Showing posts with label hiking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hiking. Show all posts

Thursday, August 12, 2010

US Forest Service's Back To School Special

The National Forests in Florida are having a "back to school" special this weekend, August 14 and 15. That is, the United States Forest Service is waiving fees in select recreation areas in Florida's three National Forests (Apalachicola, Ocala, and Osceola). Folks in the Tallahassee area will find it convenient to take advantage of free admission to the Leon Sinks Geological Area. Without going into a full trail report, Leon Sinks is a great place to take a walk. The trails are not a difficult hike; the land is piney woods that is all but absolutely flat. The trail is unique, though, in wandering the Woodville karst plain, and along the way you can see several sinkholes including Big Dismal Sink. There's also a river sink, where the waters of Fisher Creek disappear into the ground to wander the labyrinth of the Floridan aquifer.

Leon Sinks is the only site in the Apalachicola National Forest for which the USFS is waiving the entrance fee this weekend. In the Osceola National Forest admission will be free at the Olustee Beach day use area. In the Ocala National Forest fees will be waived for the Fore Lake day use area, the Farles day use area, the Lake Eaton boat ramp and pier, the Mill Dam Boat Ramp and Swim Area, and the Lake Dorr Boat Ramp.

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Posted by Herb Wills at 9:49 PM 0 comments
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Friday, June 11, 2010

Now that's a trailhead (Red Bug)

On a mission to find out what one the Tallahassee Parks & Recreation Department's "standard kiosks" looks like (which is another story entirely), I swung by the youth sports fields at Elinor Klapp Phipps Park (aka Meridian Park) earlier this week. The first kiosk I saw happened to be at the trailhead for the Red Bug Trail.

Wow!

This is also the trailhead for the Coon Bottom Loop hiking trail. There's a tendency for Tallahasseans to run off to Torreya State Park or even farther away for a good hike, but you can get quite tired and dirty right in Phipps Park. And you can start your walk at the Cadillac of trail heads right off Meridian Road.

There's parking right next to the trailhead, which is a pretty minimal requirement but one that's not always met. Then there's the kiosk. Which is huge. And roofed. With built-in benches. You could live under this kiosk. And the city of Tallahassee and the Florida Trail Association actually post some useful information on it.


For cyclists who have been out on the Red Bug Trail, there's a bike wash.


After your bike or hike if you're sweaty or dirty or just don't want to take the ticks home with you, there's a shower (with an attached re-hydration device).


And then there's the trail itself, with a mailbox for dispensing maps. This is the entrance to the Coon Bottom hiking loop. Cyclists shouldn't be too miffed by the "No Bikes" sign; the Red Bug Off-Road bike trail is just a few feet away.


It's not perfect. The Meridian Park rest rooms are at least a hundred-yard walk away. But if you've ever gone for a hike and ended up spending a good chunk of time just trying to find the trail, this Red Bug trailhead looks pretty good.

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Posted by Herb Wills at 3:34 PM 2 comments
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Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Walking on water--hiking across the Apalachicola

If you're through-hiking the Florida National Scenic Trail or you have some other reason to be walking across the Florida panhandle, you're eventually going to have to cross the Apalachicola River. Some river crossings on the Florida Trail are a bit iffy. At St Marks, for instance, the trail simply stops at the banks of the St Marks River, where a small signs advises you to "Hail Boat to Cross." Crossings of the Aucilla and Suwanee rivers are on highway bridges. The crossing of the Apalachicola is also on a highway bridge, the eastbound span of the Trammell Bridge, which carries traffic on SR 20 from Blountstown to Bristol. But you don't have to worry about sociopaths in motor vehicles trying to knock you into the river because the bridge has a dedicated lane for pedestrians and bicycles.


The hiker/biker lane was included when the eastbound span was built in the late 1990s. Before that, the Trammell Bridge was an old two-lanes-with-no-shoulder span that dated back to the 1930s. I remember riding to track meets in Panama City on a school bus back in the 1970s; going across the old bridge could be thrilling. The old bridge is now the westbound span of the bridge, with no room for pedestrians or cyclists who want a long and healthy life. The hiker/biker lane on the eastbound span, though, is a model of safety.


