Stretching from the St. Johns River near Palatka to the Gulf of Mexico, the Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida Greenway is a mile-wide recreational corridor that contains equestrian, mountain biking, hiking, and paved trails. The Florida Trail traverses a large portion of its length between Silver Springs and Dunnellon, with a more northerly segment popping out of the Ocala National Forest at the Rodman Reservoir.
Trails along the Cross Florida Greenway provide backpacking and day hiking opportunities on both linear and loop routes.
Florida Trail, Baseline to Marshall Swamp - Along this woodland in Ocala, enjoy a swath of true urban wilderness, a mile-wide corridor edged on both sides by subdivisions and strip malls. Both remain gratefully out of sight and sound as you walk [...]
Florida Trail, Buckman Lock to Rodman Dam - Paralleling a segment of the failed Cross Florida Barge Canal, this mostly linear section of the Florida Trail sticks to a high berm created when the canal was dug. Nicely shaded for much of its [...]
Florida Trail, Land Bridge Trailhead to Santos - As the Cross Florida Greenway sweeps through Ocala and along the edge of Belleview, it provides access to a series of forests broken by unobtrusive road crossings in the heart of horse country, canopied roads [...]
Florida Trail, Marshall Swamp - Tarzan’s signature cry once echoed along the crystalline Silver River less than a mile from this section of the Florida Trail, which leads you through a dense, dark floodplain forest beneath a canopy of deep [...]
Florida Trail, Pruitt - It’s not just the ancient live oaks, but the switchbacks and scrambles, the habitat diversity, the stories that the landscape tells—and “Stonehenge.” These are some of the reasons that the Pruitt section of the Florida [...]
Florida Trail, Pruitt to Ross Prairie - As a protected corridor south of Ocala, this section of the Florida Trail is the westernmost segment on the Cross Florida Greenway, showing off the unusual terrain created during construction of the Cross Florida Ship [...]
Florida Trail, Rodman to Lake Delancy - One of the most awe-inspiring sections of the Florida Trail, the segment between the Rodman Dam (more properly known as the George Kirkpatrick Dam) and Lake Delancy immerses you into longleaf pine forests that seem [...]
Florida Trail, Ross Prairie to SW 49th Ave - As a protected corridor south of Ocala, this section of the Florida Trail on the Cross Florida Greenway offers delights you just can’t imagine from the roads that bisect it—CR 484 and SW 49th Avenue. [...]
Florida Trail, Santos to Baseline - In its mile-wide sweep across a swath of Central Florida, the Cross Florida Greenway hits an interruption just a few miles to the north of Belleview. The community of Santos was “in the way” during [...]
Florida Trail, SW 49th Ave to Land Bridge Trailhead - This short segment of the Florida Trail on the Cross Florida Greenway offers easy access to one of its most popular destinations—the Land Bridge over Interstate 75. From the highway, it looks somewhat odd, topped [...]
Ross Prairie Loop - Starting at the Ross Prairie Trailhead, the 3.5-mile Ross Prairie Loop offers an overview of Ross Prairie, a sprawling complex of grasslands and ponds nearly three miles long. Edged by sand pine scrub, longleaf pine [...]
Ross Prairie State Forest – Holly Hammock Hiking Trail - At the Ross Prairie Trailhead of the Cross Florida Greenway, there are two loop trails you can access – and this is the shorter of the two, taking you on a journey into the quiet [...]
Silver River Connector - Gushing more than 550 million gallons of water out of a cluster of springs each day, Silver Springs is the birthplace of the Silver River, a wild and scenic waterway that my paddler friends like [...]
