Out on the trail, hiker Gretchen Matt is known as “Dirty Bowl.”
It’s a long-standing tradition among serious hikers to adopt a nickname. (Matt’s harkens back to her days as an Outward Bound instructor who was lackadaisical about cleanliness.) And Matt is a serious hiker. In her 28 years she has completed two of the most intimidating and respected hikes in the U.S. — the Appalachian Trail (2,190 miles) and the Pacific Crest Trail (2,659 miles). In January 2017, she decided to attempt the lesser known Florida Trail — one of the country’s 11 designated National Scenic Trails.
Florida’s tropical climate makes the 1,100-mile trail one of the ideal winter thru-hikes and the biodiversity the route offers as it snakes through the heart of Florida and around the panhandle is unrivaled.
But the Florida Trail can push a hiker’s endurance and nerves to her limits. Those 1,100 miles rely heavily on painfully long stretches of road walking — taking hikers through busy towns and along car-packed two-way roads. And if hikers go south to north, which is recommended, they start with the toughest piece of trail — nearly 40 miles of waist-deep, alligator-populated bog known as Big Cypress Swamp.
But Matt was up for the challenge. She would give herself 40 days. She booked a flight from her home in Spokane, Washington, and used an online hiker forum to get a ride from the Miami airport to the trail’s southern starting point. She would be hiking alone.
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I am Jeff Clark, founder of Internet Brothers, producer of this blog, and passionate about hiking. I live in Western NC near the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests are just out my door, so the content will focus on these areas, but let me know what you would like to see on the site. 
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