I couldn’t resist adding at least one new hike. I love the Timucuan Trail, I think it’s the best of the nature trails in the National Forests in Florida. If you’re headed to or from the conference (see below), stop at Alexander Springs and check it out. Signing off til next week, since blogging’s not an option from the conference!
I’ve been way too busy this week to get any new hikes up on the site, and here’s why.
The only major get-together of hikers in the state of Florida, the Florida Trail Annual Conference is where you’ll hang out with more than 400 other folks who love to hike and camp. I’m in the thick of prep work for it along with my other Florida Trail fellow staff members. If you love the outdoors, you have a day and a half of workshops, activities, and just plain fun. C’mon out to Umatilla this weekend and have a blast with us! I’ll be signing books on Saturday at noon along with Johnny Molloy and Rich and Sue Freeman, and will help debut a new 1/2 hour documentary that I wrote and assisted on for the past year, “The Florida Trail,” Saturday eve. Hope to see you there! Download a schedule and program and find directions to the site at www.floridatrail.org
I’m surprised I haven’t seen this message in every newspaper and outdoor-related magazine across Florida: outdoor recreation on National Lands just became affordable! In January, the Federal Government started selling a new National Public Lands Pass. It’s designed to replace the mess of passes that one person had to get to visit all the federal public lands - National Parks, National Forests, National Wildlife Refuges, and (not relavant to Florida but to points west) Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Reclamation. For $80 - the same cost as a Florida State Parks pass - you’re covered to hit Everglades National Park, all of the fee areas in the Ocala, Osceola, and Apalachicola National Forests, and all of the many National Wildlife Refuges we have, some of which (like Ding Darling and St. Marks) charge admission. It’s good for a year from purchase. If you’re 62 or older, you can get a lifetime version of the pass for $10. Awesome! Just visiting the springs in the Ocala NF is worth buying this pass, since it costs $4 per person otherwise and the pass is good for a carload. I called last month and checked with the federal agency selling the passes and they told me they are good at all “US Fee Area” sites. Hooray! I’ll be picking up one soon.
I’ve been searching for more than a year for some decent bulletin board / forum software that won’t be hacked every few days, which is what shut down the Florida Trail forum … too difficult to moderate and maintain. However, I’ve discovered an open source bulletin board that integrates with my content management system, so I’m giving it a shot. You can post topics and respond to them. Try it out and let me know what you think!
When I was in White Springs a couple weeks ago, I picked up a brochure at the Nature & Heritage Tourism Center entitled Discover Gainesville’s Natural Treasures. It’s been several years since I last worked on a hiking guide in this area, so I was surprised and delighted to see new parks and natural areas listed, and made this past sunny Sunday a time to try out a few of these new-to-me trails.
Cofrin Nature Park met the “unexpected” criteria by being within a few minutes of the Oaks Mall, with a pleasant stroll through re-establishing forest. Loblolly Woods and the Hogtown Creek Greenway were a flat out surprise. It’s nice to see a government entity sticking with natural surfaces for multi-use traffic, us hikers really appreciate it. But our walk in the woods uncovered beauty spots I never would have imagined so close to the UF campus, and rapids - yes, rapids! - in Hogtown Creek. Small, but noisy. And at Alfred A. Ring Park, the hike along another segment of Hogtown Creek made you feel like you were nowhere near the middle of a large suburban area … with dutchman’s-breeches in bloom, an unexpected find. I give high marks to these gorgeous gems within the city limits - certainly Gainesville’s unexpected treasures!
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