Well this turned out to be more of an adventure than we had planed.

The Rest of the story....

I prepared for the worst and was just barely prepared for reality. 

I packed a backpack with water and food and 2 flashlights, first aid kit, snake bite kit, cooler, rain poncho, 2 Gps's 2 compass's, altimeter/compass watch, hooded sweatshirt. 3 pair of gloves, Hats, 2 small air horns, Cell phone, 2 vhf transceivers, sunglasses, reading glasses, Camera, 2 hand towels, bug wipes and enough back up batteries to make three complete changes if necessary. 

It started off like this.

In the beginning there were five of us.  Kim McCourt, Jeff Thompson, Patrick Layton, Jodi Fisher and Jerrod Huntdrige.  We entered the woods about 1.5 miles from our target, (the mystery house) at 11:30  in the morning on Sunday.  At first we found a hunters trail where someone had run ATV's in and out to a deer stand about a half mile back into the woods.  so the first 30 minutes were fairly easy and went by quick.  Once we got to the deer stand I made a mark in the GPS so we would have a point to return to.  At the end of the hunters trail things got real bad real fast.  No longer did we have a trail of any kind and the ground got real swampy real fast.  The brush and weeds were over our heads and fallen trees were everywhere.  We began to climb on the fallen trees and use them as a path.  Unfortunately when you came to the end of the tree you were jumping off the end and sinking over your head in the brush.  Using the GPS to navigate we knew we were making progress but had no idea of where we were.

Things began to get real tough.  Using machetes to cut our way and make a path we wandered left and right, up and down sometimes you could look down alongside the fallen tree you were walking on and see that you were a good 10 feet in the air and there was nothing but swamp below.

At this point we were a little less than a mile from the house and had no trail to follow at all.  We were literally hacking our way thru the swamp and forest.  I will be the first to admit that hiking like that with a back pack is tough stuff.  The pack on my back threw off my balance horrible and I fell many times.  All of us did.  The brush was so thick that you would fall on the average once for about every 20 to 30 feet you went.  The area was filled with water holes and soft swamp muck so when you fell it did not hurt but the effort of getting up each time began to take its toll.  Sometimes when you fell you found a cypress root.  Cypress roots grow up out of the ground and look like the end of a loaf of French bread.  They come to a rounded point on top.  I have several nasty bruises on my ribs from them.  I learned very quick that when I knew I was falling to spin around so I landed on my back where the backpack would provide some protection.

We were all sweating our butts off.  This was hard work and real tough going.  We were all drinking our water real fast and were soon out except for a small amount that Kim and I had stashed away.  We gave away about two bottles each to the other guys who had no idea of what they were getting into.  Little did we know how precious the water we gave away was.

About 1pm we took a break.  Stopped to catch our breath.  We were only about a half mile into the woods and already everyone was exhausted.  We were mostly out of water and Patrick was hurt.  He could not catch his breath.  We would find out later that, on one of, the many falls he caught a cypress knuckle right in the ribs and had bruised his ribcage making it very difficult for him to breath.  At that point he did not want to continue so we gave him our remaining water.  A VHF radio, machete, compass, air horn, and my spare GPS with the waypoints to get out.

Now there were only 4 of us going on.  We kept in touch with Patrick on the radio to see how he was doing.  Even thou Patrick was only .453 of a mile from were we had entered the forest it was 1:30 in the afternoon.  It had taken us over 2 hours to go less than on half a mile in.  It only took about 30 minutes more before both Jodi and Jarrod decided that they were turning back. 

I kept telling them we only have a half mile to go.  I had been telling them that for the last 40 minutes so they were a little fed up with that.  I called Patrick on the radio and told him that two were heading back his way and to wait for them  We gave them our spare compass and a heading to follow to get to Patrick.  I radioed Patrick and had him use the air horn to see if we could hear him.  In reality in the 30 minutes since we had left him we had only gone another 250 feet.  That's right only 250 feet!  We could hear the air horn just fine.  So now it is just Kim and I.  We are down to one radio, one GPS, one Compass and my altimeter watch for navigation and very little water.

Now there are just 2

So now it was just Kim and I.  On a mission.  We were going to find this house no matter what.  We were still filled with more than half of our original level of Stupid Fluid.  We were both realizing real fast that this was more of a mission than either of us had really bargained for.

It took Jodi, Jerrod, and Patrick until 3:30 in the afternoon to get back out of the woods and even with the GPS and radio they had to call the support crew (my mom and dad) to have them honk the van horn to let them know they were on the right track.  They never did find the original ATV track that we had come in on in the first place.  4 hours in the woods and they had traveled less than a mile.  A record that Kim and I would shatter before it was all said and done.  Once the three musketeers reached the clearing my mother was there with ham sandwiches and water and soft drinks to ease there sore soles.

