Hike in Hell?

Tate's Hell, that is. Here's the story:

How Tate’s Hell Got Its Name

In 1875, Cebe Tate’s livestock were being killed by a panther. He decided enough was enough and went to hunt down the slayer cat. He headed out into the immense, unknown swamp north of Carrabelle, with his gun in hand. As the story goes, he got disoriented, snake –bit and lost his gun. After seven days of wandering, drinking swamp water and eating whatever he was able to find, he wound up crawling out onto a street in Carrabelle. His brown hair had turned white. When he was asked his name he gasped, “My name is Cebe Tate, and I just came from hell,” just before he died.

Now the area is a state forest, but the name still sticks: Tate's Hell State Forest lies in Franklin and Liberty Counties, and the trail we hiked part of has its eastern trailhead just outside of Carrabelle. We were intrigued by the sign marking the trailhead that we saw on our way to St. George Island and decided to check out the trail this morning.

It turned out to be part of the Great Florida Birding Trail and had the familiar orange blazes, although it is evidently not part of the Florida National Scenic Trail--the one we've hiked a few segments of. That trail runs farther north of here, in the Apalachicola National Forest.

We set out with high hopes that perhaps a high bluff trail would have at least a few vistas of the coastline, but that turned out not to be the case. We hiked through slash pine flatwoods and spotting mainly butterflies and one gem of a dragonfly. We were hoping for a (distant) view of a black bear, since the roadways along here feature many bear crossing signs, but we must have alerted the bears and given them a chance to move out of the way. We did try to keep up some chatter to let critters know we were coming.

Even though we were on a "high bluff" trail, we encountered some wet stretches of trail. For the most part the water was shallow and not too extensive, but then we came to this:

The water was deeper and extended farther up the trail. Besides, we were about ready to turn around and head back to camp. Between the mosquitoes and the heat, we'd had enough hiking for one day.

We've been enjoying the shorebirds, even the sea gulls. Here's one that posed on the pier behind our home this morning.

This evening we walked along the shore, watching the variety of birds and just being soothed by the gentle lapping of the water as the tide receded.
We paid for another day, so we'll be here through tomorrow night. Tomorrow we're planning to walk on Carrabelle Beach and stroll through the town of Carrabelle.