Hiking the Florida Scenic Trail Near Camel Lake

The Florida Trail is one of eleven National Scenic Trails in the United States. It runs northwest 1,400 miles from Big Cypress National Preserve (between Miami and Naples along the Tamiami Trail) to Fort Pickens at Gulf Islands National Seashore, Pensacola Beach. Also known as the Florida National Scenic Trail (which applies only to its federally certified segments), it is the only National Scenic Trail on which hikers can enjoy both subtropical and temperate ecosystems year-round.

The trail runs right through our campground at Camel Lake in the Apalachicola National Forest, south of Bristol, Florida.  Since we had never hiked the trail before, we were eager to get out on it - after trying our hand at paddling Camel Lake (see prior blog entry).

A short section of the trail near camp is also designated as a "Tree Identification Trail."  We hiked that separately, and enjoyed reading the rustic signs identifying approximately ten different tree species common to this section of Florida.  Here, David reads all about the Water Maple:

We also walked the perimeter trail of Camel Lake before our longer hike, and, as it happened, we discovered a geocache!  For those not familiar with geocaching, it's an activity using GPS, hiking in areas all over the world, seeking caches of materials and logbooks.  When you find the cache, you can contribute a souvenier for people who later discover the cache and, if you want, take a souvenir.  There is always a logbook for you to record the fact that you found the cache.  Below, Kathy examines the contents of the geocache.

These minor adventures only whetted our appetite for a good long hike on the Florida Trail.

On Wednesday, February 21, 2018, we finally got our boots on the ground for an 8-mile loop hike beginning and ending at Camel Lake Campground.

Of course, there is the obligatory trailhead photo, in this case, of Kathy at the beautiful Florida Trail sign where we started --

-- and, for good measure, David posed with the next Florida Trail sign we found along our route:

The Apalachicola National Forest sits on large, rolling sand hills that overlay alluvial deposits washed down from the ancient Appalachian Mountains.  As a consequence, our trail meandered from dry, sandy hilltops with minimal topsoil and vegetation such as grasses, palmettos and pine trees, to wetland areas between the hills which were graced with a wide variety of ferns, deciduous trees such as cypress and oak, and ground cover such as ferns and palmettos.  Luckily, those who look after the trail built primitive boardwalk bridges across the wettest areas, which David demonstrates below:

Our plan was to hike the Florida trail down to Bonnet Pond, then turn north on the Trail of the Lakes, which, a couple miles further north would rejoin the Florida Trail, which we would hike south back to camp, making a loop.  Our campground host, Bobby, assured us that the loop would be 8 miles, which sounded perfect to us.

Turning north on Trail of the Lakes, our hike took us past two ponds.  The first of these was Bonnet Pond, a beautiful, clear lake ringed in cypress trees -- we only wished that it were a little later in the season so that we could have enjoyed the spring leaves as well:

Here is a view of the drier sandy uplands or hilltops that we encountered between lakes and wetlands:

Whoops!  Kathy drew the short straw and had to lead us through a dense willow thicket as we approached one of the streams in the area:

Sheep Island Pond is a very shallow lake filled with lilypads.  We're not sure where it got its name, because there was no island to be found in it:

Some of the lilypads were beautifully colored:

Back again to the wetlands, and another stream to cross:

This small stream was crossed by a half dozen logs that we surmised are all that is left of an old wooden vehicle bridge that had served the woods road which devolved later into our trail:

Our original plan was foiled to a degree because, at Sheep Island Pond, we realized that we had already hiked nearly 7 miles, and clearly had perhaps 4 more miles to go.  So we devised a shorter loop by hiking straight back west toward the camp along a sandy forest road.  We were not very happy with this outcome, until we realized that the sandy road told an undisturbed story of all the wildlife in the area.  It hadn't rained for a while, and the tracks of many animals were still showing in the sand.

We got our first sign of Cherish the Bear.  Her paw prints showed clearly in one area that she must have passed recently:

Bobby told us that Cherish is well known to the forest rangers.  She had been orphaned a year ago when a hunter killed her mother.  Since then, the forest staff had been working to help Cherish find food as she grew more experienced in her wild home.  Even though Bobby said she is comfortable with humans and would not attack us, he urged us not to approach her but only take photos from whatever vantage point we happen to see her.

In addition to bear prints, we also saw raccoon prints --

-- and what we surmised to be vulture tracks:

Due to recent unseasonably warm weather, which has also been a bit damp, we found some non-animal wildlife:

We were a bit surprised to see this stop sign on the trail as one remote forest road crossed another - but Kathy took it literally and made David stop before crossing:

Eventually, the hijinks had to come to an end.  We reached our campground, a little bit footsore because we hadn't done a longer hike for several months.  This introduction to the Florida Trail was very interesting, and we've resolved to hike a few more segments of it when we return to Florida again.