For one thing, the lane is separated from motor traffic by a low concrete wall. This isn't a typical highway bike lane, with only a four-inch painted line between fragile bicycles and hurtling tractor-trailers. A breakdown lane and a wall divides the human beings from speeding tons of steel. Your protection from motor traffic assured, you can turn your worries to the river, 55 feet below. Another low wall separates you from the drop into the Apalachicola, but this is topped by a high railing. You could still fall into the river if you heaved yourself up onto the wall and then climbed to the top of the railing, but I don't think that you could call it an accident.


The exact length depends on how you want to measure it, but the biker/hiker lane across the Apalachicola is about 1.6 miles long. This distance will probably inspire someone to think of staging an out-and-back 5K across the river, but forget it. The lane is quite narrow--"ordinary sidewalk width," the signs say--and eastbound runners would be sure to interfere with westbound runners. Because the Apalachicola River marks the boundary between the Eastern and Central Time Zones, it might be interesting to do a "Time Warp 3K," where the runners start on the east side of the bridge and finish before they started (according to local clocks) on the west side of the bridge. Or at least it would be interesting if there weren't a possibility of eastbound cyclists needing the lane at the same time as the westbound runners. Then it would be too interesting.

Best just to leave the biker/hiker lane as a safe way for the non-motorized to cross the Apalachicola River. For Florida Trail hikers, it's not much of a wilderness experience. But even the Appalachian Trail crosses the Little Tennessee River on the spine of Fontana Dam, which, as one of the largest concrete structures in the world, is hardly a woodland.

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Posted by Herb Wills at 4:35 PM 2 comments
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Monday, September 14, 2009

Fanny Bay Trail, Osceola National Forest, Florida

The Fanny Bay Trail in the Osceola National Forest is a short--about 3/4-mile--nature trail that takes you from a pine woods into a swamp. This would be unremarkable, but the one of the trailheads is in a rest area on Interstate 10.

This is a great idea!

You don't have to be traveling on I-10 t0 access the Fanny Bay Trail. In fact, the east end of the trail is at a parking area off of Pony Dobson Road in the Osceola National Forest. Good luck finding it, though. The rest area trailhead is much easier to locate. That trailhead is in the rest area for westbound traffic on I-10 near mile marker 318, just after exit 324 (US 90-Sanderson-Olustee) but before exit 303 (US 441-Lake City-Fargo). This rest area and its eastbound partner seem to have been put together by the United States Forestry Service; there are quite a few displays relating to the Osceola National Forest in particular and Florida National Forests in general.

Look on the walkways for silhouettes of frogs painted in yellow. These are the blazes that will lead you out of the rest area to the Fanny Bay Trail. The frogs take you north from the rest rooms, then west and north again to the boundary fence of the rest area. Here a gate leads through the fence, into the Osceola National Forest, and onto the Fanny Bay Trail. Turning right will take you about a quarter mile to the east end of the trail along Pony Dobson Road. You probably don't want to do that, so turn left and take the trail toward the swamp.

The trail itself is double track with a grassy surface that seems to receive regular mowing. The mower misses the dog fennel growing on either side of the trail, which you may need to brush aside as you pass. Frequent interpretive signs are posted along the trail. The weather prior to my visit had been wet, so there were puddles on the trail closer to the swamp.

Once in the swamp, the trail takes you onto a boardwalk winding through the trees. I found the tread slick, which is probably typical unless conditions have been exceptionally dry for Florida. Below the boardwalk, duckweed floats on the surface of the dark water. About half a mile from the rest area, the boardwalk ends in an observation deck with seats in the middle of the swamp. You can stop here and take a respite away from hurtling vehicles of steel and glass. The sounds of the highway are almost distant enough to ignore.

