50 Hikes in Central Florida

by Sandra Friend

  W

  Pleasant urban park with great birding and local history

  40. Weedon Island Preserve

  ✓

  FHW

  Interpreting an ancient civilization along Tampa Bay

  41. Alafia Scrub Nature Preserve

  F

  Last remnant of a scrub ridge along the Alafia River

  42. Little Manatee River Trail

  ✓

  ✓

  FW

  Outstanding loop hike along the Little Manatee River

  43. Tiger Bay State Forest

  FH

  A forgotten highway and a beauty spot in a swamp forest

  44. Ponce Preserve

  ✓

  FHW

  Stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Halifax River

  45. Doris Leeper Spruce Creek Preserve

  FGHW

  Hike on high bluffs where a prehistoric village once stood

  46. Lyonia Preserve

  ✓

  FW

  One of the best places to see a Florida scrub-jay

  47. Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge

  ✓

  WH

  Fabulous birding adjoins

  rocket launches

  48. Enchanted Forest Sanctuary

  ✓

  FGHW

  A mosaic of habitats surround the Atlantic Coastal Ridge

  49. Maritime Hammock Sanctuary

  FW

  Tropical forest on the Indian

  River Lagoon

  50. Turkey Creek Sanctuary

  ✓

  FW

  Family-friendly nature center on a scenic creek

  Hiking the St. Francis Trail

  Acknowledgments

  Although we tackled most of the re-exploration of our home region on our own, we are grateful to those who joined us for some of the adventures in this book. Thanks to Morena Cameron, Bob Eggleston, Yvonne Entingh, Joan Jarvis, Phyllis Malinski, Mary McKinley, Vera Hurst, Melissa Bruneau and David Waldrop, Sandy Yates, and Sandra’s sister Sally White for putting in the miles with us. Ed and Pat Riskosky encouraged us to include Doris Leeper Spruce Creek Preserve, guiding us down their favorite trails. Rachael Augspurg didn’t mind us crashing her group hike at the St. Francis Trail, always a favorite, and we thank her for that.

  Off the trail, others contributed to making this an outstanding collection of hikes. Richard Durr and Jim Duby of Seminole County Leisure Services filled us in on future plans for Spring Hammock Preserve. Ranger Allen Miller and Park Manager Adam Belden were eager to show us around beautiful Werner-Boyce Salt Springs State Park and share future plans for the park. Cheryl Millett, Tiger Creek Preserve Manager, helped us with mapping changes to the trails in the preserve. Florida Trail Association volunteers Bill Alexander, Linda Taylor, and David Waldrop kept us updated on changes to regional trails originally established by FTA, while FTA Regional Representative Kelly Wiener kept us in the loop on future plans for Split Oak Forest and Hal Scott Preserve. FTA section leader Joe Dabes helped us update backpacking information for the Citrus Hiking Trail. Terrance Wilson posted details online about Alafia Scrub Nature Preserve, which piqued our interest enough to visit.

  We appreciated the support of several regional tourism bureaus—including Florida’s Adventure Coast, the Ocala Marion County Visitors and Convention Bureau, and West Volusia—during our research and photography trips. Thank you to Kimberly Popke of Florida’s Adventure Coast for arranging a stay for us at the unique Chinsegut Hill Retreat in Brooksville, and to the staff at Chinsegut Hill Manor for showing us around the historic estate.

  Sunset at Hal Scott Preserve

  Introduction

  If you think theme parks and beaches define Central Florida, think again. It’s nature that makes Florida truly unique. Botanical diversity thrives throughout Florida, and it’s in Central Florida that tropical forests meet northern hardwoods. Trails pass through desert-like scrub islands, jungle-like hydric hammocks, and deep, dark swamps where giant cypress trees rise out of inky water. Trails cross through salt marshes, river floodplains, and along coastal dunes and beaches with sparkling white sand. Trails scramble over and into karst landforms, big limestone boulders, bluffs, and deep sinkholes lush with ferns, and lead you along the edges of springs that gush billions of gallons of crystal-clear water from the Floridan Aquifer.

