You see your first saw palmettos of the day just before crossing Trail 14A, where a square, concrete-block water cistern shimmers along the side of the trail at 9 miles. This is the last water source you will encounter before returning to Holder Mine. Take a moment and sit on the broad wall, watching for eastern bluebirds in the surrounding oaks. The trail continues through large clumps of saw palmetto under a dense pine understory with plenty of blueberry bushes. To the west you see an orange gash, a break in the trees—the trail now parallels Trail 13. Longleaf pines and wiregrass stretch east. You cross Trail 13 at 10.7 miles and reach the junction with the B–C Cross-Trail within the next 0.25 mile. Continue straight along the orange blazes.
A haze of wiregrass under the longleaf pines along Loop C
As the trail descends into an oak hammock, the vegetation suddenly becomes unusually lush. At the bottom of the hill, look left—it’s the biggest cave yet along this trail, with a walk-in opening flooded with sunlight. Drop your pack and take a few minutes to explore. Ladder brake and spleenwort ferns decorate crevices in the limestone. As you continue down the trail, notice the tall southern woods fern growing out of a sinkhole. Limestone breaks up the footpath. The trail veers left, down into an oak hammock in a vast karst bowl. Crossing Trail 13 for the final time at 11.6 miles, the trail rises through a blueberry patch to meet the A–B Cross-Trail. Continue straight, walking through a scrubby hammock under the longleaf pines. After you cross Trail 11, the trail rises into scrub, with sugary white sand underfoot, tall rosemary bushes, and dense patches of reindeer moss.
Beyond two horse trails, you enter a narrow path through a dense oak scrub. Watch for Florida scrub-jays here, as they prefer a habitat dense with these short myrtle oaks and Chapman oaks. At 13.3 miles, you reach the end of the loop at the LOOP A sign. Continue straight along the blue blaze to reach your car at Holder Mine Recreation Area, wrapping a 14.1-mile day and a 39.1-mile three-day journey.
OTHER HIKING OPTIONS
Because the loops provide so many different ways to tackle the Citrus Hiking Trail, the perimeter hike is only one option for hiking here. Use any of the cross-trails to create overnight or two-night hikes: the A–B and B–C Cross-Trails are each 1.6 miles long; the C–D Cross-Trail is 1.8 miles long. Parking areas are limited for day hikes on this big loop, but here are a few of our favorite options.
1. Loop A. Because it starts and ends at the Holder Mine trailhead, Loop A is the most popular day hike within the Citrus Tract, treating hikers to mature scrub forest and sandhills along its 8.3 miles. It is part of the Florida State Forests Trailwalker Program.
2. Walk-In Cave. From Holder Mine, follow the connector trail to Loop A. Turn left and follow the Florida Trail’s orange blazes south, passing the A–B Cross-Trail and crossing Trail 13. After 2.9 miles, you reach the walk-in cave. Round-trip is 5.8 miles.
3. Lizzie Hart Sink. Tackle the “karst corner” of Loop D, the most fascinating part of the Citrus Tract, on a day hike featuring Lizzie Hart Sink, surface limestone features, sinkholes, and rocky crevices leading to caves. Follow Trail 13 south of CR 480 to a parking area at the trail crossing. Hike west on Loop D past the deep sinkhole and intermittent stream, crossing CR 480 to continue past Brush Sink up to Lizzie Hart Sink. A round-trip to Lizzie Hart Sink from the parking area is 4.8 miles; if you pull off on CR 480 and hike in instead, it’s 2.6 miles.
CAMPING AND LODGING
If you tackle this trail as a series of day hikes instead of a backpacking trip, base camp at either Holder Mine or Mutual Mine. Each holds a site or two for walk-ins, but to guarantee a spot, reserve ahead at 1-877-879-3859, floridastateforests.reserveamerica.com. Lodgings in Inverness include Holiday Inn Express (903 E Gulf to Lake Highway, Lecanto, FL 34461; 352-341-3515) ihg.com; and Central Motel (721 US 41 S, Inverness, FL 34450; 352-726-4515, centralmotel.com).
Fort Cooper State Park
Total distance: 5 miles in a network of three interconnected loops. Longer and shorter options are possible.
Hiking time: 2–2.5 hours
Difficulty: Easy to moderate
Usage: $2–3 per vehicle. Open 8 AM to sunset. Leashed pets welcome.
