Withlacoochee River Trail

Oak hammock festooned with ferns

Look for the “Florida Trail” sign at the canoe landing. The first stretch of the trail offers the best views of the river, including an ancient cypress stump with new life sprouting from it. Most of the cypresses in this swamp were logged out between 50 and 150 years ago for products ranging from citrus crates to shingles. A second-growth forest has emerged. The trail is deeply shaded by live oaks festooned with resurrection fern and several types of orchids. Each time I’ve hiked here, it’s been raining, and the forest was a riot of green. Emerging from the forest, you’ll walk along the edge of a prairie before the trail makes a hard left jog away from the park and into a bower of showy live oaks (if you turn right at this point, you’ll reach the far parking lot and connect with the Nature Trail). Beneath the oaks, you skirt the edge of the prairie and enter the Green Swamp. Always keep alert for orange blazes.

At 1.6 miles, you reach the loop in the trail, which leads you through a variety of habitats. Turn right to walk through a pine forest along the edge of a large prairie, where you’ll see herons and egrets. After walking beneath the live oaks, at 1.8 miles, you pass the first blue blaze to a primitive campsite, and at 2.9 miles, another. The trail turns to parallel the Withlacoochee River floodplain upstream, and you walk alongside the vastness of cypress swamp. At 3.9 miles, you can look across the dark water to a scout cabin on the far shore. At the 4 mile mark, you’ve finished the loop. Continue back along the trail to either the far parking lot (to explore more of the park along the Nature Trail) or back along the orange blazes to the canoe landing.