I have just come home from another climb in the wintry woods. Actually, I cheated. This was north Florida, the daytime temperatures were in the mid-seventies, the night was too warm for my winter sleeping bag, the mosquitoes were out, and the trees are sending out buds. Very nice!
This was a combination four-day canoe/camping/climbing adventure into an area of serious swampy bottomland southwest of Tallahassee. We started paddling toward Black Creek, continued upstream on Big Owl Creek, paddled on until it became Little Owl Creek, and eventually found ourselves in the middle of the Owl Creek/ Rowlett Creek swamp. A patch of dry land at the edge of the swamp provided a campsite and a more than hundred-foot-tall yellow pine that presented a wonderful overview of the surrounding swamp. The following day we were climbing into a cypress tree directly from our canoe after paddling right up to the base of the tree. Very tricky, but worth the trouble; the views were wonderful and we had the whole swamp to ourselves.
