Friend - Explorers Guide 50 hikes in central Florida: walks, hikes, and backpacking trips in the heart of the Florida peninsula

Over time trails can be rerouted and signs and landmarks altered. If you find that changes have occurred on the routes described in this book, please let us know so that corrections may be made in future editions. The author and publisher also welcome other comments and suggestions. Address all correspondence to:

Editor, 50 Hikes Series
The Countryman Press
P.O. Box 748
Woodstock, VT 05091

Thanks to the friends who headed into the woods with me for this second edition, including Brenda Anderson, Barbara Bowen, Niki Butcher, Morena Cameron, Joan Jarvis, Phyllis Malinski, Ellen Petersen, Jon Phipps, Mehmet Gulsen, Ruth Rogg, G. K. Sharman, and Rob Smith, Jr.

Special thanks to Barbara Bowen and Ruth Rogg for introducing me to new hikes Id never experienced before and found interesting enough to add to this edition; to Vince Lamb, who chased down a missing GPS track for me at one of his favorite trails; to my mom, Linda Friend, who started adventuring with me after we lost the most important man in our lives; and to various friends, including Lori and Dan Burris and Sandy and Bill Huff, for opening their homes to me as I traveled to update this book. Instrumental, too, was Carlene Barrett at Florida State Parks, who advised me on which state parks were less busy and needed a few more hikers on their trails.

Special thanks, too, to Kevin Mims, without whom this project would have sat on a shelf for another hiking season. Kevin stepped in to assist after my Dad died, when life got too overwhelming for me to continue working on the book. For a busy couple of months, he rambled the region backpacking and updating the lengthier trails, filling in details to some of the new hikes I added to the book, and scoping out two new hikes recommended to me that I didnt have the time to explore myselfCircle B Bar Ranch and Moccasin Island. An outdoor writer and native Floridian, Kevin is a lifelong outdoor enthusiast and shares hiking videos at www.kevinmims.com.

If you havent hiked in Central Florida yet, youre truly missing out. Its a joy, more than a decade after I first started writing about hiking in Florida, to report that there are more trailsand more hikers out enjoying themthan ever. With our optimal hiking season coinciding with an influx of winter residents and major bird migrations through the state, weve become an outdoors mecca for America. In fact, American Trails named Florida the top trails state in the nation in 2009. Who cares if we dont have mountains? What we have that attracts outdoor enthusiasts is beauty.

The delights of Florida hiking are subtle, with some clear exceptions in Central Florida, where you scramble over some of the highest ridges in the peninsula or amble out into prairies that go on for miles. Its more likely youll be focused on the little things. 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.

Botanical diversity thrives in Florida; our two time zones are home to 81 different natural native plant communities, ranging from temperate Appalachian-style forests of oak, maple, and hickory to tangled tropical jungles of gumbo-limbo. This spectrum of forests meets throughout the wilderness areas of Central Florida. Blessed with such biodiversity, hikers enjoy a broad range of habitats and wildlife that only Hawaii and California surpass. Trails pass through desert-like scrub islands, jungle-like hydric hammocks, and deep, dark bays 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. Each elevation gain or loss of only a few inches leads to an entirely new ecosystem. Central Florida is also home to delightful landforms of karst, from disappearing lakes and streams and yawning sinkholes lush with ferns to the worlds largest concentration of first-magnitude springs, gushing forth billions of gallons of crystal-clear water from the Floridan Aquifer.

Between the massive conservation efforts mounted by the Florida Forever program, one of the nations largest land acquisition programs; our many counties who established and are successful growing their own natural lands programs; and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection constantly adding new public lands to the Florida State Parks system, our options for exploring Floridas great outdoors have increased exponentially. This patchwork of preserved lands helps endangered species such as the Florida panther, the Florida black bear, the bald eagle, and the Florida scrub-jay to maintain or gain population.

When winter snows settle on northern trails, its prime hiking season in Floridaalthough many hikers now head outdoors in the summer months, too. Between October and March, temperatures become comfortable, and the insect population declines, especially after the first freeze. Seasonally out of sync with most of the rest of the nation, Florida provides a perfect winter playground for the active hiker.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

As a longtime resident of Central Florida, Im familiar with the abundance of regional names used to label our portion of the state, from Horse Country around Ocala to the Space Coast around Titusville. For purposes of this book, Ive set my designation of Central Florida as the counties falling between SR 40 and SR 60. These include Brevard, Citrus, Hernando, Hillsborough, Indian River, Orange, Lake, Osceola, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk, Sumter, Volusia, and the southern half of Marion County. In terms of metro areas, this includes Orlando, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Daytona Beach, Cocoa Beach, Melbourne, and Vero Beach.