The following is a story from a bike trip I took in 2011 from Charlottesville, VA to Clearwater Beach, FL.  I typed this out at a Pizza Hut the day after it happened on my Blackberry, so forgive any shorthand/text lingo. 

I’m camping out behind a church just west of Delco, North Carolina (Adventist–near the intersection of 11 and 74/76)

I’m restless and its past midnight so decide on a night ride.

After packing up camp, I strap my headlamp on and get moving. Mapquested directions send me on this country roads ‘shortcut’ just south of Delco.  This is nothing new.  The bike directions I printed off keep me from as many major roads as possible.

I ride until I come upon what I perceive to be a gravel road, again it had happened before.  I’d traveled 10-20 miles of gravel road  on my road bike by this time.

I pull out my map again to make sure of my location and am about to head in when a pickup truck pulls up behind me? I wave it on, but it sits there a little too long, lights on me. It pulls beside me slowly, my hand moves to my hip, close to my knife.  A good ole boy with a big grin. Where you going?  Tampa. Tampa on a bike? Yes. You ain’t going through there are you? Yes.

Then he explains that I’m sitting on the edge of one of the largest swamps in North Carolina — The Green Swamp. 17,000 acres with no lights, no street signs, unpaved roads, and wildlife. He says people go missing in there every year because they get lost–a surveyor last year who had a map.

Being a practical man I’m about to turn around when he offers me a ride to ‘the intersection’, apparently a main road in the swamp that will be easy to get to where I’m going, just a 3 mile straight shot once there to the other side of the swamp so I can hit road 211. I’m hesitant, but I agree.  Who knows how many bodies this guy has hidden out here in the swamp.

I load up my gear in the back of his pickup, put my knife under my bike glove, and hop in the cab.

I learn I’m riding with (no joke) “Wild” Willy, who is a swamp logger “just like on the Discovery Channel, but we wear tennis shoes”. Excited to hear about his life and he excited to hear about mine, we end up getting along quickly. 10 minutes into our swamp ride I’m smoking one of his cigarettes, taking swigs from his Crown Royal half gallon bottle when he stops talking and points to the road.

A  snake, red and black, is sitting to the left. He says ‘watch this’ and with a nice, distinct crunch we run over it. ‘Wehehoo! You see that?!,” He yells.

I couldn’t be happier with this experience.

Further into the swamp I see ahead…pairs of headlights. I’m distrustful of Willy again, wondering where he is really taking me. I ask if this is his house and he tells me it’s ‘the intersection’, that there’s just a bunch of other rednecks out here drinking.

We pull up to 20 other people, just as country, mostly loggers young/old and their wives/girlfriends. They’re drinking, playing music, hanging out. This is their spot. Willy gets out to yell to them all, “look what I found.” And suddenly I’m Buzz Lightyear surrounded by the little green aliens in Toy Story. For the next hour I’m drinking beers answering questions about my trip. Everyone calls me Lance. One girl asked if I shop at baby gap (bike shorts). Really I’m just waiting for someone to offer to take me the rest of the way out of the swamp to the highway.

The offer never comes and eventually people start to dwindle. It seems no one lives in that direction and am told to be careful if I run across any people.  Willy points me down the western road of the intersection to get out, but not before giving me a pep talk. “Just 3 miles that way. There are gators, snakes, and lynx in this swamp. Ride and don’t stop and you’ll be ok.”

So I hop on my bike and truly realize for the first time that this road is not gravel, but sand. I don’t know if you’ve ever ridden a road bike on sand before–its damn difficult. I nearly get the hang of it, riding in the tire marks that have driven through before me. Headlamp on, my mind is focused only on my path. I’m moving very slowly, tires slipping in the sand, stumbling from time to time because I’m a little drunk by now.  I prepare myself for what’s going to be a tough 3 miles. Determined though, I get a nice pace going.

Before I know it I’m too confident and begin looking around at the scenery while I ride. The moon is the only light source and it illuminates all my surroundings.  The noise of the swamp reaches a momentum and a cadence that I’m not used to in the Midwest.  There are different animals here.  I can hear them.

Too much sand pulls my attention back to the path and I see my snake. Its two feet long, again red and black, sitting directly on my tire path, its head at two o’clock, tail at eight. I stop, against Willy’s advice and attempt to scare the snake–yelling at it.  It turns its body perpendicular to me, fixated on my head lamp–might as well be staring me directly in the eyes. I am a bit terrified. Snakes in swamps aren’t my thing.

Unsure of what to do, I click my headlight off, figuring it’s whats keeping the snakes attention. Nothing happens. I begin to move backwards and hear it start to slither. Headlight on again I see its moved away to the right, but frozen again in the light. I put my bike between us, pick up some sand and turn the light off again. I throw the sand to where I think its tail is and hear it rustle. Lamp on, I see nothing.

It has moved from the road.

I get on my bike. Right foot mounted on the pedal pushing down with all my force–I’m pumped with adrenaline. But I end up pushing so hard that my back wheel just spins in the sand and I fall right off my bike–face in the sand.

Certain of my death, I get up, scrambling, running my bike down the road.

I get on again–still stumbly–never really getting the hang of it exactly–but I never take my eyes from my path again. Adrenaline took me through the night, some 50 more miles, before I decided to sleep on a park bench at a rest stop near the border of South Carolina.

I felt like shit all the next day.

July 2011–Green Swamp, North Carolina