As of October 25, the long-awaited Nokuse section of the Florida Trail is now open, reflecting two years of hard work by members of the Choctawhatchee Chapter of the Florida Trail Association, an effort led by Bob Deckert and Tom Daniels. This 20-mile segment between SR 81 north of Bruce and US 331 north of Freeport gets the Florida Trail into the woods and off a lengthy roadwalk that was a bane of hikers due to its lack of places to stay or camp. Having explored some of the route when it was first negotiated in 2006, I can say there are some great surprises in store for hikers, including some of the highest elevations on the Florida Trail.
The new trail section was made possible by an agreement between the U.S. Forest Service and Nokuse Plantation founder M.C. Davis. Nokuse Plantation is a 48,058-acre private conservation initiative in the Florida Panhandle. According to Bill Cleckley, director of the Division of Land Management and Acquisition for The Northwest Florida Water Management District, “In addition to providing public access and hiking opportunities through public and private conservation lands, the Nokuse Plantation trail segment allows hikers the opportunity to see unique steephead habitats, gopher tortoise relocation and restoration efforts and longleaf pine and wiregrass habitat restoration activities while traversing a varied landscape from Eglin Air Force Base to the Choctawhatchee River Water Management Area.”

I’m looking forward to a hike through this section later this hiking season. Meanwhile, great news for long distance hikers and a new destination for weekend backpackers near Panama City.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 at 8:49 pm and is filed under Events, Florida Trail, News, Panhandle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.