoochee River.
An alligator is resting in the middle of the photo below. (The tip of my finger is at the top of the photo.)
Here is another photo of the river showing a gaging station. Notice the cypress trees in the background.
Another photo of the river.
The river was my turning around point. I headed back to the parking spot along Tanic Road rather than going back on the FT.
Here is a photo looking south along Tanic Road.
The round trip was 5 miles long and took 2 hours and 5 minutes.
Below are links that shows a map of the route I took and where the photos were taken along the route.
https://www.gaiagps.com/datasummary/track/e82aba6112c31bd7610ad51db54c8e1a/#?layer=gaiapublicland,openhikingmap,MapBoxAerial&alpha=gaiapublicland:1,openhikingmap:0,MapBoxAerial:0.95&slideshow=false
https://www.gaiagps.com/public/BNaPL9eko5TOaJtBC8jnyQZ2
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