  Along the trails of Central Florida, each elevation gain or loss of only a few inches leads to an entirely new ecosystem. It’s why not every trail leads to a panorama, as many are an immersion in the little things that make each moment in nature special. Shoestring ferns wrap the trunk of a cabbage palm in ribbons of green. Hooded pitcher plants cluster around a seep spring on a hillside. Sundews glisten with sticky jelly-like droplets. Spiderwebs glimmer in the afternoon sun. Sea oats sprout from windswept dunes. White ibises silently pick their way across the blackwater swamp of a cypress dome.

  As longtime Central Florida residents—John is a native of Brevard County, while Sandra came to Ocala as a teenager—we’ve watched our region radically change from a sleepy, wild place to a sprawling sea of subdivisions washing up to the edges of metro areas and smaller towns. But it’s in the woods where we learned to love our state, and it’s by continuing to spend time in our wild places that we stay connected with what’s most worthwhile about our home.

  THE REGIONS

  We’ve divided Central Florida into seven geographic regions. Central Highlands refers to the higher elevations between Ocala, Leesburg, Mount Dora, and Lakeland, covering Marion, Lake, Sumter, and the western side of Polk County. Nature Coast encompasses the coastal counties north of Tampa Bay between Inverness and New Port Richey, including Citrus, Hernando, and Pasco. St. Johns River focuses on hikes along the vast floodplain of Florida’s longest river, which forms county lines between Lake and Volusia as well as Orange, Seminole, and Brevard, with Deland, Sanford, and Winter Springs as focal points. Orlando Metro sweeps up all remaining hikes within Orange, Seminole, and Osceola counties. The Lake Wales Ridge is a notable landform stretching south from Clermont through Polk County, with Frostproof being the southernmost point along it in Central Florida. It is one of the oldest pieces of land in Florida, an ancient island when the rest of the state was beneath the sea. Tampa Bay includes hikes in the two counties that share this major body of water, Hillsborough and Pinellas. Atlantic Coast covers Volusia and Brevard, the two counties that stretch the length of Central Florida between Ormond Beach and Melbourne.

  THE HIKES

  As the publishers of FloridaHikes.com, we’re always out hiking, and Central Florida is our home. We’re fortunate that the counties in Central Florida have extensive conservation programs in place to preserve land for wildlife habitat and public recreation. Since the first edition of this book, we’ve watched hiking opportunities expand dramatically, and the public respond accordingly. We’re meeting more outdoor enthusiasts out on the trails than ever before.

  While this edition is built on the framework of prior editions, we’ve revisited all of the trails in the guide, updated those we kept, and changed out a dozen chapters from the previous edition. Hikes in this book run the spectrum from a short and scenic 1-mile loop to a backpacking loop of 39 miles. While we prefer narrow footpaths through the woods over paved trails and forest roads, we provide a mix in this book. Pets are welcome at more than half of the hikes in this guidebook. We’ve also noted which of these trails are open to cyclists.

  At many of the public lands we visit, there are multiple places to hike. Given the popularity of Central Florida as a tourist destination, we include family-friendly options along with places that are at least partially wheelchair accessible. In each chapter, we focus on one piece of public land, even if it has multiple trails on it. Where possible, we combine these into our preferred route through a network of trails. Where trails are not contiguous, we sometimes list multiple hikes—up to four or five—to tally a full day of hiking on one piece of
public land. In this edition, we also added Other Hiking Options near the end of each chapter. These include alternative routes (shorter and longer) as well as other nearby public lands with hikes. Between the 50 chapters and the other options we provide, you have more than 150 public lands to visit and over 200 possible hikes just within the pages of this guidebook.

  Our maps are based on GPS tracks we collected, with supplementing information from land managers on some of the alternate routes. All attempts at habitat and plant identification are our own, using a variety of references.

