Travel & Places
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Signs of Spring – Huntsville State Park
Camping two weekends ago at Huntsville State Park was pretty fantastic. The weather was gorgeous for late February and everywhere the signs were out that spring was coming and there was no stopping it. On Saturday we took a 7 mile hike around the lake and got to see what was blooming or beginning to push through the pine needles. Fox Squirrel, Sciurus niger – the squirrels at our campsite was all about looking for whatever scraps might be left from campers. One of them wanted to become our BFF and hop into the food containers which required constant vigilance even if we had the lids on to our food…
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White Pass and Yukon Route Railway
We arrived in Skagway, AK and had approximately 12 hours to do what we wanted. Our first thing on the agenda was to take the White Pass and Yukon Route Railway up to the Canadian border, cross it, and then turn around and come back down to Skagway. I’ve gotta say, all that made me want to do is take that train all the way to its final destination somewhere in the Yukon. You’ll see… We slowly choo-chooed through the eastern side of town, passing storage areas and seeing the back side of houses along the way. The Skagway River was gorgeous at the lower elevations. And then we slowly…
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A Fluttering Question
It seems the lepidopterans are ready, they are beginning to emerge from their various states of overwintering and become a little more active. We were camping at Huntsville State Park last weekend and we noticed several species out flying but I wasn’t able to get photos of any but this question mark, Polygonia interrogationis. The three of us took a 7 mile hike around Lake Raven and I opted to put my 75-300mm lens on for the duration of the hike just for this reason. Plus, it alleviated my need to bend down and take flower photos. And while I wasn’t able to get any other butterfly photos I was…
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Flora, Fungi, and Fauna along the Florida Trail in Bronson State Forest
Let’s wrap up my Florida trip with this final post from my hike at Bronson State Forest. Sand Heath, Ceratiola ericoides Rosemary scrub habitats in Florida are considered to be a particularly endangered habitat. It thrives in sandy, old inland dune habitats and prefers to have a good burn once in a while—and well, you can imagine that sandy habitats and burning can be in short supply when people build homes right on top of and up next to the perfect habitat. A few sites with more information: Scrub Rosemary via UCF Arboretum, Endemic Florida Rosemary via Florida State Parks, and Rosemary scrub via Florida Hikes. Deer Moss, Cladonia evansii…
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Raptor Leftovers
Every now and then a hike gets you a glimpse of something wild and interesting. In some areas maybe you get to encounter a large mammal—a bear, maybe a panther or bobcat. Sometimes you just get really cool animal interactions like the time we watched a bald eagle steal a fish from an osprey on the last day of our Florida Trail thru-hike. Occasionally you come across the weirder but still interesting animal presence such as this dead opossum we found on a hike at Huntsville State Park over the weekend. Since we travel at a 5.5 year old’s pace these days we had been stopping and slowing down, and…
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A Hike in the Chuluota Wilderness | Florida Trail
On the Sunday of the short weekend in Florida, I went on a hike with Sandra of Florida Hikes and Kate Dolamore, an artist friend in central Florida I’ve gotten to know the last couple of years. I wanted to hike on a section of the Florida Trail that was new to me, a piece in the Bronson State Forest that was in the process of being re-routed when we hiked in 2011. During our hike we had to road walk a large chunk of this section. So, after breakfast with some of the crew from Billy Goat Day at the Townhouse Restaurant, I met up with Sandra at the…
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Weekend at Lake Livingston
We kicked off February with a camping trip to Lake Livingston State Park. It is one of our closer camping locations and thus allows for easy access on weekends when we don’t feel like trekking across the state. In the past we’ve tried to take off work a bit early on Friday to make it a longish weekend at the campsite. We weren’t really able to leave that early this time and so when we arrived it was nearly dark. We would end up setting up the tent in the dark as well as making dinner in the dark. This was something we really couldn’t fathom doing a few years…
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A Hike at Split Oak Forest
As I mentioned a few posts ago, when I flew into Orlando I went for a hike over at Split Oak Forest WEA. After I made my flight plans a few months ago I knew I wanted to hike somewhere, probably on the Florida trail, and I had thought I’d likely hit up Tosohatchee WMA. But over the last few months I began seeing a lot more press about a potential toll road proposal going through the southern portion of Split Oak Forest. In late December, Osceola county commissioners ended up approving the toll road plans which was seriously disappointing to hear. Then, late last month a commissioner asked her…
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Scenes from Billy Goat Day 2020
View this post on Instagram The FTthruHIKE community continues to grow. And more and more hikers are thru-hiking every year! If you haven’t considered a winter thru-hike of the Florida National Scenic Trail you should! These people are just one of the reasons! . . #thruhiker #thruhiking #hikertrash #travel #nature #adventure #wanderlust #photooftheday #picoftheday #keepitwild #backpacking #hiking #thruhiking #florida #ftthruhike #floridatrail #nature #sunrise #sunset #hikertrash #adventure #camping #getoutside #florida #floridabackpacking #backpacker #travel #at2020 #pct2020 #cdt2020 #jewelofthetriplecrown A post shared by FTthruHike (@ftthruhike) on Jan 29, 2020 at 5:28am PST First, I’m going to share the photo from FT ThruHike comparing the group in 2014 versus this year’s group. To recap for…
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Billy Goat Day – A Quick Synopsis
Photo from Florida Hikes via Flickr – To find me, look for the dog in the lower left corner, then the guy in the yellow shirt, and then the grey and orange FT Thru-Hike shirt just to the right of that. It was a good crowd! Wow, what a weekend! I flew into Florida very early on Friday morning, landing at around 10:45am local time, stood in line for my rental car, and then jettisoned myself to the nearest Publix to get lunch. I’d started craving a Publix sub the night before but had been thinking about it for weeks. The particular Publix I found was very busy at the…