Hello, I am a new member and I have been looking for a website that will be helpful in finding hiking trails in Florida, especially ones in the panhandle area since I live in the Tallahassee area. My wife and I are wanting to take the kids hiking once a week if possible and need a good resource for trails. I hope you can help.

Hi Steve! I'm the publicity chair and programs chair and webmaster for the Tallahassee chapter (Apalachee Chapter) of the Florida Trail Association. I have put links to online maps of local hiking trails on our website. Go to http://apalachee.floridatrail.org and click on "Local Hiking Trail Maps." Feel free to contact me for more information and for a map to the 7 miles of hiking trails in Elinor Klapp-Phipps Park in north Tallahassee (it's not online). I hope you folks will come to our meetings or join us on a hike. Click on "Newsletters" to see a listing of those. See you on the trail! ~~ Linda Patton

Hi, Steve, and welcome! The Panhandle is one of my areas of focus since I've written less about it in my books. I'm presently wrapping up another book for University Press of Florida so have been on hiatus this month completing the writing, and will get back to posting more great hikes within the next two weeks. Keep in mind that our hiking season is Oct-Apr, and now it's getting a bit too hot and buggy! That said, early morning hikes are still fun in the summer. Have you been to Lake Jackson Mounds, north of I-10 off US 27? It's a great short trail for kids.

Thanks for the support, looking forward to a hike tomorrow morning at McClay Gardens. We will be there hopefully around 7am and will do the 3 mile loop around the lake. I found this trail on line. Always new about the park but didn't know of the trails. I am interested in coming to your meetings if we can fit them into our schedule. If anyone is interested, I post my pics online at: http://public.fotki.com/wsr88d/ feel free to check them out. I will be posting more photos when I find the time to do so.