Hidden Pond & FT Hopkins Prarie

“According to the Ranger at the Juniper station of The Ocala National Forest, Hidden Pond is no more - it's hard to believe, but she claims that it's dried up due to very little rainfall. She says that there is very little water on the trail - anywhere - the last several months. I might go back next weekend to confirm it, though.

The Florida Trail though Hopkins Prarie is closed. The Ranger says that is it because of 'high bacteria' in the area that was caused by 'the hurricanes' last year. So, if you want to do the trail, then you'll have to go through The Juniper Wilderness to FR 10, hike it due east or west, going around it. The west route's prob'ly not your thing though, 'cause it'll put you out walking on noisy, slightly dangerous SR 19. Alternatively, of course, you could just skip the prarie and start north of it.

I hope this information helps anyone thinking about a hike in this area.”

“Well, too bad for Backpacker rag. They just recommended the Hidden Pond stretch of the FT in their September issue, as a clear, pristine water source. Yeah, right.”

“Was that info from a real ranger or a toll booth resident? The toll booth folks always tell me wrong about the trail.

Apparently there was a wildfire in Juniper in August.
http://news.floridatrail.org/2006/08/17/florida-trail-closed-in-juniper-prairie-wilderness/
I haven't seen a trail re-opening notice.”

“The west route's -
I mean the route on ten - going east, provided you're headed north.

I called the rangers. According to a Lake George Ranger Station operator, the trail is open from Juniper to Pat's Island Trailhead. You can hike it.

As for Hidden Pond: I'll check it out next weekend. HPM: you're probably right, 'cause it was the tollies that I talked to.”

“Yeah, I'm a bit skeptical.
That pond was still a pond while Florida burned around it back in '97 '98.

Definately post your findings, I'd love to know what's up down there.”

“How can you guys hike in 90 degree heat?”

“The last I knew Hopkins Prairie was closed for high water. So I was looking for information just the other day. I could not find any.

So, definately post your findings. I'd love to know what's down, up there.”

“Put one foot in front of the other, drink, repeat. Take a long siesta when needed.”

“the swimming hole on the other side from where we camped last year, i thought was spring feed. the side we were on didn't look to deep so i imagine that could be dried up. precision are you hiking in from the juniper springs campground?”

“I always assumed that swimming hole was Hidden Pond and yes you are right, it is spring fed. But yeah, I can see the other side being dry.”

“I hiked the north-to-south Floirda Trail route from Rodman's Campsite to Juniper this past weekend. I'm not much impressed with the Florida Greenways, what 2 miles of it I hiked. Some of it was in the treeline just off the highway, and the rest of the Greenway was roadwalk following the orange blazes of painted on the roadside's telephone poles.

I hiked to the intersection of the Greenway and the Ocala National Forest's north-end starting point (trailhead). You know the feeling, I guess - when you get to leave the paved roads behind and step into the forest - that's like "ok, I'm ready so here we go." From the beginning of the trail I looked back with my camera and took a couple of pictures of the canal water, and then moved on into the forest via the Florida Trail, which was sign-post marked.

If you plan on hiking on this nothern end of the Floirda Trail soon you will need some kind of protection from the sticky and painful sand spurs that you can't help but to pick up as you hike. There's big one's, little one's, green one's, and the stabbingly large, brown, and dry ones. Probably, short pants are out and long hiking pants are in for the trip. As a hiker here, you will also likely have to contend with a plant that will "velcro" itself to your clothing - your socks if you wear shorts or your pants' legs if you wear pants. All these little species get into your shoe laces too, which means a nightly time of picking them out of your gear, and I kept picking them up even while hiking past FR75 and beyond Lake DeLancy.

Many of the fallen trees that crossed the trail on the past hike are cleared from the trail now, and ample firewood logs are available. I say thank you to those that contributed to clear the path of the trail by cutting out the middle sections of the fallen trees.

This is warm Florida, so you know the bugs were out to dine well even if it's October. Black flys, wasps, bees, mosquitoes, little ants, huge ants, sand flies, sand fleas, chiggers, and ticks are some of your guests.

Along the way I saw many animals. I saw 3-4 large deer, a hoot owl, a hawk, woodpeckers, cranes or storks, scrub jays, and a beautiful Cardinal. I saw abundant signs of bears. I saw scat, hair, large tracks, the base of a large pine torn out, and a FTA sign noting that their was a mother and cub pair an area around the south side of Lake DeLancy. I made sure to announce my presence going through that part of the trail, but I sometimes wonder if bears understand polite "here here bear" talk. I never saw any bears though, even though I know that there are many in the Ocala National Forest. I've seen more bears from the top of my hunting stand than at anytime while on the trails or otherwise on the ground in the Ocala National Forest.

