June 7 is National Trails Day, and I encourage you to get out and TAKE A HIKE! If you live in Central Florida, consider joining in the celebration at Whispering Pines Park in Inverness to enjoy a new segment of the Florida Trail and to honor Inverness as a Florida Trail Gateway Community. Festivities start at 9 AM. For information and directions, see www.floridatrail.org
As I was in White Springs this weekend to provide an orientation to volunteers who’ll be leading the hikes at the first-ever Florida Hiking Festival in March, I had a chance to do a couple short hikes with folks who’ll be helping out. This morning, it was Big Shoals, and with the Suwannee River roaring with fresh rainfall over the region these past few days, the shoals were the best I’ve seen yet (and noisy!). It was a nice out-and-back walk on the yellow-blazed Trailwalker trail; we’d hoped to do the loop using the blue-blazed trail but it’s closed due to logging. This is Florida’s ONLY Class III whitewater, and it was in rare form this morn - perhaps even Class IV in places. This shot is from a bend along the trail, looking ahead at the whitewater to come. Learn more about the trail here…
When winter’s chill wraps itself around the Florida peninsula, you know that hiking season has settled in, in earnest. Last night the temperatures dropped well below freezing throughout Central Florida, which can only mean one thing: ding, dong the bugs are dead! No chiggers, no ticks, and none too many mosquitoes, either. I encourage you to get out and hike: the weather’s great!
I did this past weekend, having difficulty carving out time between holiday visits with family and friends and the multitude of writing projects on my plate at the moment. My friend Phyllis (aka Shortcut) started a Florida Trail thru-hike a couple years ago that got cut short, and I still have FT sections to fill. So we spent the holiday weekend filling in gaps for her and I: Gold Head Branch State Park and part of Etoniah Creek State Forest, with enough roadwalk inbetween to remind me how much I hate roadwalks and am willing to wait them out, since it seems silly to do them when you’re not backpacking. The weather was dicey, overcast the whole time, but I had the chance to take plenty of photos and try out my new digital recorder, so there will be a podcast or two in the future, soon as I find the time to mix ‘em. We saw plenty of deer and plenty of sinkholes, and in Gold Head, lots of fellow hikers. Hooray! So get out there and enjoy while the weather’s chill and you can knock out the miles on a section hike of the Florida Trail.
I’ve transcribed my written journal to the website this week and tied it all up in one package as the November 2007 edition of the Florida Hikes! online magazine … take a look and let me know what you think by leaving a comment here.
I can assure you one thing: hiking around Lake Okeechobee is never boring. This year’s journey included unusual bird sightings, fabulous morning mists, a string of offbeat hikes planned at the last minute - including walks by moonlight - a trip to the movies in Clewiston to see Beowulf at a classic 1920s theater, and the best weather I’ve ever enjoyed on the Big O Hike.
There’s nothing quite so refreshing as unplugging for more than a week … until you return to 500+ emails to deal with. I’ve been enjoying the cool breezes and sweeping views of the Big O Hike this past Thanksgiving week, and although I didn’t walk every step around Lake Okeechobee, I took prime advantage of hiking at dawn to capture some awesome sights (which I still need to catalog).
I thought about blogging from the trail, but I truly wanted to be computer-free. So as I have the time, I’ll assemble a little walking tour of the entire Florida Trail around Lake Okeechobee, leaning on my daily journal and photos, and post it on the main site. Meanwhile, congrats to all who finished, including Cliff Moody, who set the bar at age 90 as the oldest hiker ever to walk around the lake!
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