As Kim and I continued on the terrain got even worse.  More down trees and even thicker brush.  To make matters worse we were running out of daylight and the ground around us was getting real soft and swampy.

Every chance we could we tried to find fallen trees.  It was simply the only way to make any progress.  The ground had become so soft that you would sink up to your knee and your boots would fill with the muck and swamp water making your feet feel like you were wearing lead boots. 

We were constantly climbing up the roots of trees to get  up on the top and then doing a balancing act to walk to the end of the tree and hope we could find another to jump over to so we did not have to climb back down.  Now many times we would look down alongside the tree we were on and see that we were 12 to 15 feet in the air. The vines around our feet would constantly trip us up and many times you would take a horrible fall on your chest trying desperately not to fall off the tree. The progress was painfully slow.  We were averaging only about a tenth of a mile per hour.  That is only 500 feet an hour and we were happy about that because we thought that was great speed.

We were showing that we only had about three tenths of a mile to go but that meant that we were still about 2 hours away from the target and we only had 2.5 hours of sunlight left.  It was too late for us to turn back and we figured when we found the house we would have shelter for the night and there had to be a trail out.  Worse case is that we would stay at the house overnight and then walk out in the morning so onward we went.  I had prepared for an overnight just in case.  I had packed extra clothes and a poncho for added warmth as well as a couple of hand towels we could use to cover our face or create a makeshift pillow.  At this point our only salvation would be to find the house.

It was getting late and the concerns were growing about this whole mission.  I knew we needed to find this house soon before it got dark.  Being out in the swamps after dark without shelter was not what either of us wanted to face.  Worse yet we were getting real tired real fast since the effort of constantly climbing and crawling was horribly exhausting.  We were both drenched with sweat and covered in swamp muck and our shoes were filled with water.  I can not describe how miserable we were.

Kim offered to carry the back pack for a while and bless his heart I needed a break.  The pack weighed about 30 pounds and I know that does not sound like a very heavy bag but let me tell you in those conditions I might as well had a small child on my back.  The pack threw off my balance terribly and the extra weight seemed to get heavier and heavier as time went on.  After about an hour of toting the pack Kim gave it back and said I am real sorry but I cant carry that any longer.  That was ok because the break from carrying it did help me greatly.

We kept going and new we were getting close.  I was listing off the distances as we went by the hundredth of a mile.  Yes we were actually impressed with each 50 feet of progress we were making.  By this point we were traveling about 250 feet an hour.  By around 6:30 in the evening with sun setting we were on top of where the GPS said the house should be.  NOTHING!  We could not find the house!  Both Kim and I found palm trees we could climb up to see if we might be able to spot the house.  The GPS showed that we were right on top of it and had to be close by.  NOTHING!  We spent the next hour and a half going in two great big circles to try to spot the house.  Several times we thought we saw something that might be the side of a house but it never was.  We were totally wiped out and had no shelter.  We had about 30 minutes of daylight left, out of water, and stuck in the swamp.

So..  Now what? 

We talked over the options.  We did not want to go back the way we came because we knew how hard that was and it had taken us almost 8 hours to cover that 1.2 mile span.  There had to be a shorter way out.  I got on the radio and called my father.  I gave him the coordinates of where we were and asked him to drive around and find a spot that might be closer to our location.  At this point the mission took on a whole new aura.  How can we survive and get out? 

We went into survival mode.  Radio was turned off to conserve the batteries and we only made contact with the outside world on the hour and on the half hour.  At that point we should have turned off the cell phones as well.  Soon I was getting calls from several friends asking if we were ok.  It was very nice to get the concerned calls but we were using up the cell phone power in a hurry.  Power that we would desperately need later on.

At this point it is about 8pm.  Completely dark, starting to get cold. We were thirsty, hungry, beat up, dirty, wet and the bugs were swarming like you have never seen.  Fortunately I had packed bug wipes.  We used a bunch of them over and over to try to keep away the bugs.  I even figured out that you could stick the bug wipe cloth on the back of your hat where the Velcro was for added protection.  Kim had a liter bottle of frozen water in his pack.  A bottle that he did not let anyone know he had.  There is no doubt in my mind, that bottle was worth its weight in gold at this point.  That was the only water we had.  Fortunately it was frozen and we were only able to get small dribbles from it as it thawed.  This would at least force us to stretch out the consumption of it for a few more hour's.