  USING THIS BOOK

  Each chapter follows the same structure. There is a map of the hike, and sometimes an inset map or two showing different trails on the same piece of public land. Our route is highlighted, but alternative routes are also shown. We list the Total Distance covered by the chapter, the Hiking Time based on an estimated 2 mph pace on easy terrain (more time added for tougher terrain), and a Difficulty rating of easy, moderate, or difficult. A difficult hike in Florida is very different from one in North Carolina—we’re rating against other hikes in Florida. Here, difficult means hilly, muddy, deep soft sand, wading in swamps, or a combination of these conditions in one hike. Under Usage, we list entry fees if applicable, hours open, and any regulations regarding pets or bicycle use of the trails. Trailhead GPS Coordinates are the latitude and longitude to plug into a map app or your onboard GPS system to find the hike. Contact Information includes the street address and the land manager’s phone number and URL. An overview of the hike follows.

  The descriptive portion of the chapter starts with Getting There, with directions from the nearest major highway or interstate exit. The Hike (sometimes The Hikes) covers the step-by-step details of the route(s). Other Hiking Options offers you other routes (if available) on the trail described as The Hike. If those options are limited or unavailable, we send you to other nearby places to hike, along with trailhead GPS coordinates to get you there.

  As travel writers, we know you may be planning a vacation in Florida’s great outdoors. So at the end of each chapter is Camping and Lodging, a short list of campgrounds and hotels you’ll find nearby. These are not comprehensive lists, and none of these listings were paid for in any way. They come from our personal knowledge of the region.

  SPECIAL FEATURES

  As noted in the At A Glance chart, our hikes include one or more special features—flora, geology, history, or wildlife. Flora is perhaps what Florida is best known for—for both diversity and beauty. Of more than 4,000 types of plants found in Florida, 3,600 are native to the state. Only California and Texas surpass Florida in botanical diversity. Geology calls attention to landforms, from ridges and rocky terrain to our bubbling springs. History notes locations where human activities shaped the landscape, from prehistoric villages to war memorials to America’s space program. Wildlife notes the best hikes for wildlife watching and birding.

  FLORIDA’S HABITATS

  As we mention them throughout our hike descriptions, you may want to know what we mean by terms like scrub, pine flatwoods, and oak hammock. Florida has 81 distinct natural communities, some of which you will encounter far more often than others. They are characterized by certain groupings of plants. The word hammock in Florida means forest, so a palm hammock is a dense cluster of cabbage palms. Some of the rarer habitats you’ll encounter in Central Florida include bluff forest, mangrove forest, and rosemary scrub. For an explanation of Florida’s habitats with photos that illustrate each one, visit floridahikes.com/habitats.

  HIKING IN FLORIDA

  If you haven’t hiked in Florida before, our state is unlike any other when it comes to hiking. We are a winter destination, with optimal months for day hikes being October—April, and the best backpacking being in January and February. Our hiking calendar is flip-flopped from the rest of the United States. Winter tends to be dry, and once we have at least one good freeze in late fall, insects aren’t a problem. However, don’t assume it doesn’t get cold in Florida. During hiking season, Central Florida temperatures can drop into the 20s, although balmy days in the 70s are more common. It can also suddenly rise to 80°F.

  During the summer months, heat and insects, along with frequent thunderstorms, make hiking unappealing. If you hike in summer, start early, use lots of insect repellent, and plan to be done before noon. Short hikes are best for summer excursions.

  Getting damp is a part of hiking in Florida. It’s not uncommon to find standing water on some trails, especially after a few days of rain, as not all soils drain well. Some habitats are always wet, but trails will lead you right into them. We note these usually-wet places in our hike details. Plan to wear shoes that drain water if you do those hikes. It’s always humid here, even in winter, so your tent will be damp after an overnight in the woods. Dry it out later in the day by staking it out in the sun. Layering your clothing is a smart idea, so you don’t get cold by getting damp.

