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An Appreciation Of The Florida Trail

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By MIKE DEWITT, Tribune correspondent

Published: November 2, 2007

Officially, the acronym FNST stands for the Florida National Scenic Trail. Unofficially, among those who know it best, the four letters translate to the Florida National Stealth Trail.

This tongue-in-cheek reference to the relative anonymity of this 1,100-mile footpath extending across the full length of Florida is likely to soon become yet another footnote in this trail's colorful 40-year history.

That's because backpacking and hiking enthusiasts across the country are discovering that the FNST has the distinction of being the only national scenic trail that can be hiked comfortably in shorts and a T-shirt in the dead of winter. It is a seasonal trail, to be sure.

Most Florida hikers agree that a prodigious mosquito population and the sweltering heat of summer combine to make for less than ideal hiking and backpacking conditions from May to September. But when the weather cools and leaves begin to collect the rust of autumn, the Florida National Scenic Trail is without peer among its scenic trail siblings in North America.

Three months is the estimated duration of a through-hike on the Florida Trail, according to the Florida Trail Association, the 5,000-volunteer nonprofit organization that oversees the routing, maintenance and access to the Sunshine State's 1,400 miles of orange-blazed hiking trails. The FNST comprises approximately 1,100 miles of the grand total.

I began my hike in October 2006 on the common border of Florida and Alabama in Escambia County. I had planned to hike north to south, with every intention of holding fast to the three-month timetable to finish.

As with most through-hikers, I viewed my hike as a simple exercise in putting away the miles while staying healthy and adequately provisioned. But something happened along the way.

As I journeyed south, I began to discover that I was shamefully ignorant of the culture, history, traditions and people of the state I have called my home for the past 25 years. Step by fascinating step, my journey on the Florida Trail transformed into a quest for the closest thing to citizenship that a non-native of this unique and breathtakingly beautiful state dare claim.

I strived mightily to write and take photographs of each new experience along the Florida Trail, sharing my discoveries by posting whenever possible to TBO.com's 'Adventures on the Florida Trail.' But I confess, in retrospect, that I managed neither the words nor the pictures that convey fully the fragrance and hue of cane syrup as it comes to a boil, the sweeping vista of an ocean of saw palmetto fanned into waves by a cool winter breeze, or the heartfelt gratitude one feels in the arms of true southern hospitality.

The Florida Trail often is derided by visiting through-hikers for its 'road walks' - those trail segments leading along the shoulder of a highway, some that are heavily traveled. I found instead that the ugliness and tedium of those road walks underscored for me a lesson on the scarring permanence of urban growth poorly planned. I am today a better citizen for having been forced to consider - at the pace of a walk - how we all might do a better job of living in Florida.

But mostly there are wild places, where scrub jays flourish and black bears and panthers forage. Whenever I think about the Florida Trail, it will be of the many friends I made along the way and of those surviving corners of pristine wilderness where incandescent light has yet to shine, where one can still count stars instead of sheep until sleep overtakes.

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