After assembling a hammock set up I looked for a fairly local (to me) Florida location, one that I had not visited before, to try out my Ridge Runner Hammock setup and settled on the Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park about two hours south of me.
Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park is in South-East Central Florida an area of cattle ranches, pine forests, vegetable farming and some citrus. It is a 54,000 acre mostly flat preserve on the east side of the Kissimmee River. Probably 60 miles in a straight line SSE of Disney but around 110 miles by road, somewhat remote. For the final stretch to get to the State Park you drive 18 miles west from US 441 on a secondary paved road followed by 5 miles of hard-park dirt road. There is a camping fee for the primitive area, $ 6.50/per camper paid at the office and a maximum 3 people per site, call ahead for reservations. I was P-1 for the primitive area which looked as if it hadn’t been used for a week or more.
The Primitive Camping area is in a mixed wood hammock, Oaks and Cabbage Palms, a little over 2 miles from the main office. There are 3 campsites with a picnic table and fire ring at each. One site has a shelter roof but I didn't use it as it was being homesteaded by Bumble bees. There is NO local water at the primitive site, I packed in 3 liters and used 2 & 1/2.
The trail out is 2+ miles on an obvious dirt track, it took me a very leisurely 1 hour 45 minutes out, 1 hour 30 minutes back. Being as it was late in the year for Florida hiking I kept an eye on the temperature - 94 F in the sun mid-afternoon (and melted the chocolate in my trail mix), 54 - 57 F in the early morning.
The mosquitoes came out at 8:30 pm and stayed around till 9:00 following morning. The early morning temperature drop did not deter them at all. The netting on the Ridge Runner did.
No sightings of Bigfoot - probably repelled by the rusty saw that camps with me nightly. Wished that would work for mosquitoes.
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