Florida Trail Through Ocala National Forest
A Bit of Background
This is the first in a series of articles about planning a multi-day hike through the Ocala National Forest, following the gorgeous Florida National Scenic Trail from south to north. In this first installment, I’ll just describe our planning process. Subsequent installments will update plans, describe our equipment, share what we’ve learned, and explain some of the decisions we’ve made.
Why Ocala National Forest?
Ocala National Forest offers some of Florida’s very finest hiking. Here are just a few of the reasons this is true.
- The variety of developed and undeveloped recreation areas.
- Campgrounds and dispersed camping opportunities.
- Scrub, springs, rivers, lakes, wet and dry prairie
- Well-marked trails, including sections of the Florida National Scenic Trail
Why Florida National Scenic Trail?
It’s that trail, the Florida National Scenic Trail, that has captured my heart ever since I fell in love with the Yearling Trail. For the past year or so, I’ve hiked on several sections of this trail in the Ocala National Forest, and every experience just gets better. We’ve never lost the trail — it is so well marked that we can almost always see the next blaze as soon as we pass the last one. The scenery is beautiful whether we’re looking at old stands of pine or gazing out over a wet prairie. It feels quite remote but in reality is not so remote that we could get seriously lost or not be able to find help if we needed to.
So, my bestie and I are planning to hike from Clearwater Lake Recreation Area at the south end of the forest to Rodman Dam at the north end. It started off as a vague notion, but over the past couple of weeks this foggy dream has coalesced into something that’s really taking shape. . . this trip is really going to happen.
Our Schedule
Judy built our schedule, and we selected two sets of dates early in 2023. We chose our dates based on expected weather conditions and how long we expect to need to train to cover roughly 10 miles per day with heavy packs. We chose two sets of dates to give ourselves the opportunity to back out if it is very cold when we go, or if we run into some sort of problem that we can’t solve on the trail. On several nights, we will be staying in developed Forest campsites, so we’ll need to make reservations, and we wanted back-up dates for those nights. If we complete the hike on the first set of dates, we can either cancel the campsite reservations or use them just for fun. . .or maybe we’ll do the through-hike again. It could happen!
Hiking Equipment
We’ve both purchased new backpacks from REI online. Mine was on clearance and I got a terrific deal, spending well below my $200 threshold. I’ll spend that extra money on a backpacking stove. In addition to her backpack, Judy has bought a bear canister to keep our food safe. We both got hammocks which we’re going to “road test” next month at Paynes Prairie State Park, where there are hammock sites available. I want to add a camp stool to my kit, and I imagine each of us are going to be doing quite a bit of shopping as we build our plan.
Our Questions
We still have a lot to learn. We’re both getting used to drinking treated water, and I’m going to have to pare down my preferred camp kitchen routine (honestly, it borders on glamping and that’s not going to work if we’re living out of backpacks!). We’d like to improve our compass/map skills before we head out, and we’ve planned practice overnight hikes in our timeline. What are the pros and cons of using metal trekking poles instead of wooden hiking sticks? What on earth will we do if we have an argument or disagreement on the trail?
Stay Tuned!
We have nearly a year to plan and prepare. Watch for regular updates! When we hit the trail, I’ll be taking tons of pictures and video, and I hope to have some really fun stories to share. Do you have advice for us? Questions about our trip? Let me know! It’s so much fun to talk with other hikers!