Florida Trail wildfires

Lifting up my head from my work on the book to note that wildfires have decmiated the Florida Trail in Seminole State Forest and the Royal Trails area north to Maggie Jones Road. While it’s not known how much of the trail still exists in the Osecola National Forest, the prospects aren’t great - the Bugaboo Fire is the largest wildfire Florida has ever seen and it’s still burning. The trail is closed from Ocean Pond west to Camp Branch west of White Springs, and I’d suggest not going near the whole upper Suwannee Valley for hiking due to the smoke. From the locator maps, I’d venture a guess that the Big Gum Swamp Trail and Fanny Bay Trails have been wiped out, but will wait for official comment on that. Down south, fires in the Big Cypress Swamp are close enough to the Florida Trail to cause smoke inhalation problems. I wouldn’t recommend hiking down there right now.

For official details about the Florida Trail closures, see www.floridatrail.org. Be careful out there!

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Jenkins Trail at Tiger Creek closed

Just discovered that the Jenkins Trail at Tiger Creek Preserve has been closed due to hurricane damage and flooding and a lack of volunteers to maintain it … sorry to hear! If anyone lives near Lake Walk-in-the-Water in Polk County (east of Lake Wales / Frostproof) and wants to assist reopening the trail, contact The Nature Conservancy at (863) 635-7506

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Hiker Alert: Smoke and fire

I’m just back from nearly a week up in the mountains of North Carolina, and returned home to find the Sunshine State under a thick blanket of smoke. Looks like hiking plans for the weekend ought to be scratched. It’s especially bad around Lake City and Gainesville, with visibility extremely poor and ashes falling from the sky even down here in Ocala. See the Florida Trail website for links to various agencies with fire maps, advisories, etc. … meanwhile, I would stay off the trail. I have a book to write, after all, but you have a better excuse!

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On Hiatus (Gone Writing)

As much as I would like to continue adding three hikes a week to the site, I’m severely pressed for free time to complete my current book project. It is due the end of this month and I’ll be putting all my efforts towards it until completion. But once it is out the door, I’ll be back with more!

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A Walk with Angus Gholson

Serendipity touched me again this past weekend as I worked the booth for FTA out at the Blountstown Greenway grand opening. I went to pick up a new trail guide to Apalachicola Bluffs & Ravines Preserve and ended up talking to Leigh Brooks, who lives just up the street from the Gholson Nature Park in Chattahoochee. When I mentioned I planned to stop there and hike on my way home, she said “let me introduce you to Angus!” I met her the next morning and we visited Angus in his Herbarium, the world’s most complete collection of Apalachicola River basin botany, that he’s accumulated and preserved for decades in what used to be a Model T garage. A native of Chattahoochee, Angus and his wife live in the house he grew up in, and he’s spent a lifetime roaming the steepheads and forest slopes along the Apalachicola River in search of botanical wonders. He’s even discovered a few never known of before, so there are some named for him.

We took a walk together at the park, savoring the deep shade and the hundreds of tiny flowers just-past-bloom and in bloom along the steep slopes. It was important to me to pay attention to the botany and to Angus, so I didn’t take my usual trail notes…I’ll return and do that later. Suffice to say for now that this is a park that anyone who loves wildflowers should make sure they don’t miss. In addition to fringed campion (very showy) and woodland pinkroot, we saw green dragon and a milkweed that is endemic to the area. Further expedition with Leigh on a nearby tract let me see lance-leaved trillium and croomia, and she made a point of showing me every little nook and cranny around Chattahoochee where wildflowers could be found. What a fabulous destination for flora!

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