Florida Hikes
Hike Bike Paddle Camp Florida with authors Sandra Friend and John Keatley as your guides
Information on special events and recaps of events we’ve attended
With two hikes behind us, we drove toward west to join the Panhandle Trace Hike. Knowing that after ten years of leading this event long-time Florida Trail Association activity leader Peggy Grantham would be retiring, Sandy wanted to participate this year …
In what has become an annual event along the Florida Trail, hikers gathered in January to celebrate the birthday of Billy Goat, a long-time member of the long distance hiking community.
Getting back into service as a volunteer for Boy Scouts of America, JK brings Sandy along to become a trained volunteer couple, teaching their first University of Scouting classes this weekend.
This morning marked the first time that Florida Trail thru-hikers could get their picture taken in front of a terminus marker as found, say, on Springer Mountain in Georgia or Mt. Kathadin in Maine. Although the monument isn’t in place yet – …
When a sudden dental problem threw our hiking plans awry, we kicked into research mode and went wandering around Lake Okeechobee in search of information for our new guidebook.
It isn't rare for winds to streak across the surface of Lake Okeechobee, picking up speed as they travel. But some mornings are windier than others, and this was one of them.
Although we're writing a Florida Trail hiking guide, we decided to come to the Big O Hike since we met here last year, and it's time to try out the new TravLite!
What makes the Big O Hike stand out from all other hiking events is the friendships that you make - good, deep friendships born out of traveling together at a walking pace for nine days around Lake Okeechobee.
Breaking away from the everyday for nine days to immerse yourself in the goal of walking around Lake Okeechobee brings on a certain sense of calm, a time out of the normal pace of time, despite time framing each day.
When you're traveling at the speed of feet, it's easy to spend hours reflecting on the Everglades that once was, the vast wilds erased by the agro-industrial complex that brought sugar cane to Lake Okeechobee.
In hiking and in life, there are tortoises and hares. On the Big O Hike, the Loxahatchee - "River of the Turtles" - Chapter participants walk at all speeds, but the speediest of our hikers are known as rabbits.
It's a tradition at the Big O Hike to share your talent at Thanksgiving Day dinner. Mine is a poem commemorating the hike and our friends who've gone before us.
