Playing hookie at the St. Mark’s Refuge, lots of sand-slogging and sun beaming effort. Ten miles felt like a hundred. I asked the Torso to go lay down by some of these gators so y’all could get a nice perspective on how big they are. 8-12 feet long, in the 400-600 lb range would be my guess, and that is without any Juancho-fication whatsoever. This is the gate to the heralded Pinhook
River run. You want some goals S’quatch? There’s one for you.
Hope everyone is enjoying the weekend-
Juancho
Looks like good riding, when me and Mrs Fat Lad hit the states next year we’ll have to pop by…
Damn that’s a huge gator. And people thing you’re supposed to be afraid of grizzly bears.
Come one come all.
I’ll put my gator against your grizzly any day!
That gator picture doesn’t even do a big bull gator justice. Damn, bro, you could have crept a bit closer than that. If you’re going to impress the yanks with our primitive fauna, do it right.
The Refuge offers some fine levee riding. Sometimes the first I’ll know of a gator’s presence is when the approach of my bike sends him splashing into the pool. It’s the ones that stay on the bank that worry me.
I’m still waiting for an invite on the legendary Pinhook ride. There’s a goal for Sasquatch. Bring him along, if only as gator bait. The man’s a magnet for the reptiles. UF should hire him to recruit.
As the plotter of the Pinhook ride, I thank you greatly for the legendary status. We’ve only ridden the “real” pinhook ride once, including its three neck-or-deeper Pinhook crossings. (60 miles total- park and return to the Wacissa spring-head- via circumnavigation of the entire Pinhook river….)
Just this past week, Psych-out and I rode the road-bikies down to St. Marks for a couple o beers and some million gnat march festival. Looking across the beers/dock/river, we could see the florida trail marker and its promise of miles of hell going Eastward toward the Pinhook. Mr. Stupid once told us that you can hike/ride that part of the trail, and maybe “yell” across to the Riverside Cafe for a canoe shuttle across. HAHAHAHAHA Oh if it were only so. Maybe we should park a canoe over there….ever paddled with bikes piled in? wan’ta?
Shit son, that is not exactly the ride I envisioned.
The Port Leon loop is very cool!
To leave one car at Poseys Topless Oyster Bar and start the ride from the St. Marks Refuge HQ makes for a great one-way trip. It does take some logistics to ensure you can ferry persons and bikes across the river. I arranged it with the owner/friend of Shields Mariana before but on a weekend afternoon I really do not think it would be hard to flag a ride across the river. Or I know for a fact that a canoe can ferry two people and two bikes across short distances too. Or, it’s a very swimmable segment if you had a canoe sitting on your racks across the way.
The Fla Trail segment that is just across the river from the bars is amazingly remote. A quad map+refuge map+compass come in handy for this ride if you want to successfully navigate to the Port Leon tram from the refuge road AND catch the highlights.
Ride highlights:
– Port Leon fire tower: abandoned fire tower with rickety steps that has great views and three inches of owl poop/rodent bones on its floor. Even though the tower is just off the trail, it is easy to miss unless you know by the quad map that it must be nearby.
– Port Leon: ride the dike across the estuaries right up to the edge of the wakulla river to the deepwater port that was built in 1842 and abandoned in 1848 after a mean hurricane.
– Was after-ride beer at Poseys. Since (Hurricane) Dennis took our icon, now it’s a after-ride beer at the bar next door with the deck over the river in view of the trailhead.
ps. no comments on Zorro’s unmasking?
that’s not me that’s my dad.
Your dad is hot.
Tell me about it!
I think I use to know your dad