If you're looking for more exercise than a one-mile stroll to the swamp and back, consider turning right from the rest area trailhead. The Pony Dobson Road trailhead is only a quarter-mile away, but Pony Dobson Road itself is unpaved, an excellent surface for a walk or a run. Not having explored the road, I can't say how far it will take you, but I'm willing to bet that there's more than a few miles of natural surfaces waiting there for your feet.

Even just the walk to the swamp and back is a refreshing break from the highway, long enough to leave you alert and ready for more driving. Where possible this trail should be emulated at other highway rest areas. For example, both the eastbound and the westbound rest areas on Interstate 10 near mile-marker 194 outside of Tallahassee are adjacent to the Ochlockonee Tract of the Lake Talquin State Forest. Is anyone from the Florida Division of Forestry reading this?

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Posted by Herb Wills at 2:05 PM 2 comments
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Friday, June 12, 2009

Fort Braden Trails (East Loop) Tallahassee, Florida

At just under five miles (4.94 miles), the East Loop of the Fort Braden Trails in longer than either the West Loop (3.37 miles) or the Central Loop (2.98 miles). However, about a mile and a half of the East Loop is trail that it shares with the Central Loop. There is some also some doubling back, as you hike in 0.61 miles, make a loop, and then return on the initial 0.61 mile approach.

The trailhead for the East Loop is north of the parking area. Follow the road beyond the gate at the north end of the parking area for about 200 feet, passing a chain across the road. The trailhead will be at a wooden gate on the right side of the road. This is also the terminus of the Central Loop, and for 0.81 miles you'll be doing the Central Loop "backwards" (i.e., counterclockwise rather than clockwise). Beyond the wooden gate the orange-blazed trail begins, flat and firm, in a woods of scrub oak and pine. Deer moss covers the ground below the trees.

At 0.15 miles the trail comes onto a very sandy road. Follow the orange blazes right and don't curse the sand too heartily--it lasts less than sixty yards, after which you turn right off of the road and into the woods. At 0.23 miles the trail intersects the pink-blazed horse trail, turn right and follow the trail down into a small ravine. The trees grow larger as you descend. At the bottom of the ravine (0.32) the trail crosses a small stream on a foot bridge. Climb away from the bridge over a tangle of roots, and then descend back into the ravine to cross another small bridge at 0.38 miles.

After the second bridge the trail climbs out of the small ravine, turning left to briefly follow an old road or firebreak at 0.45 miles. At 0.52 miles you cross the pink-blazed horse trail and then begin a descent into a second small ravine, reaching the bottom at 0.59 miles. Crossing a bridge at the ravine bottom, the trail climbs to an intersection at 0.61 miles, the start of the "loop" part of the East Loop. A sign here directs you to the "Trailhead" (pointing back toward where you came from), the "Central Loop" (pointing left), and the "East Loop" (pointing right). We'll be going clockwise around the East Loop, so take the trail to the left, even if the sign says "Central Loop."

Heading away from the sign, the ravine that you just climbed out of will be on the left and higher ground on the right. At 0.77 miles the trail crosses the pink-blazed horse trail, and at 0.81 miles you reach another signed intersection. Here you'll take the trail to the right, following the arrow pointing toward the "East Loop." The trail makes a short climb to circle a small steephead around 0.88 miles. For the most part, though, the trail will be making gentle descents as it heads toward Lake Talquin. Around 1.23 miles you cross a low, wet patch where you might find a stream but more probably will find mud; you won't find a bridge. In this flat area undergrowth may obscure the treadway, so look for the orange blazes--fortunately, there are plenty of blazes.

The trail crosses a road at 1.35 miles. If you glance to the left along the road you'll be able to see Lake Talquin. Continuing across the road, the trail makes a sharp left and then crosses a stream at 1.48 miles. There is no bridge here, but the stream is small enough to hop. Keep an eye out for Lake Talquin ahead of you. At 1.59 miles the trail right to follow the shore of the lake.

