Jones Cut provides a meander into the heart of the maritime forest that carpets Big Talbot Island, but it’s not the easiest trail to find. It lets you explore the heart of a dense maritime forest which was once home to the Timucua. The trail follows a broad old forest road through a mature forest with tall red bay trees, southern magnolia, and live oaks.
Resources
Overview
Location: Big Talbot Island
Length: 1.5 miles
Lat-Long: 30.477632, -81.439550
Type: round-trip
Fees / Permits: state park entrance fee
Difficulty: easy to moderate
Bug factor: moderate
Restroom: Yes
Directions
To get to Big Talbot Island State Park from Jacksonville, follow A1A north past the Mayport Ferry and out to Little Talbot Island. Pass the Little Talbot Island State Park entrance and continue north 2.2 miles to Jones Cut, on the left. Look for a place to pull off. It’s also 0.9 mile south of Blackrock Beach.
Hike
To start your hike, step over the cable gate and past a sign prohibiting the digging of artifacts. The trail follows an old jeep road in the shade of live oaks and red bay trees. At the T intersection beneath a large magnolia, turn right and pass a stand of slash pines.
Flanked by saw palmetto, the trail narrows and becomes indistinct as it comes up to Jones Cut, a ditch filled with woods ferns and pickerelweed. It narrows and follows the ditch for a while until it ends after about 0.7 mile. Turn around and follow it back, making sure you make the left turn onto the jeep trail just past the stand of pines. It’s a 1.5-mile shady round-trip.
Trail Map
This trail has not been cared for in a long time. Weeds are knee high with many dead branches. Does anyone know who is responsible for up keep?
That would be Big Talbot Island State Park. Their volunteer organization is called the Friends of Talbot Islands State Parks and they have regular meetings in the Jacksonville area. It would be good to bring this to their attention. Our experience has been that often an eager staff member or volunteer creates a trail, but if no one maintains it, the trail vanishes, as undergrowth in Florida grows so quickly.
Thank you. Could you post their next meeting?
Here’s their website. They don’t have the next meeting scheduled yet so check back on their Events page in January to see when. Last one was Dec 11. https://www.talbotislands.com/
Ticks, ticks, ticks. Pulled a total of 15 off my family and I 🙁