In 1999, I discovered the Florida Trail. I’d returned to Florida after more than a decade, the loss of my younger sister Susan to cancer spurring me home.
It was a surprise to learn the trail wasn’t far from where my family settled in Ocala in the 70s.
Returning to my roots in the Northeast as an adult, I’d been active in Pennsylvania with the Keystone Trails Association and with Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association, hiking, backpacking, and writing about hikes.
Backpacking the Laurel Highlands Trail in the late 90sI’d had magazine and newspaper articles published about hiking in Pennsylvania and on the AT, and helped update the ALDHA Companion Guide to the Appalachian Trail.
My love for forests and trails grew as I did. My parents took me on hikes in the Appalachians when I was young and at parks we visited time and again.
On our annual trips to Florida before they decided to move there, we usually spent our time in nature.
Me on the West Lake Trail at Everglades National Park in 1968When I attended a talk about the Florida Trail at an ALDHA Gathering, I learned that places we’d hiked on the bluffs of the Suwannee River and in the Ocala National Forest when I was a kid were pieces of the Florida Trail.
The summer I returned to Ocala, I joined the Florida Trail Association and was quickly drawn into activities, gatherings, and volunteering.
Being self-employed as a writer, I was able to join in weekday work crews building the Florida Trail on the Cross Florida Greenway.
On a trail crew on the Cross Florida Greenway before the Land Bridge existedHaving website and publications expertise, I jumped in to update our chapter’s website and later, to advise the Footprint editor on how to upgrade what was then a very simple newsletter.
Joining the FTA Long Distance Hikers Committee, full of friends from ALDHA, I tossed in my advice from what I’d learned about guidebooks.
Moving to Orlando for a full-time technical writing job, I joined the Central Florida Chapter. Del Loyless asked me to head up creation of a local hiking guide as a fundraiser. The chapter handbook was my first effort that included documenting hikes on the Florida Trail.
An article I’d written about a hike through Bradwell Bay caught the attention of an editor with GORP.com and Backpacker, who had an in with a guidebook publisher.
Karen Berger connected me to Countryman Press, which started my 50 Hikes in…Florida series.
Soon after, Bart Smith approached me to collaborate on Along the Florida Trail, my first coffee table book. With it came an offer to write The Florida Trail: The Official Hiking Guide.
Although my name was on the cover, it was a collaborative effort that benefited FTA as well.
Joan Hobson, who’d served as FTA VP of Trails, handed over all her field notes to me from her series of 1990s self-published guides with Susan Roquemore to the Florida Trail. Deb Blick created the maps. I vetted trail segment information with section leaders.
I’d started section hiking the Florida Trail two years beforehand, but still had a long way to go. Starting work on what was the Guthook Guide to the Florida Trail and is now FarOut Guides, I made the time to finish every mile of the Florida Trail, including the roadwalks.
Celebrating the completion of my Florida Trail end-to-end section hikeTwenty-five years after I first knowingly took a hike on the Florida Trail and twelve guidebooks to the Florida Trail later, my last edition of The Florida Trail Guide is now in print.
Several years ago, Chris Stevens took over my role of collecting trail updates statewide to keep the FarOut App updated. This year, we collaborated on the fifth edition of The Florida Trail Guide.
I’m now the age that Joan Hobson was when she passed on her research to me, and I couldn’t have gotten to this point with this many guidebooks without the help of everyone mentioned above and my husband John, my co-author for the past decade.
You’ll still find me out there hiking, but when it’s time for the next edition, Chris will be taking both the guidebook and the app forward. Here’s to the future!
Chris and his son celebrating our collaborationGrab a Guide!
The fifth edition of The Florida Trail Guide is sold exclusively online by the Florida Trail Association.
Copies of The Florida Trail Guide are available at most Florida REI stores as well as Andy Thornal, Bill Jacksons, and Clyde Butcher’s Big Cypress Gallery.
Now published by University Press of Florida, the third edition of Florida Trail Hikes includes the best day hikes and section hikes along the Florida Trail statewide. Order here.
Signed copies are exclusively available at our hometown Black Cat Coffee
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