FL>Sept 27-29, 2019 Hidden Pond>8th Annual Summer's Last Gasp Hang trip report

**Floridahanger** · 09-29-2019, 21:11

Another awesome time in the Florida woods.

The night temps were more of Autumn than Summer for a change. Even several days were cool with the cloud cover and consistent breeze.

More coming with pics.

**Floridahanger** · 09-30-2019, 15:39

I must say, 2 times now I've hiked out in the evening/night to Hidden Pond in Ocala. The temps in July and now at the end of September were nice with a smidgen of cool.

Glad to see that greyhound had already started a fire since the last time I was there, firewood was hard to come by. So I quickly just strung up the tarp and hung the hammock. Got my food bag out of my pack and proceeded to the fire to throw my steak/carrots foil pack on the fire to cook.

It's so great to go out Thursday night instead of Friday morning because the temps just continue to fall instead of rise from a morning hike in. That evening was slightly warm but the overnight was a cool 69* with a slight breeze. The worst part was that I had a headache since Tuesday and when I first got to camp, I only hung the hammock and left the UQ in my pack. With a headache going and cool temps, I didn't sleep very well until around 5am when getting CBS was worse than my headache. After I deployed the quilts, all was better.

Friday had good temps in upper 80's in the shade and low 90's for those hiking in. Luckily there was a nice breeze with occasional cloud cover. After a few others came in, we were in between 2 ponds in a small Pine stand of trees. While there I saw a huge Buck on the other side of pond 3. In less than 10 minutes I saw a small gator starting to cross to pond 2. We were in the way and he went around us stopping at each bush to rest a few minutes. Then we found 3 large webs with Golden Orb Spiders(banana spiders). A little later the Love Bugs started to swarm. In the late afternoon, we hiked out about 20 min to a dry lake field and watched the fireflies wake up and take flight to give us a lightshow. On the way to the prairie, we saw a corn snake and some of the many walking stick bugs on the trail. There were plenty of animals to see this day. That night with a few more hangers the fire was a little bigger and more steak was cooked by the new hangers.

Night temps hit a low of 67*. Snuggled in my quilts, I slept until around 8am, snoozed until 9am, blinked and finally getting out of my hammy at 10:08am when it started getting a little warm. By this time, some hangers had already left after a night in the woods and some on small hikes. With the day becoming mostly cloudy and breezy, it was great for hikes, but also to lollygag in camp. Getting water from the pond to filter and wash dishes was a little challenging with the gator keeping an eye on us and swimming within 20 feet of us. He must not have liked the middle pond(smallest of all three) and came back to this one that's probably spring fed or at a minimum, seep fed. Before dishes were done and collecting more water for filters, the small(about 4ft) gator was within 5ft. Luckily we were done and back to camp. That night was the coolest evening and the largest fire of the weekend.

Sunday morning I set my alarm for 5:45am to get an early start home. Before first light, the temp showed 66* as I continued to pack up. With the Sun approaching the horizon, I set out and had the coldest hike out of Hidden Pond. Just before I left, it started drizzling over us and I could hear it louder towards the trail. Sure enough the hike out was semi-cloudy and cool, but it was very wet. Glad I put my pack cover on. A quick 45min hike to my car, a change to dry clothes and my 3 night weekend hang was over.

Great memories for this one with wonderful hangers. I just need to remember to take group pictures for posterity. Pics coming after I get Gravey to teach me what I don't know. Others were taking pics and video so hopefully they will be up soon.

Thanks all for coming out to Summer's Last Gasp Hang.

**greyhound352** · 09-30-2019, 18:14

Well at I hit the trail at 2:40 PM and began my solo hike to Hidden Pond in the Ocala National Forest. Not sure of the trail, the directions said head East for two miles until you hit the Florida Trail and then South for half a mile to the destination. Sounds simple so I set off on an easterly direction until the trail just disappeared, walked to the right no trail and then the left and there it was so continued on. I really appreciate the previous hiker marking the trail with bear scat droppings it was easy to follow. My journey was joined by numerous pairs of Florida Scrub Jays, I have not seen these birds before and they sang and chirped along as I hike down the trail.

Filtered some water from the pond as it was hot on the hike in and then setup camp. I was expecting Florida Hanger & Gravey to arrive that evening but the site was wipe cleaned up firewood and didn't look like previous pictures from hangs at the pond. So I start scouting out the area and found the regular site behind the pond. Plenty of wood was available so I started stockpiling wood near the fire area. The guys showed up later than I expected so I helped out where I could.

The next morning the guys showed me around the pond and spoke of the history of previous hangs. More folks trickled in throughout the day and I enjoyed meeting more of the Florida hangers. After it cooled off a little in the afternoon I went for a hike South of the campsite to explore more of this diverse preserve.

The next day was a longer hiking day, the morning hike was a total of 4 hours and covered a little over 9 miles. On this hike I was able to see a coach whip snake, lots of Florida Scrub Jays, a bald eagle, and tracks from raccoons and bears. Florida hanger was telling me about the sink hole, cemetery, and other remnants of the homestead from the 1800's.

I really enjoyed the hang and meeting a bunch of the Florida hangers on this trip.
Here are pics.

**Floridahanger** · 10-02-2019, 13:43

So we had a little visitor stroll through camp on his way to another pond
IMG_20190927_140846409.jpg IMG_20190927_140828441.jpg IMG_20190927_141325823.jpg

There where at least 4 webs belonging to Golden Orb Spiders(banana spiders)
IMG_20190927_141426201.jpg IMG_20190927_141453255.jpg

On our way to see the fireflies, we ran across a few other critters
IMG_20190927_192931875.jpg IMG_20190927_192939628.jpg

The evening was beautiful and perfect to see the lightshow
IMG_20190927_193449690.jpg

Unfortunately the fireflies couldn't be captured on my phone.