A geologic wonder where Escambia Bay flows into Pensacola Bay, the Pensacola Bay Bluffs offer a different perspective from one of Florida’s oldest cities.
Resources
Overview
Location: Pensacola
Trailhead: 30.455279,-87.168999
Address: 3400 Scenic Highway, Pensacola
Fees: None
Restrooms: No
Open: Sunrise to sunset
City of Pensacola
Phone: 850-436-5670
Directions
From downtown Pensacola, follow US 90 east for 4.2 miles. Both trailheads are on the east side of the highway. The southern trailhead is across from a large cemetery, Bay View Park. The northern trailhead is a quarter mile more along US 90, across from Summit Blvd.
Hike
A passive preserve on the steep bluffs above Pensacola Bay, Pensacola Bay Bluffs Park protects 26 acres of largely sloped landscape.
Although the soil is sandy, the bluffs are clay and continue to erode. As far back as the 1750s, the clay deposits from this site were used for brickmaking in Pensacola.
The trail between the Bay Bluffs Park trailhead at Summit Blvd and the southern trailhead is less than a half-mile long. It’s mostly boardwalk, but what a boardwalk!
Caught up in a dense forest of live oaks, it zigzags up and down the steep slope, with long staircases, straightaways, and steps to drop you down into the forest so you can duck through it, cross the railroad tracks, and head for the tiny beach along the bay.
Walking the entire route, you can tally 0.8 mile with quite a workout up and down the staircases.