At 8:30 on our radio check in my father radioed that he had found a spot that was only .83 of a mile from our position.  He gave me the coordinates and we plugged them in and it was on a heading of 065 degrees.  So that is the way we headed.  Little did we know at this point the terrain was going to get much much worse.  We traveled on for FOUR more hours!  By this point we were beginning to show signs of serious dehydration.  Leg back and arm cramps began to hit both of us.  We were still in contact with mom and dad over the radio and letting them know we were ok and still heading toward them but by around 10pm we were out of gas.  Not only had the dehydration become serious but we were all out of stupid fluid!  We needed help.  My brother Jon had been on the phone with the sheriff a couple of times exploring our options for rescue.  By midnight it was no longer a debate.  We needed help.  The Osceola sheriffs department showed up in force.  They made contact with Mom and Dad and Brother Jon and started to hatch a plan of what to do.

Kim and I found a spot where several trees had fallen and created sort of a cubby hole in the forest.  I decided that it was way past time for us to have something to eat.  I got in my back pack and pulled out a can of diet Pepsi (cold!!) and half a public's sub sandwich.  We were both excited  to have something to drink and eat!  I had brought along a 12 inch sub but we just took one half and cut that in half for each of us.  The Pepsi was great but we could not eat the sub.  We had become so dehydrated that our mouths could not produce enough saliva to digest the sandwich.  We chewed and chewed and all you could feel is the texture of the sandwich.  No taste, no nothing.  I ended up throwing away half of my quarter of the sandwich.  We are in big trouble.  Then we both get phone calls.  Kim is talking to the sheriff.  The sheriff that Kim is talking to is also talking to the helicopter that is on its way.  He is telling Kim that we need to keep moving and head north from our position.  I am talking to a lieutenant who is with my parents and he is telling me to stay put.  Don't you know Kim and I had a great conversation of what to do after we each respectively hung up. 

We needed to rest.  The cramps were getting bad enough and that was a serious sign of our poor and deteriorating condition.  We needed to sit still for a while and stop the fluid loss from our sweating.  I told Kim just to pull up a log and sit still.  I was over dressed.  I had a tank top and a polo shirt and a hooded sweatshirt on.  I had been sweating up a storm for hours.  Kim was dressed much lighter than I an soon became very cold.  Fortunately I had a rain poncho in my back pack and gave it to him and told him to put it on and cover up here next to me and get warm.  That did the trick. 

A few minutes went by and we heard a helicopter in the distance an we were both excited to see when the spotlight from the chopper was searching the forest obviously looking for us.  The helicopter found us in less than 5 minutes, no doubt since my father had provided them with GPS coordinates on exactly where we were.  At one time the sheriff who had been talking to Kim said that the chopper pilot said your only a half mile back! As if that was not that big a deal.  Kim and I both laughed and said "Hell only a half mile, that's only another 4 hours".  The sheriff's department had also brought our their AG unit.  These are guys who are good ole boys and know the terrain and all of the poacher spots.  They knew of some trails that came in from the north and came about a quarter of a mile back in the woods.  We were told to go north at this point so we left our little cubby hole and started to go north. 

At our next radio check in we told them that we desperately needed water.  They told us to keep going and that in a few minutes when the helicopter had to go refuel they would get them to drop us some water.  About 30 minutes later the helicopter returned and hovered in low over our heads and dropped a pillow case with 8 bottles of water and a flashlight.  Bless their hearts the chopper pilot did not want to take a chance of hurting us when they dropped the package to us so they dropped it about 150 feet away from us.  Little did they know that it would be a good 20 minutes before we could get to the package.  Yes it was taking us about 20 to 30 minutes to go as little as 150 feet!  By the time we got to the water we found only 4 bottles left.  4 of the 8 bottles had broken on impact and in the time it took us to get to them the broken ones had completely drained themselves.  This meant that Kim and I had only two bottles each.  We each downed our first bottle right there on the spot.  Kim looked at me and said OMG your steaming!  My body was so dry and overheated that I instantly began to put off a sort of steam when the water go into my system.  We went on for a bit then we needed a rest.  We found a tree that was up out of the swamp about 6 feet where we could sit and rest a short while.  Kim pulled a can of Corn Beef Hash out of his nap sack!  Who brings a can of corn beef hash???  Never the less we opened it and each had a couple of spoonfuls with a little bit of our last bottle of water. 

