Hike Bike Paddle Camp Florida with authors Sandra Friend and John Keatley as your guides
South of Lake Apopka, the Lake Wales Ridge is a significant landform down the middle of the Florida peninsula, with its highest hills and oldest biological communities
The Bobcat Trail at Lake June-in-Winter State Park leads to a 3.3 mile trail system atop snow-white ancient dunes on the Lake Wales Ridge, where rare and unusual plants thrive
Atop one of the highest hills in the Florida Peninsula, Bok Tower Gardens is one of Florida’s most spectacular landscaped gardens, “something to appeal to both man and animal, a meditative place,” as envisioned by Edward William Bok in the 1920s.
The 6.9-mile Buster Island Loop at Lake Kissimmee State Park is a favorite for both day hikers and backpackers, as it shows off a variety of habitats along the open prairies
On the ridges at Catfish Creek Preserve State Park, some steep as a ski slope, these elevated slivers of blinding white sand are some of Florida’s most ancient hills.
With some of Central Florida’s highest elevations, Clermont is where the Lake Wales Ridge meets the edge of the Green Swamp
With an interlinking network of loop trails, Crooked Lake Prairie is a refreshing excursion into habitats found on the high hills of the Lake Wales Ridge
On a 1.7-mile loop, Crooked River Preserve showcases a wide variety of habitats in a short hike on the northernmost extent of the Lake Wales Ridge in Clermont
On Lake Apopka’s western shore, Ferndale Preserve offers amazing panoramas of Florida’s fourth largest lake, along with serious elevation changes on its four miles of multi-use trails
Edged by expansive state forests and wildlife management lands, Frostproof boasts a large concentration of trails in the southeastern corner of Polk County.
Nestled along the eastern shore of Hickory Lake, Hickory Lake Scrub is a 57-acre preserve showcasing some of the unusual plants you can only find on the Lake Wales Ridge
Protecting 845 acres of the whitest, brightest sand on the Lake Wales Ridge, Lake June-in-Winter Scrub State Park has one of the highest concentrations of rare plants in North America.
Deep in the heart of Florida’s heartland, ranching heritage lives on at Lake Kissimmee State Park, home of the 1876 Florida Cow Hunters Camp.