  Because Florida’s terrain is often sandy or wet, your footwear need not be rugged. Avoid heavy leather boots. If you wear waterproof boots, be aware that if you walk into a place where the water goes over the top of your shoe, it won’t be able to get back out. We prefer lightweight hiking shoes and trail runners. When your shoes get waterlogged, you want them to be able to dry out.

  Spiders can be annoying between March and November, as they build large webs across trails. The large golden orb spider makes a sticky yellow web. The smaller crab spider has a shell on its back. Try to duck under webs, as a spider’s web is a masterpiece of nature—and the spider is helping to rid the forest of other pesky bugs. But if you find yourself getting a face full of spiderwebs, pick up a stick (the stalk of a saw palmetto frond works well) and hold it tilted in front of you to catch any human-height webs.

  Are there alligators? You bet. When we were kids they were an endangered species; now you’ll find them in almost every body of water. As long as no one has fed them—and it’s against the law to do so in the wild—they should be skittish when you approach. But if they don’t move, keep at least 20 feet away.

  Many trails are not maintained between April and September, since most hiking occurs in the fall and winter. An overgrown trail can be painful when sandspurs dig into your socks. We wear low gaiters to cover our socks and shoes. Wearing lightweight nylon hiking pants year-round helps protect you from insect bites and poison ivy.

  Learn more about hiking in Florida: dig through floridahikes.com.

  SAFETY ON THE TRAIL

  If you haven’t hiked before, it’s important to know the basics. First, you need to know what you are physically capable of doing. Don’t take on a 10-mile loop if you’ve never hiked a 2-mile loop. Get to know your pace and ability by starting small and working up to longer mileages. As mentioned above, be aware of hiking season. Just as you wouldn’t plunge into the Alaska woods in December, you shouldn’t take on more than a very short walk in Florida in August. Wear clothing that will keep you warm and dry (or will help you cool down on a hot day). Use sun protection (sunscreen, hat, and sunglasses as needed) and insect repellent.

  What’s in your daypack? A trail map is essential, a compass or GPS worthwhile on longer treks. Snacks are a smart idea. Always carry more water with you than you think you need, as it is easy to dehydrate without realizing it. The warm temperatures and sunshine will sometimes prompt you to drink, but not often enough. We carry at least one liter per 4 miles, and twice that when temperatures are over 80°F.

  Dehydration and long exposure to the sun can lead to heat exhaustion, which starts with nausea, chills, and dizziness, and can lead to deadly heatstroke. If you feel any of these symptoms, stop hiking. Drink as much fluid as possible. Rest a while before attempting any further exertion.

  It’s always smart to check the weather forecast before you take a Central Florida hike, not just to select the right clothing but also to select the right hike. You don’t want to be scrambling over sand ridges or crossing open prairies or wetlands if there’s a chance of b
ad weather approaching. Packing a rain jacket or poncho is a good idea on overcast days or on longer hikes.

  Florida’s prime hiking season is also prime hunting season. During deer season, which usually occurs between October and January in Central Florida, wear a lightweight, bright orange vest when hiking in areas posted for hunting. These are noted in the text and include Florida State Forests, many water management lands, and all wildlife management areas. For full details on hunting dates and restrictions in specific state lands, check online with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission at myfwc.com.

  Don’t mess with wildlife. Don’t walk up to an alligator, and make sure you take the long way around any snake you don’t recognize. We have six kinds of venomous snakes in Central Florida, with the water moccasin the most aggressive and the pygmy rattlesnake the most often seen. Diamondback rattlesnakes can be 5 feet long or more. Black racers aren’t venomous, but they can be aggressive. Avoid overgrown trails and be cautious stepping over logs. If you backpack or camp, be aware that our bear population is growing and—especially near urban areas—bears are getting savvier about grabbing food bags. Know how to bear bag (it’s required in the Ocala National Forest) or carry a bear canister to protect your food, not just from bears but thieving raccoons that hang out around campgrounds.