I took the blue trail to the FR88 store to get water. Some places on the internet claim that you can get food there, but the only food you can get is the same types of items you can purchase from ant other convience store. The BBQ shack has been closed for more than a year, and when it opens it does so for only a few months if not weeks.

The Florida Trail post warns of the Hopkins high water flood, and the post offers a detour diresction of 1.9 miles. I opted out of the detour. The detour is routed along the clay road, so I wasn't up for that, and anyway the floods from the past hurricane's seasons storms should have resided, I had hoped. So I hiked up to and past where we all stayed on the first night of the last group trip though the prarie. The water level - I'm guessing - is actually higher than on that trip, yet the trail is clear and passable. There are certainly more grasses and fewer spots of white beach-like sand on the trail than there was a few years ago. The places some of us put our tents before wouldn't work well at all now as in some places the grass is just too tall to bed down a tent onto (IMHO). It's still very pretty, and the number of bugs gives the frogs and birds something to carry on about. I continued hiking south, past our group's camp of a few trips back.

I started seeing tall clouds build through out the afternoon, and the breeze that started about 4:30 P.M. became cool to me. But wait, it's not supposed to rain all weekend, and to save pack weight I left the tent's tarp in the truck! I had the notion of turing the tent upside down and battoning the tent to my rei poles and the ground, but was concerned that the idea might turn out badly. Yet I began to see far-off flashes of lightening and several seconds later hearing a rumble, so I set up my tent without the fly and on the prarie grass, right next to the trail. At 7:30 P.M. I felt only a few raindrops, and my anxiety chilled. By about 9:30 P.M. I'd pretty much concluded that the rain would drop around me but not on me. 15 minutes later, it started to get blustery again, and the skies fell on my un-fly tent. What the heck, I figured: I stripped down and huddled over my pad and bag; I got a short shower in my tent's bathtub. I used my pack towel to soak up and squeeze out the water in the tent. The breeze kept blowing enough to dry the tent pretty well as the night went on. What was that my mind said to me as I left the truck? I remember thinking that I was it was something like "always to be prepared." LOL. Listen'p kids.

I hiked the Florida Trail to the Hopkins Prarie Campground. The water pump there has rust deposits around the pump and drains, the pump handle has been removed, and the does not work. You can't get water from the pump as we did on Humanpackmule's trip a few years ago. I resorted to filtering water from the jon boat launch area - the one that has a sign warning of alligators in the area. I guess the alligators were less hungry than I was thirsty. I'd 'ave been pretty dry meat to a 'gator at that point anyway.

I didn't camp at Hidden Pond, but I walked up the spur trail to see how much water is there. I could see a person with a yellow dingy on the far right side of the pond. There seems to be plently of water. The campground looks fairly used, yet relatively clean - except for the fire circle under the oak tree. There were bottles and clothes left there. But Hidden Pond is still very pretty. There is less sand than a few years ago. . . well, actually, there's more grass over the sand (and you can see this in my picture album). Hidden Pond was a great rest and lunch stop.

Getting to the Hidden Pond trail requires you to use your October imagination though. Great parts of the Juniper Wilderness are black and crooked stems of carcoal and mangled, burned, and ashed-over palmettos due to the fire here. In this part of the Florida Trail hike, I traveled on calf-burning sand through a fire zone. With the moon out and behind the burned stems, who knows if you'll see a ghostly image.

I had a great hike. There's water on most all of the trip, despite what the reps at stations claim. Probably though, you need to think about it a little - where to get it and how. . . 'cause in some places you might have to walk out into the pond a litte. There was some other pond (but I can't remember where) that had wooden steps down into the pond. It was not very tannic water, and the water was high - well over many of the wooden steps (so I could've gotten water there or had a swim). My impression is that the north side of the trail, Buckman to Juniper, is cleaner than the south trip I made this time last year. I think I liked this hike more that the Lake Clearwater to Juniper hike.

Anyone who wants to see the pictures I took along the way (not a lot) should look in my TT pictures. Please comment if you care to.
last edited: 10/11/06 2:14:05 AM”

“Thanks for sharing your trip and the pictures. It was a good TR.”

“Cool TR. Thanks.”

“What a great report! Thanks for posting it!


Picture link:
http://www.thebackpacker.com/pictures/album/se9yjkgb.php”