Explorer's Guide 50 Hikes in North Florida: Walks, Hikes, and Backpacking Trips in the Northern Florida Peninsula

A guide to 50 hikes and backpacking trips in the northern Florida peninsula, ranging from State Road 40 to the Georgia border and east of the panhandle.

With numerous state parks and expansive state and national forests, North Florida provides the hiker with an extensive array of natural communities to explore. Forests of longleaf and slash pine flatwoods, coastal hammocks, desert scrub, and floodplain forests create welcoming habitats for vanishing species. The region's geology offers physical challenges for the hiker as welldeep ravines, rough riverside trails along steep bluffs, and giant sinkholes. Hiking in North Florida means the opportunity to camp along the state's broadest rivers, to clamber in and out of ravines and up and over relict dunes, to walk to the edge of sweeping vistas across prairies and salt marshes, to hike along vast lakes and bubbling springs.

The hikes described in this all-new guide range in length from 1 to 22 miles. Each hike description includes a topographic map, mile-by-mile directions, and information on distance, difficulty, terrain, and hiking time. An overview chart makes it easy to pick a hike for every ability. 50 black-and-white photographs, 58 maps

Sandra Friend is a freelance writer and photographer whose work has appeared in Blue Ridge Country, Appalachian Trailway News, Florida Hiker, and Backpacker. She participates in the Florida Trail Association as an activity leader, a trail maintainer, and a volunteer with organization publications. She is also the author of Explorer's Guide 50 Hikes in Central Florida; Explorer's Guide 50 Hikes in North Florida; Explorer's Guide 50 Hikes in South Florida; Florida in the Civil War: A State in Turmoil, and Sinkholes. She lives in Ocala, Florida.