A bit further ahead (1.63 miles), the trail meets an old road. Turn left onto the old road, which is also the treadway for the pink-blazed horse trail. Crazed trail runners will hate this stretch, but I'm fond of it. The trail is wide, smooth, and shaded, with views of Lake Talquin through the trees on the left. Look for islands and boats on the water. Listen for ducks and other birds, outboard motors, the voices of sports fishers over the water, and mysterious splashes made by turtles, fish, or alligators. However, there is no unobstructed view of the lake on the East Loop as there is on the West Loop and the Central Loop. Furthermore, the banks of the lake are rather steep here, so shuffling off the trail to get a better look is not a good idea. Enjoy what you can see from the trail; it's better than falling into the lake.

At 1.94 miles trail turn left off of the road and away from the pink blazes but closer to the lake. The trail turns to the right at 2.01 miles to avoid an inlet of Lake Talquin, and then leaves the lake for good. By the time you cross an unbridged stream at 2.09 miles, you've seen the last of Lake Talquin on this hike. For better or worse, there are no spectacular inclines to emphasize the fact that the trail is climbing out of the lake basin.

For the next mile or so the trail runs alongside (but not very close to) Coe Landing Road, so you might occasionally hear a car through the trees on the left. The trail also winds quite a bit on this stretch, so watch the orange blazes. There is an unbridged stream crossing at 2.50 miles, and a bridged one at 2.67 miles. At 2.86 miles the trail crosses the pink-blazed horse trail. A 1000-foot detour to the left on the horse trail would take you to Coe Landing Road. I don't recommend it as a scenic side trip, but it could be useful.

A small brown wooden sign reading "MILE 7" is at 2.90 miles. This is the seven-mile mark for a hike that combines parts of the West Loop, the Central Loop, and the East Loop to make a single nine-mile long hiking loop. I can't say how many trail re-routes have been done since these posts were erected, or how accurately they were placed, but this one means that you have approximately two miles left in the loop.

Just past the "MILE 7" sign the trail crosses a small stream bed. There are bridged streams at 2.94 miles and 2.99 miles. About 3.11 miles the trail makes it's closest approach to Coe Landing Road as it skirts streams and steepheads on the right; you may even be able to see cars through the trees on the left. Further on, several large trees have fallen across the trail. On my visit, there were flags leading around the trees, making it appear as if re-routing rather than removal was going to be the solution. Once you do make it around the fallen trees, at 3.24 miles the trail crosses the pink-blazed horse trail. A 500-foot detour to the left on the horse trail takes you to a gate on Coe Landing Road, but we're pushing ahead. At 3.29 miles the trail crosses a wet area above a steephead then turns left to climb a bank.

At 3.43 miles the trail crosses a small stream on a foot bridge. (The bridge had become a dam on my most recent visit; I cleared the waterway underneath the bridge but anyone with a shovel could do a better job.) Once across the stream the trail climbs out of a small ravine and into a flat pine woods. Not being longleaf pines, these trees are probably doomed to removal.

The trail crosses the pink-blazed horse trail again at 3.66 miles. Afterwards, it begins winding through a flat, wet area while skirting a logged-out savannah. There is a foot bridge across some of the worst of the swampiness at 3.87 miles, and at 3.91 miles there is a series of almost 200 feet of plank bridges keeping the trail out of the mud. After this the trail is much better drained. A "MILE 8" sign has been placed for your amusement at 3.95 miles, and the trail crosses Beech Road at four miles.

After hopping a small stream at 4.13 miles, the trail passes a group of metal artifacts, some quite large. Were these auto parts? Logging machinery? Is it left over from when this was private timber land, or was it dumped out here when the area was more accessible? Is this a cultural resource, or is it trash? While you ponder these riddles, at 4.18 miles the trail comes out into a stand of young longleaf pines, too small to cast shade and too skinny to hold a blaze. Blazes on this stretch are on posts.

