Little Manatee River State Park

One Saturday while heading down to Tampa, I stopped at Little Manatee River State Park for some hiking. Upon entering the park, the ranger at the entrance helped us get an annual pass for Florida State Parks, something that in the past months has not only paid for itself, we’ve already saved more than twice what we paid for it – $120 for a family and friends pass, though the individual pass is only $60.

We entered the park and parked to walk around. We found the river and a small hiking trail that was only a half mile. The park was supposed to have a six and a half mile trail, but it was on the other side of the river and we could not find a way over there. We passed the canoe launch point a couple times. When we had entered, the park ranger had told us we could rent canoes and the price was pretty good, but we were set on the hiking path. After bushwhacking for a bit, we ditched the park to see if there was an entrance from the main road.

Back on the road we found our way to the hiking trail and parked once more. We made our way into the forest passing a large banana spider on a large web hanging on the sign entering the trail. It was probably a warning for what we would find in the forest. A couple miles in, we found the side trail to the campground and checked it out. Back on the mail trail we soon ran into mud and decided to forge on. Continually through the trail we would find webs in the path and would use sticks to clear them and sometimes their homeowners.

Rain began pouring down and we tried to pick up the pace, but haste led to facefulls of web. During the hike we had been seeing lots of dug-up earth, but hadn’t figured out what had caused it until we found some footprints obviously belonging to wild boars. Shortly thereafter we ran into a boar that got scared and ran off, and moments later a couple more boars that took off running. Nearing the end of the trail, we hit a fork in the road, one path leading to the other side of the trail and one leading directly back to the entrance.

After getting our bearings, I turned around to hike down the path towards the entrance and walked right into a web. I shook it off as quickly as possible, including the spider that had grabbed onto my trekking pole. We continued one and another mile down the road, my friend ran into a web and had a spider land on his shoulder. He whipped around, grabbed the spider, and flung it to the ground in one swift, adrenaline-fueled motion. Another mile down the road and we made it back to the entrance and then to our car. We were soaking wet, muddy, and pretty tired, but it had been a good hike.