Trailhead GPS Coordinates: 28.8089, -82.3039
Contact Information: Fort Cooper State Park, 3100 S Old Floral City Road, Inverness, FL 34450 (352-726-0315, floridastateparks.org/park/Fort-Cooper)
With a picnic area and playground along Lake Holathlikaha, and gentle trails winding through the woods, Fort Cooper State Park is a great place for a family outing, but the reason for this state park isn’t as pleasant. The park preserves a chapter of Florida history from the Second Seminole War, when more than 300 sick and injured soldiers stopped to regroup and recuperate after a month-long battle at the Cove of the Withlacoochee. A hastily built log fort protected the men when the Seminole laid siege several days later. Named for Major Mark Anthony Cooper, who was charged with protecting the soldiers, the fort was later abandoned. The military road from Fort King in Ocala to Fort Brooke in Tampa passes through the park and is incorporated into two of the hiking trails.
GETTING THERE
From I-75, take exit 329, Wildwood. Turn west on FL 44, driving 11 miles to Inverness. Take US 41 south to Old Floral City Road; turn left at the light. Cross the Withlacoochee State Trail, a popular biking trail. Turn right, following the signs 1.6 miles to the park entrance. After paying your Florida State Parks entrance fee, follow the winding road back into the woods. Pass by the grassy parking area at the Sandhill Trail Loop and continue on to the paved parking area. Take the first paved turn to loop back and park near the entrance sidewalk down to the Lake Holathlikaha picnic area.
THE HIKE
Start your hike of the park’s trail network by walking down the paved path to the picnic area along the marshy lake. You’ll pass an interpretive kiosk with an overview of the historical significance of Fort Cooper, followed by a picnic pavilion and the main restrooms. Where the paved path comes to a T intersection, turn left and look for the large DOGWOOD TRAIL sign. This easy interpretive loop shows off a mesic hammock, the climax community that takes over when pine flatwoods aren’t subject to regular wildfires. Hardwood trees dominate the forest. Loblolly bay and southern magnolia compete for space, both showing off their glossy leaves. Frequent benches allow for quiet moments of reflection along the trail.
Lake Holathlikaha
The first bench sits just before a four-way junction of trails. Turn right. Soon after is the first of many trail maps along the park’s trails with YOU ARE HERE symbols on them to help you navigate the trail system. The landscape is a little odd and undulating—a reshaping of the forest by phosphate pits. Saw palmettos, sweetgum, and live oak cling to the misshapen hills. Florida’s phosphate boom started in the late 1890s, just after a big freeze killed off the commercial citrus industry. Miners came from all over the south, digging small claim stake pits such as these or working in larger operations such as the ones at Rainbow Springs (Hike 1).
The Short Loop junction joins in from the left. Turn right, following the brief Coot Trail spur toward the marshy shore of Lake Holathlikaha, winding through a forest of laurel oak past moss-covered limestone outcroppings. The trail ends along the edge of the marsh, where herons, coots, and egrets browse the grassy wetlands. You’ve walked 0.5 mile. Return to the trail junction. Turn right to continue on the Dogwood Trail. A NATURE TRAIL sign points you down the Long Loop. The hardwood forest is primarily a climax forest, with many laurel oaks. Four-inch-wide specimens of shelf fungus grow like steps along the trunks of some of the oak trees. As you get deeper into the hardwood hammock, the forest becomes more lush, the canopy interwoven by tree limbs high above. Saw palmetto grows in clumps throughout the understory.
The trail narrows to a footpath—most of the trails at Fort Cooper State Park have been widened to the width of a road, but not this one—and is covered with fallen oak leaves. You pass another locator map before the trail veers left, turning back on itself to make the lo
op. Notice the many weathered stumps half-hidden by the undergrowth, the remains of a virgin oak forest that covered these hills. They were cut by hand in the 1930s after the phosphate boom subsided.
At a junction with a side trail at 0.9 mile, turn right. This footpath leads to the park road and across it to reach the kiosk at the Sandhill Loop Trail. Pick up a map here. A nice narrow connector trail leads you to a forest road. Turn left. Although the Sandhill Loop Trail is an excellent destination for wildlife watching—we came across at least a dozen deer and a flock of turkeys along it—it is entirely on forest roads. You reach the main junction at the top of the loop, where piles of dirt are currently stored in an open area. Turn right. This is an upland trail, focused on the highest, driest habitat in the park. This loop also has its own set of locator maps. Side roads that are not a part of the route are marked with DO NOT ENTER or SERVICE ROAD signs. You may see heavy equipment or piles of brush along this walk, as we did since restoration is still ongoing to return this portion of the park to the longleaf forest that stood here when Fort Cooper was built. A thicket of lowbush blueberries tops one of the hills, where pawpaw also blooms in late spring.