The sunny stretch doesn't last long enough to be oppressive and ends at 4.27 miles when the trail crosses a firebreak and heads into the woods. Going down a short incline, at 4.31 miles the trail arrives at an intersection marked by a sign--the first signed intersection you came to on the loop. This time go left, following the arrow marked "TRAILHEAD." From here you backtrack the first 0.61 miles of the hike, and arrive back at the trailhead at 4.94 miles. Including the distance from the parking lot to the trailhead and back, you can call it five miles.


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Friday, March 27, 2009

Eat a cookie, save a trail

I eat Nature Valley Granola Bars. I have no illusions about them. They are cookies. I like cookies. I also eat Famous Amos cookies. Sometimes I take Nature Valley products with me on a hike, usually as part of lunch. I suppose that it's convenient that they're already separately packaged. I also sometimes take Pepperidge Farm Chocolate Chunk cookies. You have to put those in a plastic bag, though, unless you're planning on eating the whole package on trail (which might not be a bad idea).

But then I looked at the back of the box. This is not something I usually do, altho' I used to read breakfast cereal boxes at the table to see what plastic toy I was in danger of swallowing if I ate too recklessly. It seems that I am saving trails when I eat my granola bars. I don't have to write checks to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy or the Florida Trail Association, I can just stay at home and eat cookies. Oh, wait. It says here, "You can also help Save The Trails by volunteering at one of more than 1,200 local American Hiking Society Events." Uh-oh, it sounds like I need to volunteer for a work crew, too. Maybe I could buy an extra box of cookies instead?

Kudos (not the cookie) to General Mills for giving back a little. No credit to anyone who thinks that eating a cookie is enough to preserve and expand our trails.
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Posted by Herb Wills at 6:00 AM 0 comments
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Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Dutch & Faye Trail, Ebro, Florida

The Dutch & Faye Trail is located just south of Ebro in the Sand Pond Recreation area of the Pine Log State Forest. The Pine Log State Forest was established in 1936 as Florida's first state forest, but apparently did not require a park ranger until 1978, when Edgar "Dutch" Tiemann stepped into the job. Before retiring in 1992, "Dutch" laid out the campground and the original trail system in the Sand Creek Recreation Area. When I first visited the recreation area several years ago, the large loop trail was named the "Dutch Tiemann Trail" in his honor. Since then, the name has changed to the "Dutch & Faye Trail" to include Mrs. Tiemann.

To get to the trail head, turn west onto (unpaved) Environmental Road off of Highway 79, 1.4 miles south of the intersection of state road 20 and state road 79. (This turn was a bit hard to find on the day of our visit because of construction on Highway 79. ) Make the first right onto Longleaf Road. Drive past two ponds, one on the left and one on the right. Trail head parking will be one the left, near an elaborate picnic pavilion (stone fireplace, sunken floor, ceiling fans...yeah, it's elaborate). The information board and trail head for the Dutch & Faye Trail will be to the right of the picnic pavilion, next to one of the ponds. Two other trails pass by here--the red-blazed Campground Boardwalk Trail and the orange-blazed Florida National Scenic Trail. The Dutch & Faye Trail is marked with blue blazes and blue metal arrow signs. Most of the trail is in fact very well marked.

We did the trail clockwise, so we took the blue-blazed trail to the right. We were immediately in a forest dominated by pines, which does not change during the 5-3/4 mile length of the trail, except for a few plunges into swamp titi. Even if you don't look up, you'll notice changes in the species of pine by the size and shape of pine cones littering the path.

Soon after starting, at 0.14 miles the trail passes a open area with picnic shelters on the right. After that we were alone in the woods, with only an occasional glimpse of Crews Lake Road on the left to spoil the illusion of wilderness. Well, that and the fact that the pines seemed to be planted in rows, and that the forest has been well-managed with regular prescribed burns. We crossed a forest road at 0.42 miles and reached a bench on the left side of the trail at 0.91 miles. By now the trail was taking us south along state road 79, and you could make out cars through the trees behind the bench. Farther along, the trail and the highway angled apart for a while, so that the traffic was no longer visible from the trail even if it was still audible.

