Articles

As we walk the mile and a quarter along the Florida Trail through deep woods to the west of Belleview, the low-hanging clouds that threatened the morning with rain now part. Emerging from the forest, we step into bright sun—and a crowd of more than a hundred people, gathered here in a clearing. Thousands of [...]

Deep in a tropical jungle, Ranger Joseph Nemec points out some of the weirdest plants I’ve ever laid eyes on. “This is a whisk fern,” he says, gesturing to a spindly green slip of a plant jutting out of a ruin straight out of the Jungle Book.. …, the crumbling remains of an abandoned condo [...]

It is barely daybreak when Joan Jarvis and I reach the trailhead at Lyonia Preserve. Hues of tangerine and toast seep into the morning sky as we head up the sand path into the 400 acres of oak and rosemary scrub, a critical habitat for the Florida scrub-jay.  The land here once looked like most [...]

Developed as a rice and indigo plantation by British loyalists in the 1780s, Rice Creek Swamp is an nteresting mix of old-growth forest and human intervention in the form of obvious dikes and canals built to service the plantation. The Florida Trail makes use of these historic dikes to keep your feet dry, but building [...]

Put one foot in front of the other. Walk nine days. Cover more than 110 miles. Circle the second largest freshwater lake entirely inside the United States. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? If so, you’re ready to tackle the Okeechobee section of the Florida Trail, also known locally as the Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail (LOST, that [...]

In 2002, I arrived at Lake Okeechobee for the Big O Hike in November, not knowing exactly what to expect. My good friend Sunny Piskura had bugged me for years to join her on the annual walk around the lake, and I thought she was crazy. Then I got two book contracts in which I [...]

Have you ever matched a book to an outdoor adventure? Well, now’s the time to try it out. A special focus on the outdoors is part of this year’s summer reading program “Just Read, Families!” from the Florida Department of Education. Some of the books on their list with themes that fit both Florida and [...]

“Where’s the blaze?” I look up as the hiker in back of me splashes forward. This is one of those rare sections of the Florida Trail where you have to keep looking down at your feet—as if you could see your feet. Water the color of coffee with cream swirls in mysterious patterns between my [...]

What do Ontario residents Leona Belcher and Don Galbraith, California resident Connie Harris, and Maryland resident Rosalind Suit have in common? Every year for the past six years, they’ve made the long drive to Florida in November to take a hike—a long hike—around the second largest lake entirely in the United States, Lake Okeechobee. Sure, [...]