After a long, curving and slow descent among the oaks and pines, the Sandhill Loop comes to a T with a service road, 1.7 miles into your hike. There is a locator map soon after, and you hear the sounds of traffic along US 41. Continuing down the moderate grade, you see young candle-stage longleaf pines rising from the wiregrass, and clumps of saw palmetto in the open understory. Spanish moss hangs in heavy draperies on some of the taller oaks. A gopher tortoise browses in a healthy patch of sandhill. In late spring, the gopher apple—a favorite food of the gopher tortoise—blooms here. Winding up and over and down again along gently undulating hills, the sandy road has deer tracks, fox tracks, and raccoon tracks to follow. When you get to the SANDHILL LOOP TRAIL sign, you’ve hiked 2.3 miles. Pass by the return loop at this junction and walk straight ahead, coming out at a four-way intersection of trails with a sign that indicates that the path you’ve been on is a part of the Old Military Road between Fort King and Fort Brooke, a route which soldiers began to construct in 1825. The kiosk at this intersection explains the timeline of the Second Seminole War, which began in December 1835 farther south along this road, on a site now protected as Dade Battlefield State Park in Bushnell.
At this junction, walk straight ahead past the kiosk (with it to your right) along the Old Military Road to start a loop along the Fort Site Trail. The road winds through the forest past a bench and emerges at a clearing, where the next kiosk details the siege of Fort Cooper. Under the direction of General Winfield Scott, more than 5,000 soldiers were marching to Fort Brooke after a pitched battle with the Seminole at the Cove of the Withlacoochee. They camped on the bluffs overlooking spring-fed Lake Holathlikaha. General Scott decided to leave the sick and wounded with Major Mark Anthony Cooper, and promised to return in nine days. Major Cooper had the men build a log fort for their protection. Within days, the Seminole attacked, drove off the cattle, and held the soldiers under siege. The siege did not break until the relief soldiers that General Scott had promised returned and drove them off. The fort remained in use on and off through the remainder of the war.
The bleachers are here for the annual reenactment that occurs during Fort Cooper Days each spring. Walk past them for the panorama of Lake Holathlikaha, and to see a picket wall that illustrates how Fort Cooper would have been built of pine logs pointed at the ends and buried closely together. Continue straight ahead along the Old Military Road, leaving the clearing to enter the shade of ancient oaks on the bluff above the lake. Passing a couple of benches, you come to a FORT SITE TRAIL sign at 2.8 miles. Turn right to follow the footpath into the shady hardwood hammock. Removal of hurricane-damaged trees means the park boundary fence is visible as the trail curves right, and traffic noise echoes in off US 41.
Reconstruction of a portion of the pickets of Fort Cooper
Along a bend in the trail, you reach a FORT SITE sign. Follow the arrow. The path leads to the picket wall and the view of Lake Holathlikaha. Walk towards the lake, where a forest road from the left leads downhill at an angle. To the right is an opening in the marsh that might be the spring the soldiers used. The forest road guides you down to the sandy lakeshore of this broad lake, a low spot surrounded by prairie grasses. Follow the track along the sandy shore of the lake. At 3.6 miles, there is a right curve along the lake. Benches sit in the shade of the oaks on the bluff, a primitive campsite. It’s mainly in place for long distance cyclists on the Withlacoochee State Trail: call ahead to reserve, and there’s a $5 per night fee. This is a decision point for the rest of your hike. If you continue following the lakeshore, you end up right back at the picnic area and can call this a 4-mile hike. To add on another mile and see more of the park’s trails, turn left and walk up past the benches to meet a paved path. This accessible path leads to the parking area to the right. Turn left.