At 1.12 miles a side trail on the right goes first to the red-blazed Campground Boardwalk Trail and then crosses it to go to the campground. Past the side trail, the trail crosses a rough blacktop road at 1.27 miles, followed by some rare downhill. Most of the Dutch & Faye Trail is extremely flat, so any sort of uphill or downhill is unusual, and the slopes that do exist are barely noticeable.

The trail makes a very close approach to state road 79 around a mile and a half, running next to the highway right-of-way. This may not have been the case until recently, when work to four-lane highway started. The trail hurriedly turns away from the road and heads onto a foot bridge over a small creek. After the bridge the trail is going through a swampy area, and gravel has been added to the path to keep it from becoming muddy. This is not so bad for foot traffic, but can't be fun for the off-road bicycles that also use the trail. Pitcher plants grow along the trail here.

At 1.75 miles the trail crosses Enviromental Road near its intersection with state road 79. South of Environmental Road the trail skirts some depressions that look like they may have been borrow pits for the highway. Whatever their origin, they must make things more interesting for the cyclists. Past the pits, a bench is on the right side of the trail at 1.89 miles. Here the trail turns a bit to the west and away from state road 79. At 1.99 miles the trail crosses the orange-blazed Florida National Scenic Trail, which seemed somewhat overgrown on the day of our visit. After crossing the Florida Trail, the Dutch & Faye Trail went over another small footbridge at 2.02 miles. To the left of the trail there is a thick wall of swamp titi indicating the margins of Pine Log Creek.

At 2.48 miles the trail crosses Longleaf Road. Leaving the trail and turning left onto the road will take you to a primitive camp site on Pine Log Creek. Forging ahead on the trail takes you to an annoyingly pointless series of curves taking the trail away from the creek. If there was an appreciable slope here, I'd call these switchbacks and praise them, but the change in elevation here is too subtle to require switchbacks. Were the curves added to entertain bicyclists? To add extra distance to the trail? I can think of other possible reasons, but I lack the imagination to come up with a good reason.

The trail eventually straightens out, though, and at 3.01 miles you go over a very long bridge over a small tributary to Pine Log Creek. Coming off the bridge, the trail turns left into a recently logged area. In this clear area, the trail passes three short lengths of fence, or Fences Of No Obvious Utility. The first two F.O.N.O.U.s are two upright posts connected with two horizontal rails. The third is larger, with three upright posts. They are not old, nor do they appear to have ever been part of a larger structure. They are a mystery.

After the third F.O.N.O.U., at 3.21 miles the trail crosses a forest road and leaves the area that was logged. Once again the trail is a path with trees on either side, and remains so until 3.47 miles where it intersects with another forest road. This time the arrows direct you to turn left and head south on the forest road. At 3.65 miles the trail turns right off the road and back into the woods, but if you continue a short distance farther south on the road you'll reach primitive camp site #3 on Pine Log Creek. Camp site #3 features a picnic table, a charcoal grill, a fire ring, and Pine Log Creek.

Back in the woods, the trail continues west for a short ways and then turns to the north. At 3.87 miles the trail crosses a short footbridge and reaches a bench on the left side of the road at 3.96 miles, the first bench for over two miles. This bench had been staked out by a family of carpenter bees, one of which buzzed around our heads menacingly. However, his threats were empty--male carpenter bees have no sting, and any females were inside the bench, chewing out new tunnels and laying eggs. The rest of the benches on the trail were similarly inhabited.

Heading north, the trail runs along a creek, as evidenced by the thick growth of swamp titi to the left. Pines remain dominant, but there are a few magnolias sprinkled through the forest here. At 4.28 miles a forest road intersects the trail on the right, on the left it disappears into the titi. The trail crosses another small foot bridge at 4.52 miles, followed by a bench at 4.89 miles. The vegetation seems more upland on this stretch with more scrub and less palmetto. The wall of swamp titi has faded off into the distance. Too soon for another rest, the trail passes the last bench at 5.15 miles. At 5.26 miles the trail crosses a wide, dirt road, Environmental Road. By now you are headed northeast, almost straight toward the trail head.