Now it was time to continue our track.  We had been real confused by the direction of the helicopter and where we should be going.  We were constantly checking our heading with the GPS and using our compass to get a bearing.  We had several times when we simply could not figure out where north was and even got to a point where we no longer believed our compass.  This I am sure was a combination of our physical situation and the combined effect of the swamp at night.  You simply could not go in any direction for a straight line.  We would sit and carefully look at all of our navigation tools and choose a landmark, a tree or something we could see in the distance and then try to hack our way to it.  We had gotten confused several times by the helicopter.  We did not realize that he was trying to light up our path for us by hovering back behind us and lighting up the way forward.  We thought he was trying to show us where to go so several times we did small circles.  We finally got word to the pilot to use the light to point where they wanted us to go!

After a couple more hours we were out of water again but knew we had to be getting close.  The AG unit was out there somewhere and the area that the helicopter was lighting up was getting closer and closer.  I did not have GPS coordinates for where we were supposed to go but we were at this point just going where the helicopter was lighting up.  We heard a gun go off.  It was behind us.  Once again we had gotten ourselves turned around and headed off in the direction of the gun shot.  After a while we could actually hear voices.  We used the other air horn to signal that we could hear them and they started to shout back at us.  We were within shouting range but it would still take over an hour to get to them. 

Finally we could see a flashlight, they were shining it up into the trees to show us where they were.  We only had about 200 feet to go.  They kept yelling at us to keep coming.  We at that time did not know that they were standing still waiting for us to get to them so we kept yelling back stay put were coming to you!  At one time one of the officers yelled out, "Are you ok"?  We said we are fine and we are making our way to you as fast as we can.  They yelled back, "What do you need",  We said "WATER"!!  They replied "WE HAVE WATER FOR YOU",  What else do you need?  I responded "We are running real low on Stupid Fluid. We started the day full, but are nearly out now".

As we finally got close enough to the Sheriffs officers to actually see faces we found ourselves on the back side of a HUGE downed cypress tree.  We then figured out why the officers had not come any further.  We looked at the options and then headed down under the torn up roots of tree into the green muck we had come to know so well.  The officer yelled out "WAIT!  you're not going under there are you??  We yelled back "Awe Hell that's nothing.." and into and thru the muck we went. 

As promised the sheriff had water for us and then we headed down the trail to where they had parked their ATV's  I heard one of the officers say were still a long ways back guys.  Are you ok to walk..  I thought to myself, " WALK".. all night we have crawled, we have balanced, we have climbed, we have fallen, we have cut things, done circles, fallen some more,  WALK?!?!  Ur kidding right??  I would love to WALK. We walked about 200 feet along hog trails in the woods to where the ATVs were then hopped on the back while the three officers drove Kim and I out to where they had two ambulances (One Each) waiting for us.

Two EMT's came directly over to Kim and I to check us out.  We each told them that we were fine and refused treatment.  They asked if we were sure and we assured them that other that some small cuts and bruises we were fine.  The only thing that we did not have enough of was water.  We have water now and we are fine other than being completely out of stupid fluid at that point.  The sheriffs department put Kim and I into the back of a squad car and drove us the last few blocks over to a near by church where my mother an father and brother Jon were waiting with 9 other squad cars!  Guess we were the only hot item in the area since I think we had every patrol car in the north part of the county there.

I know I can speak for Kim when I say THANK YOU to all of the people who participated in our little adventure.  We had more on our hands than we had prepared for.  The water drop from the helicopter was a god send and the house is still a mystery. 

Thank you to all of the sheriffs department.  Sorry we had to drag you all out to save our silly little butts. 

Can we borrow your ATV's?  How bout letting us have that helicopter for a couple of hours?  Or....maybe you sheriff guys would want to join us on the next trip..  MMMMM????????

Cause....  We still got to find that house......

Congratulations Kim McCourt!

After several weekend trips into the forest and using garbage bags to mark his trail.  Using a new GPS mark on the house Kim was able to get into the house.  It took several hours even with the trail marked and still was able to only spend a few minutes in  the house before he had to leave.  Daylight was his enemy and Kim had even set an alarm in his phone to make sure he was on his way out in time.  I know first hand how much he would not want to spend the night in the swamp again!   On his way in he found and traveled across some of the same area we had crossed on our trip over a year ago.  His best guess using the old GPS mark and the new GPS mark that we were indeed less than 90 feet from the house on our first attempt and just turned to our right too soon.  Even on this SUCCESSFUL trip Kim said that you could be as little as 20 feet away from the house and it would simply vanish into the swamp.  Surprised at what he found, Beds and sink, Shoes, table, chair, generator and tools, a makeshift well and even a refrigerator!  Someone intended to live here at some time so the mystery of the house still continues,  Who built it, Why, When, and Where did they go?  I will try to load the video on here soon.