It doesn’t take long to return to the kiosk at the Old Military Road junction. Straight ahead, the paved path leads to the Withlacoochee State Trail, one of Florida’s premier bike paths. Walk in that direction very briefly to the OLD MILITARY ROAD sign. Turn right to rejoin the Sandhill Loop Trail, and stay right at the next Y intersection to follow the east side of the loop. This side is shorter than the west side you traversed earlier. The trail sticks to the ecotone between sandhill and hardwood forest, so it’s much shadier. The hardwood forest descends the hills towards the lake, and the sandhill forest is on your left, topped with longleaf pine and wiregrass in places. Occasionally the path veers into the hardwood forest. Around 4 miles, there is a depression in the forest, a large sinkhole. After you pass the next locator map, it only takes a few more minutes to reach the top of the loop. At this T intersection, turn right. Watch for the footpath that tunnels through the forest and back to the Sandhill Loop Trail kiosk and parking area. Cross the park road to follow the connector trail back to the Dogwood Trail. Turn right when you reach it. You’ve walked 4.6 miles.
The Dogwood Trail is both familiar-feeling and new as you walk this final stretch around its loop. At the SHORT LOOP sign, keep right to stay on the outer loop. Continue straight through the oak forest. The trail veers left around a small solution sinkhole, a deep depression filled with leaves and saw palmetto. Arriving back at the original four-way junction of trails, continue straight ahead, passing the PICNIC AREA sign on your right. You emerge out at the big DOGWOOD TRAIL sign and the view of Lake Holathlikaha. Continue along the paved path back to the parking area to complete a 5-mile hike.
OTHER HIKING OPTIONS
1. Fort Site Trail. Focus your visit on a walk to the fort site, with a wander along the shore of Lake Holathlikaha. Starting at the first of the Seminole War interpretive kiosks near the main recreation area restrooms—Fort Cooper Latrine—continue down to and along the lakeshore in the opposite direction from the Dogwood Trail, following the shoreline curve until it leads you up a forest road to the fort site. Walk back along the Old Military Trail for additional interpretive stations. When you get to the 4-way junction, use the paved path to the right to reach the far end of the parking area (28.807342, -82.306062). Take a side path down to the lake and walk back along it to the main recreation area for a 1.1-mile walk. Extend this by taking the Long and Short Loops instead of the Old Military Trail, making for a 2-mile hike.
2. Sandhill Loop. Of all of the trails in the park, the Sandhill Loop Trail is the best one for spotting wildlife, especially gopher tortoises, woodpeckers, and fox squirrels. Park at the grassy Sandhill Loop Trail parking area near the trailhead kiosk and follow the signs around the loop for a 2-mile hike.
3. Dogwood Trail. The most natural-feeling of the hiking trails at this state park, this interpretive trail stays in the shade for most of its 1-mile loop. Be sure to take the Coot Trail spur trail to the marsh (adding another 0.25 mile). Using the Short Loop, cut this walk down to less than 0.75 mile.
4. Accessible Trai
l. Follow the park drive through the parking areas to where it curves past the entrance to the paved bike path (28.807342, -82.306062) and park in one of the nearby spaces. From here, follow the paved portion of the Fort Site Trail connector to the paved Withlacoochee State Trail. While this route doesn’t take you to the fort, it does meander through habitats representative of the park as a whole. A round-trip to the Withlacoochee State Trail is 0.9 mile. There are many benches along the route.
CAMPING AND LODGING
Central Motel, 721 US 41 S, Inverness, FL 34450 (352-726-4515, centralmotel.com)
Moonrise Resort, 8801 E Moonrise Lane, Lot 18, Floral City, FL 34436 (352-726-2553, moonriseresort.com)
Chinsegut Wildlife and Environmental Area
Total distance: 5.6 miles. The Big Pine Tract loop is 1.6 miles; the Nature Center Tract loop is 4 miles. Each can be accessed by a separate trailhead or knitted together into a single 7.8-mile hike using a 1.1-mile linear (2.2-mile round-trip) connector between them.
Hiking time: 3.5–5 hours
Difficulty: Easy to moderate
Usage: Free. Open dawn to dusk. No pets or bicycles permitted.
Trailhead GPS Coordinates: 28.609866, -82.359268
Contact Information: Chinsegut Conservation Center, 23212 Lake Lindsey Road, Brooksville FL 34601 (352-754-6722, myfwc.com/viewing/recreation/wmas/lead/chinsegut)
Tempted by free land from the Armed Occupation Act of 1842—one of the tools the US Government used to force Native Americans out of Florida—Colonel Bird M. Pearson came from South Carolina in the late 1840s to the high rolling hills north of what would become Brooksville. Bringing his family and slaves, he staked his claim for 160 acres and established a plantation on the highest hill in the region. He called it Mt. Airy. After the Civil War, the Ederington family purchased the estate and expanded the home into a grand manor before abandoning it.
50 Hikes in Central Florida Page 9