North of Gainesville, the northern forests make their southern stand. Mill Creek Preserve, north of Alachua and part of the Alachua County Forever registry, encompasses nearly 1,200 acres of unexpected delights in an area well-known for its sinkholes and disappearing streams.
By taking a hike, you pass through the curtain of pine plantation you see from surrounding roads and the trailhead and find the real delights, magnificent spruce pines and swamp chestnut oaks towering over a folded landscape that hosts the southernmost American beech forest.
It’s amazing to find ancient trees in a spot that’s been a historic crossroads for centuries, thanks to the Bellamy Road and the Old Providence Road.
With nearly 5 miles of trails in two loops, it’s a place you can tailor your walk to your interest and time. This route follows the trails on the west side of the preserve.
Resources
Disclosure: As authors and affiliates, we receive earnings when you buy these through our links. This helps us provide public information on this website.
Overview
Location: Alachua
Length: 2.8 mile loop
Trailhead: 29.879407, -82.497118
Address: 14505 NW CR 236, Alachua FL 32615
Fees: Free
Restroom: at the visitor center
Land manager: Alachua County
Phone: 352-264-6868
Opens 8 AM. Closes 6 PM Nov-Apr, 8 PM May-Oct. Leashed dogs welcome.
Birds are plentiful. We saw swallow-tailed kites overhead and a summer tanager in the trees.
Directions
From the Interstate 75 exit for US 441, High Springs / Alachua, drive south on US 441 to the traffic light with CR 235, one block beyond Main Street. Start north. Veer left onto CR 241. Continue 5 miles to its intersection with CR 239. Turn left. Drive another third of a mile to the preserve entrance on the left.
Hike
Start your hike by picking up a trail map at the kiosk. Three trails leave the trailhead in different directions. The blue-blazed Marsh Trail heads to Sweetwater Creek. The white-blazed Old Providence Trail follows a historic Florida pioneer trail. The details below are for the Yellow Trail.
Yellow Trail
Of the three trails at Mill Creek Preserve, this is the one with the most compelling destination: it leads to the southernmost American beech forest in the United States. Follow the yellow disk marks along the fence line to a forest road leading into the preserve. Yellow blazes also mark the way.
The first stretch of the trail is somewhat boring, going through a pine plantation.
However, the owner of the timber company made a point of not clear-cutting the “non-productive” areas, which is how the beech forest was preserved.
Turn right at the T intersection. There is a slight clearing with several metal posts marking the location of a gopher tortoise burrow so caretakers don’t run over it.
The trail remains a wide forest road, opening up into a small clearing with islands of Southern magnolia and oaks, and more tortoise burrows staked out.
Cross the clearing and stay to the right, re-entering the dense forest, here more thick with oaks than pines. At the fork, keep right. You’ll pass a pine-lined path on the left, and a small stand of devil’s walking stick.
At a half mile, the trail comes to a junction with a bench. Orange blazes lead left. The yellow blazes continue straight ahead. This hike goes clockwise around the loop, so turn left into the shady corridor of hardwoods.
As the canopy opens up a little, you can see spruce pines towering overhead. Along with the large swamp chestnut oaks, these trees are indicators that the limestone bedrock is not far beneath your feet.
The trail narrows and jogs through the woods as it enters the slope forest and passes by an immense beech tree with an orange blaze on it.
Rain that falls on these slopes creates the deeply eroded channels that feed Mill Creek, Paraners Branch, and Townsend Creek, which vanish into the aquifer and emerge in the waters of Hornsby and Poe Springs to expand the Santa Fe River.
This part of Alachua County is well known by cavers for its sinks. In fact, if you’ve ever seen the Wes Skiles documentary where the cave divers are beneath a Sonny’s, you passed that restaurant on the way here from I-75.
This is a beech-magnolia forest, an uncommon habitat in Florida, with sparkleberry and other common river bluff trees such as hophornbeam along the footpath.
Crossing a bridge over a dry creek, the trail makes a sharp left into a more open portion of the beech forest, passing a large fallen log flanked by needle palms and covered in fungi.
At 0.8 mile, take the side trail to your right. It follows a tributary past a particular large and unusually shaped swamp chestnut oak, its trunk curved away from you.
The scenic spot is marked by a bench overlooking a deep spot with exposed limestone, looking like a sink that the ephemeral creek might tumble into. Return to the main trail and turn right.
Pass a kiosk that explains the southernmost American beech forest. Continue downhill to cross a bridge with a very elaborate design to its sides.
The creek beneath it vanishes into the woods to the left as you climb back up a hill. The beech forest opens up again, with the canopy well overhead and the understory open enough for wildlife watching.
The trail jogs left to pass two large rootballs, the second bigger than the first, and at a mile, you step through a cut-apart pine as the trail winds through saw palmetto.
Passing a bench on the right, the path starts a slow uphill, the beech and magnolia leaves especially crunchy underfoot as the trees get taller, the understory denser. The trace of a waterway rims the landscape.
By 1.1 miles, you reach the junction with the green (shortcut) trail. Use this if you need to knock 0.7 mile off the full loop. You’ve already been through the most beautiful part of the hike.
We turned left at the junction, staying on the orange-blazed perimeter trail, heading into another stretch of dense young oaks that grew up when pines were removed from the area a decade or more ago.
Magnolias and hickories are scattered throughout the dense forest. Netted chain fern grows in clusters along the footpath, as does poison ivy.
At the junction of the orange trail and the yellow trail, turn right. The trail quickly broadens to a forest road edged by planted pines.
At a clearing after 1.5 miles, there is a four-way junction of trails, and this can be confusing. Head straight across and keep right, following the broad and grassy path.
Passing a corner post of the property boundary fence and a firebreak, the trail swings right and out into the open sun. A virtual wall of oaks and pines rises to the right. The green (shortcut) trail comes in from the left.
After 1.9 miles, the yellow trail turns right and heads back into the deep shade of a hardwood forest. Although the trail is still broad, it’s a pleasant walk with the canopy close overhead.
Passing through a small clearing, jog to the right. Within a quarter mile, you close the loop, coming to the original junction with the orange trail at the bench.
Continue straight ahead, staying to the left where unmarked trails go off to the right. At 2.5 miles, you return to the original clearing with the marked gopher tortoise burrows.
Continue straight ahead across the clearing and into the woods, down the forest road as you pass the first unmarked junction on the right. Emerging at the trailhead, you finish the 2.8 mile hike.
Trail Map
Explore More!
See our photos of Mill Creek Preserve
Nearby Adventures
More worth exploring while you’re in this area.
Cellon Oak Park
The largest live oak tree in Florida, the Cellon Oak north of Gainesville is more than 30 feet in diameter and shades a space that puts most other oaks to shame.
San Felasco Hammock Preserve State Park
As the site of a significant Spanish mission, weird karst geology, and an array of Appalachian plants and trees that simply don’t creep much farther south, San Felasco Hammock Preserve State Park is a passive preserve that most visitors only get to know a corner of.