Along the Nature Coast, Inverness offers an amazing array of hiking and backpacking opportunities in the Withlacoochee State Forest – which rambles across the length of Citrus County into adjacent Hernando and Sumter Counties – as well as water management district lands and state parks.
Chinsegut WEA – Big Pine Tract
Resources Overview Location: Brooksville Length: 1.6 miles Lat-Long: 28.599042, -82.377272 Type: loop with spurs, shortcuts, and connection to larger trail system Fees / Permits: none Difficulty: Easy to moderate Bug factor: Low to moderate Restroom: None Open sunrise to sunset. For more information, see the FWC website Big Pine Trail Guide Directions Head north from [...]
Chinsegut WEA – Nature Center Tract
The Nature Center Tract is a birder’s delight. On a hike there with my parents, we saw at least two different pileated woodpeckers, and could hear sandhill cranes in the distance. The volunteer caretaking the nature center said that the sandhill cranes commonly gather in flocks here. The major loop trail on this tract circles [...]
Citrus Hiking Trail
Four days, 43 miles: that’s just part of the challenge of the Citrus Hiking Trail, the second-longest backpacking loop on a single piece of land in the state of Florida. Add aggressively rolling sandhills, steep descents into sinkholes, and rock-strewn footpaths, and you’ve got yourself one of Florida’s most rugged hikes. Traversing extreme contrasts in [...]
Crystal River Preserve State Park – Churchhouse Hammock
In Crystal River, you can immerse in the beauty of a palm and cedar hammock right across the street from the Crystal River Mall. A wooden boardwalk leads into jungle-like cabbage palm flatwoods, with a staircase to access the natural portion of the trail (called “Pathway to the Past”) that meanders through a bottomland hardwood [...]
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 Canal in the 1930s. It’s one of the few places in Central Florida you’ll find switchbacks along a hike, and [...]
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. It may look like your typical forest of scrubby-looking turkey oaks, but once you get inside it, what a surprise. [...]
Fort Cooper State Park
Fort Cooper is a quiet place, a woodland on the shores of Lake Holathlikaha just south of Inverness, a place where families come to play and picnic and walk gentle trails where wildlife sightings are almost guaranteed. But the reason for this state park isn’t as blissful. During the Second Seminole War, a battalion of [...]
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 woods of Ross Prairie State Forest, just south of the Greenway. The grasslands of Ross Prairie sprawl in arms and [...]
Johnson Pond Trail
One of my favorites for many years, the Johnson Pond Trail is Hike #3 in 50 Hikes in Central Florida. Although it combines elements of hikes I’m not fond of – shared use in a couple places, plus blazed forest roads used by vehicles – its beauty spots are such that it’s still worth visiting [...]
Oxbow Trail
A lesser-known part of Withlacoochee State Forest, the Oxbow Trail is on the northernmost tract of the forest along the Withlacoochee River, the trails and campsites all Eagle Scout projects. While the easy-to-follow big loop trail is a popular circuit for families and folks taking their dogs on a walk, the tougher-to-follow but more visually [...]
Rainbow Springs State Park – Sandhill Trail
More than a century ago, the forests surrounding first-magnitude Rainbow Springs were a beehive of activity as miners dug pits in the limestone to find nuggets that made Dunnellon a boomtown—phosphate. This area was the first place where phosphate was commercially mined in Florida. The deep pits and spoil piles left behind were recovered by [...]
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 forests and oak hammocks lush with ferns and orchids, this unique ecosystem is a highlight of a visit to the [...]
