Hike Bike Paddle Camp Florida with authors Sandra Friend and John Keatley as your guides
Adventures while we section-hike the Florida Trail and support other hikers on thru-hikes and section hikes
What’s it like to do trail research? Here’s a typical day out on the trail for us when we’re tracking down relocations of the Florida Trail or finding new trails to add to this website.
A perfect combination of cold weather, blue skies, and winter in a North Florida cypress swamp let us happen upon two instances of rainbow swamps on a hike in the Osecola Experimental Forest. Does that make a double rainbow?
Walking through the most ancient of Florida’s forests, the feeling that landscape has a spirit persists, especially when contrasted with places where habitat has been permanently destroyed.
Day 3 of the Panhandle Trace Hike, McVay Road to Red Rock Road Trail Head Guest post by Gordy Hawkins, Suncoast Chapter FTA. Photos by Gail Baldwin. Enter into a world of black and white and the continuum of grays in-between. That is what it was like for me the day we walked a recently …
A thru-hike in Florida takes 60-90 days through lush landscapes you won’t see on other long distance trails
With the first week of January comes the annual migration of hikers to the southernmost reaches of Florida to start their journeys north on the Florida Trail. Some are here to walk the length of Florida, from the edge of the Everglades through the massive Big Cypress swamp on a backpacking trip that will last …
JK continues around Lake Okeechobee – a part of the trail he’s done before on the Big O Hike – as part of the support crew for the FT hikers new to the region.
On a return trek to Hidden Pond, we find that all is well in this oasis in the middle of the Juniper Prairie Wilderness, just waiting for backpackers to savor it.
Discovering solo backpacking and group dynamics to be not quite his style, JK decides to re-visit his hike of the Florida Trail by making it a team effort.
The 2013 thru-hikers catch up with us at Little Big Econ State Forest, and we invite as many as we can squeeze in back home for a nero day and a taste of suburban life.
Hiking through the Yellow River Ravines section on the Panhandle Trace Hike was a new experience for us all, as it’s a newly opened segment of trail near Milton.
JK starts solo backpacking up the Kissimmee River, encountering cows, sandhill cranes, and an over-medicated driver who runs him off a roadwalk.