Before you get back to the trail head you cross the Florida Trail again at 5.67 miles. The red-blazed Campground Boardwalk Trail also runs nearby, and you may notice hikers on it. At 5.75 miles the trail arrives back at the information board and trail head; the loop is complete.

The Dutch & Faye Trail is an easy hike, and would make for a relatively tame trail run. As mentioned earlier, the trail is also open to off-road bicycles, and any sort of fat-tire bike would do well here. As on any shared-use trail, pedal traffic needs to watch out for foot traffic and vice versa. Portions of the trail run through a part of the Pine Log Wildlife Management Area, that is open to bow-hunting, so everyone needs to look out for archers during bow-hunting season. A few miles away, the Crooked Creek Trail offers a 4-1/2 mile option and a nine-mile option to off-road bicycles as well as foot traffic. None of these trails is open to horse-riding, but the 12.5-mile Crooked Creek Trail has been established for equestrian use. If you're trying to earn a patch by collecting ten trails in the Florida Division of Forestry's Trailwalker Program, the Dutch & Faye Trail will count toward your total, as will the Campground Boardwalk Trail and the Crooked Creek Trail. Visitors to the Sand Pond Recreation Area are required to pay a day-use fee of $2.00 per person (as of 1 March 2009), or hold an Annual Day-Use Permit which the Division of Forestry issues for $30.00. The Annual Permit should be displayed in a car windshield and covers the driver and up to seven passengers--it's not a bad deal for regular visitors to Florida State Forests.

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Monday, March 16, 2009

Fort Braden Trails (Central Loop) Tallahassee, Florida

Having discussed the West Loop of the Fort Braden Trails, let's move on to the Central Loop. Like the West Loop, I'll describe a clockwise circuit of the loop.

At 2.98 miles, the Central Loop is the shortest of the three hiking loops at the Fort Braden Trails. The trail head is the same as that for the West Loop, a wooden gate north and a little west of the Fort Braden Trails parking area. However, a few feet past the trail head, at the first fork in the path, you need to take the right fork to follow the Central Loop. You're still sharing treadway with the West Loop, but you're on the Central Loop. Don't worry if I haven't made this clear--just make sure to take the right fork. Starting off, the trail heads downhill in a wood of mostly young oaks seasoned with a few southern magnolias. As the trail gets lower, the trees increase in size and a stream appears on the right, which the trail crosses at 0.16 miles. 200 yards farther on, the trail passes a small steephead on the left.

At 0.34 miles the trail arrives at another intersection. The left fork takes you across a bridge and counter-clockwise around the West Loop, so you'll want to avoid the bridge and take the right fork to continue clockwise around the Central Loop. Some signs on the bridge explain this, but confuse matters by mentioning the East Loop.

At 0.51 miles a small footbridge takes the trail over a stream, after which the terrain becomes mostly flat. There is still some elevation to lose before the trail arrives at the banks of Lake Talquin, but the downhill isn't noticeable. The trail crosses another footbridge at 0.66 miles. At 0.74 miles a larger, meandering stream appears on the left. As the trail runs along this stream, you cross the pink-blazed horseback-riding trail, which crosses the stream at a ford here. After that, the hiking trail moves away from the stream and crosses a footbridge over a smaller stream at 0.79 miles.

The going is still mostly flat when the trail intersects the pink-blazed horse trail again at 0.90 miles. A little bit farther on, just past the end of the first mile, you can start to make out Lake Talquin through the trees. The trail turns to the right to follow the lake shore, which will be on your left. At 1.1 miles the hiking trail's orange blazes are joined by the riding trail's pink blazes, and the trails share a treadway along the lake front for a while. Traffic isn't so heavy on the trails that you're likely to run into any horses, but it's possible.

