Lake City sits just west and south of the Osceola National Forest, the smallest of Florida’s national forests. There are conservation lands all along the Suwannee River in this region, and the Florida Trail follows a route that circles around to the north of Lake City.
Alligator Lake
In the city once called Alligator, first home of the University of Florida and named for a great chief of the Seminoles, Alligator Lake has long been a gathering place. South of downtown, restored from agricultural land to wetlands, this county park opened in 2002 with hiking as its primary recreational focus. Visitors can also [...]
Big Oak Trail
The Big Oak Trail is one of the most scenic hikes in North Florida and is part of the statewide Florida Trail. Much of the hiking parallels the Suwannee and Withlacoochee Rivers, which meet here at a confluence where the Withlacoochee (not to be confused with the one in Central Florida) flows south from Georgia [...]
Big Shoals State Park – Big Shoals Trail
When you think about Florida’s rivers and streams, the image of raging, foaming water never springs to mind. Yet up on the Suwannee River, just a few miles outside the historic town of White Springs, the Suwannee hides a secret that canoeists and kayakers kept to themselves for many years—Big Shoals. Inside Big Shoals State [...]
Big Shoals State Park – Long Branch Trail
Starting at the canoe launch opposite the Big Shoals Trail, the Long Branch Trail heads upriver to follow a mellow Suwannee River—broad and shaded by overhanging tupelo trees. It’s a relaxed hike through scrubby flatwoods and deeply shaded hardwood forests, where sassafras peeks out from the undergrowth and southern magnolia rustles in the breeze. Although [...]
Falling Creek Falls
See one of Florida’s fabulous but little known waterfalls on a short walk just north of Lake City. Take a quick detour from I-10 to see a spectacular root-beer-colored cascade, which plummets more than 10 feet over a deep lip of limestone and flows away over limestone boulders at the bottom of a ravine. Falling [...]
Fanny Bay Trail
If you’re driving along I-10 from Jacksonville to Lake City and want to take a break by taking a hike, this interpretive trail in the Osceola National Forest provides an interesting spot to stretch your legs – the trailhead is at the Sanderson Rest Area westbound. This walk boasts colorful and detailed signage to orient [...]
Florida Nature and Heritage Tourism Center
The hub of the Suwannee River Wilderness Trail in downtown White Springs, a stop for hikers along the Florida Trail, and an important draw for this community’s outdoor recreation enthusiasts, the State of Florida’s Nature and Heritage Tourism Center provides visitor information about parks throughout Florida, videos and books to read, restrooms, and a place [...]
Florida Trail, Bell Springs to Big Shoals
With Florida’s only Class III whitewater and the beauty of a Florida waterfall along a stretch of trail that is rugged but extremely scenic, this new section of the Florida Trail is a real winner. Although the full segment is still “thru hiker only” from its eastern access point along the back roads near Deep [...]
Florida Trail, CR25A to Stephen Foster
This roly-poly section of the Florida Trail is pretty rugged despite its short distance, since it involves a lot of scrambling in and out of ravines and eroded bluffs created when the Suwannee River seasonally overflows its banks. Starting at a pulloff just outside Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park and ending inside the [...]
Florida Trail, Nice Wander Loop
In the Osceola National Forest, this short loop adjacent to Olustee Battlefield is one of the easiest places in the state to see red-cockaded woodpeckers. It’s part of the statewide Florida Trail, and provides a prime spot to watch these endangered birds around their nest holes in ancient longleaf pines. It also has is a [...]
Mill Creek Preserve
North of Gainesville, the northern forests make their southern stand. Mill Creek Preserve, north of Alachua and part of the Alachua County Forever registry, encompasses nearly 1,200 acres of unexpected delights in an area well-known for its sinkholes and disappearing streams. By taking a hike, you pass through the curtain of pine plantation you see [...]
Mount Carrie Wayside
This short and easily accessible loop in the Osceola National Forest showcases an old growth longleaf pine forest with a population of red-cockaded woodpeckers best viewed in the early morning. Some of the pines sport catfaces, evidence of the turpentine industry that flourished around Lake City in the early part of the last century. Spanning [...]
Olustee Battlefield
Wind through the pines and step back in time to trace the unfolding of the Battle of Olustee near Lake City. The hike through Olustee Battlefield is short, but its historical significance is great. More than 2,000 men died in this forest on February 20, 1864, when Confederate and Union forces met and fought the [...]
Trampled Track Trail
Around 1875, barely a decade after the Union defeat at the hands of the Confederate Army at Olustee, retired Union Soldier Tom Russell and his business partner Isaac Eppinger bought up the land around Ocean Pond. The forest boomed with the sounds of centuries-old longleaf pine and ancient bald cypress being felled from the dense [...]
