For a real blast, hike south on the Florida Trail from Juniper Springs in the Ocala National Forest. Back in the 1940s, Jimmy Doolittle and his squadron trained here for their bombing runs on Japan; today, you’re still likely to see or hear low-flying bombers on their practice runs throughout the bombing range that this section of the Florida Trail skirts. Winding along and around a mosaic of both dry and wet prairies that make up the Farles Prairie complex, this 8.5 mile segment of the Florida Trail provides a deep immersion into the Big Scrub.
Resources
 |
 |
 |
Overview
Location: Ocala National Forest
Length: 8.5 miles
Lat-Long: 29.180100, -81.712900 (Juniper) to 29.103519, -81.674882 (Farles)
Type: linear
Fees / Permits: Parking fee inside Juniper Springs and at Farles Lake Circumvent at Juniper by roadside parking along SR 40 (well off road on grassy berm)
Difficulty: moderate
Bug factor: low to moderate
Restroom: At the recreation areas at the ends of this hike
Directions
North End: Follow SR 40 east from Silver Springs for 22 miles into the Ocala National Forest to the Juniper Springs Recreation Area entrance on the left. A trailhead with free parking is slated to be built at the entrance to Juniper Springs, but for now, it’s still necessary to pay the entrance fee ($4 per person), drive into the recreation area, and walk back out the entrance road to the trail crossing.
South End:: From the intersection of SR 40 and SR 19, drive south 4.6 miles to where you see the sign for Farles Lake. Turn right on FR 535. The road jogs after a half mile and becomes FR 595C. After another 0.9 mile, turn right on FR 595-2 and continue 0.9 mile. The road becomes FR 595. Drive another 1.2 miles – following signs all the while – to get to the parking area. There is a camp host here, so parking is relatively secure. A day use fee applies.
Hike Details
Picking up where the Juniper Prairie Wilderness leaves off, the Florida Trail crosses the entrance road to Juniper Springs Recreation Area and continues due east through the scrub. This segment used to be a beautiful, shady tunnel under the sand live oaks, but the horrific firestorm of 2009 – which started with careless campers at Hidden Pond – wiped out the entire forest. Fortunately, sand pines prefer to sprout from charred landscapes, so the young growth is well underway, just not tall enough to produce any shade. You’re within earshot, and sometimes sight, of SR 40 for the first 1.5 miles as you head east. The trail emerges from the trees and crosses SR 40 at an obvious spot with signage on both sides of the highway. Take care when crossing SR 40, since traffic moves at very high speeds and doesn’t expect pedestrians in their path.
Entering the sand pine scrub on the south side of the highway, meander beneath the trees as the trail winds its way, crossing a forest road en route. You emerge in a shady oak hammock with a thick understory of saw palmetto just in time to traverse a long boardwalk fortified with hardware cloth (the better the prevent you slipping) over a segment of prairie that can be wet at times. The trail continues through a lush hammock of cabbage palms, soon rounding a tallgrass prairie marsh. By 2.1 miles, the trail leads you past a prairie pond – a potential water source – before passing through an archway of sand live oaks to enter a diminutive scrub forest. Crossing two jeep trails, you emerge from the scrub forest into a beautiful palm hammock edged by pine forest, with beautiful tent sites just waiting for you – non-designated, but most of the year you can camp wherever you like. The trail transitions into older scrub with tall slash pines and sand pines the upper canopy and twisty branches of rusty lyonia just overhead.
The sounds of sandhill cranes echo across the prairie. To the left, the cabbage palms are getting taller as the trail continues beneath a tightly-knit canopy of scrub forest with crooked branches above. Lichens cling to tree trunks and mosses wave in the breeze. By 3.4 miles, you’re firmly in the thick of an ancient scrub forest, with taller Florida rosemary beneath the myrtle oaks and turkey oaks. Thick carpets of deer moss cover the ground. After crossing a jeep road, the trail rises up and you start to lose the shade above. The landscape starts to become hilly. Entering another scrub forest with an extremely dense understory, you start to hear muffled “booms” in the distance from the bombing range around the 4 mile mark within the mature scrub forest, where the trail crosses another jeep track before twisting and winding through the very tangled understory.
In this section, you may hear Florida scrub-jays calling to each other, as the conditions for their habitat are just right: perfect sized trees, mossy understory, and enough open space to flutter through. The trail crosses a wide clay-colored road – probable access to the bombing range – at 5 miles. Losing elevation in the pine forest, the trail continues towards a large opening up ahead. It’s Farles Prairie, which the trail meets at a T with a sand road at 5.4 miles, turning right to follow the prairie rim on a broad road with broad views.
Leaving the sand road, the trail slips into the young sand pines on the right, offering a little shade while showing off the view of big open stretches of rippling water (when wet) or grasslands (when dry). A quick slip through an island of forest, and the trail emerges on another shore of the prairie, where you can see water lilies in the distance on the left as the trail swings right. The trail follows the sand road briefly, heading back into the pine scrub on a loop around an arm of the prairie, making a horseshoe.
At 6.3 miles, the trail leaves the prairie, headed into a nice shady area along another prairie rim that stretches off to the left. Dancing in and out of dense thickets along the edge of Farles Prairie, you emerge along another set of prairie arms on a two-lane track with slash pines all around. Snags are commonplace in this part of the trail thanks to the debris left behind from a serious forest fire just a couple of years ago, painted in scorched earth and blackened oaks across a broad swath of landscape. It’s eerie, this dead zone, the blackened limbs on trees still standing in a ghost forest with no life.
Life springs forth in the form of towhees tweeting to each other near a patch of ground with aromatic silk bay and blueberry bushes. Emerging into an open area, there are tall slash pines above and gallberry in the understory. This is a pretty spot to camp, with open areas around the prairies and easy-to-access water sources in the adjacent ponds. By 7.1 miles, the feel of the forest changes entirely. It’s the final bit of burn zone, with prairie going on and on beyond. The trees are burned sticks waiting to fall.
Prairies, prairies, everywhere— that’s how this hike draws near a conclusion as the trail passes along an isthmus between two prairies, offering vast views through the open understory. This stretch was also affected by the big bomb burn, though the saw palmettos were coming back nicely when I hiked it. Hitting the 8 mile mark, it looks like the trail was used as a firebreak – it’s roughed up a bit – and the pines are much taller, the understory dense with fuel and blueberry bushes. This area is well-known for bear encounters, so if you’re backpacking or camping, do safeguard your food per the food storage regulations of the Forest Services.
It’s a delight when the trail leaves the burned zone and narrows down to a straightaway beneath the oaks with a chorus of frogs rising from nearby ponds. Now here’s the trick: you need to keep alert for the blue blazes off to the left. They lead into Farles Lake Recreation Area through the dense oak scrub, where you emerge within sight of the lake and parking area at 8.5 miles.
Mileage
0.0 Road crossing Juniper Springs entrance road
1.5 Cross SR 40
1.7 boardwalk over prairie
1.9 tallgrass prairie
2.2 prairie pond to left
3.4 cross jeep road
4.0 cross jeep road
5.0 cross clay colored wide sand road
5.4 Farles Prairie
5.7 leave sand road
6.3 trail needs prairie
6.8 cross jeep trail
7.1 ponds (water)
8.0 leave prairies
8.3 blue blaze to recreation area
8.5 Parking area at Farles Lake