Still sharing a treadway with the horse trail, the trail crosses a forest road at 1.16 miles, then emerges into an open, grassy area, a kind of park on the shore of Lake Talquin. There is a shelter here with picnic tables, a charcoal grill, a couple of benches with a view of the lake, and hitching rails for horses. This is not a bad place to stop and have a drink, a snack, lunch, or a look at Lake Talquin.

The trail exits on the other side of the picnic area, still sharing a treadway with the horse trail. About a hundred yards farther on, you pass a "MILE 4" sign. You haven't gone four miles; this is a mile marker for hikers doing the nine-mile loop that combines parts of all three loops. Your actual progress up to this point is about 1.24 miles. A little farther on, at 1.29 miles, the shared treadway ends, and the horse trail continues along the lake while the hiking trail heads to the right and inland. A little later, the trail heads back to the left and the lakeshore, crossing the horse trail at 1.39 miles. From here, the hiking trail has the view of the lake while the horse trail goes farther inland. To the best of my knowledge, no horse has ever said anything positive about the view of the lake, anyway.

Around a mile and a half, the trail heads away from the lake briefly and uphill to skirt the mouth of a creek flowing into the lake. Looking to your left, you can see where the creek meets Lake Talquin, and below the trail you can see a steephead spring that feeds into the creek. At 1.57 mile you make a bridgeless crossing of the creek, then turn left back toward the lake. As the trail regain the lake shore, at 1.60 miles you come upon a sign and blue blazes leading to a primitive campsite. Amenities are limited to a fire ring and a great view of Lake Talquin. Campers are required to have a Forest Use Permit, available at the Florida Division of Forestry offices at 865 Geddie Road. Shortly after the primitive campsite, the trail turns to the right and heads away from Lake Talquin for good. At 1.70 miles the trail crosses a north-south forest road, giving you one of your last views of Lake Talquin to the left.

At 2.02 miles a foot bridge takes the trail over a small stream. There's another sign for a primitive camping area on the right side of the trail at 2.12 miles, but this one is not as easy to find. A small arrow on the signpost points west; follow it if you want to visit the campsite. This will take you uphill and onto an east-west running forest road. The road is easy enough to follow, but there are no blazes to assure you that you're going the right way. After over 100 yards of trudging uphill, you arrive at the campsite. This is the one referred to on the maps of the Fort Braden Trails as the group campsite; it includes a picnic table, charcoal grill, fire ring, and a lot of hitching rails for horses.

Back on the Central Loop, the trail drops after the primitive camping area sign to cross a small stream on a foot bridge. Climbing away from the stream, the trail arrives at an intersection with the East Loop at 2.17 miles. Go right here, following the signs directing you back to the trail head. The trail crosses the pink-blazed horse trail, after which there will be a ravine on your right and a ridgetop to your left. That would be a small ravine and a small ridge; this is not the Appalachian Trail. Shortly the trail arrives at another intersection with the East Loop. Once again follow the sign directing you to the trail head and turn right, down into the ravine. At the bottom of the ravine the trail crosses a small stream on a foot bridge at 2.39 miles, then turns left to climb out of the ravine.

Once out of the ravine, the trail once again crosses the pink-blazed riding trail. After passing a stand of recently-planted longleaf pines, you descend into another small ravine. At the bottom of the ravine, at 2.60 miles you once again cross a small stream on a foot bridge. Shortly after that you cross the last foot bridge of the Central Loop and climb out of the ravine. At 2.75 miles you reach the top of the climb and an intersection, follow the orange blazes and turn left here. At 2.79 miles the trail makes another left to follow a torturously sandy road for about 60 yards. After the loose sand, though, the trail returns to a firm-surfaced path in the woods. A sign along the path proclaims "MILE 9," but that's for the combined loop, not the Central Loop. Just around the corner from the sign is a wooden gate marking the end of the loop (but not the same gate you started at). Go through the gate and turn left to return to the parking area. You might also want to check yourself for ticks; at times the Fort Braden Trails have been plagued with them.


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Posted by Herb Wills at 6:00 AM 0 comments
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