![]() | This article is written like a travel guide .(February 2023) |
The Georgia Florida and Alabama (Railroad [1] ) Trail (GF&A) is section of the proposed 52-mile rail-trail from Tallahassee to Carrabelle on the Gulf of Mexico. It is part of the Georgia, Florida, and Alabama railway's [1] holdings and covered fifty miles of track from Carrabelle on the Gulf of Mexico to Tallahassee, Florida. The United States Forestry Service placed the start of this trail at Trout Pond Park located just south of Tallahassee Airport on SR 373. The forest service has incorporated about 1.3 miles of the park land and just over a mile of the old GF&A rail-bed in the GF&A Trail in the Apalachicola National Forest. This 2.4-mile section is complete and paved, accommodating cyclists, walkers and inline skaters. It also features nearby hiking trails in the Apalachicola National Forest. Excursions just off the trail to old foundations, streams and ponds. It is sometimes referred to as the Gopher, Frog & Alligator Trail.
The first mile of the trail is completely wooded with just over a mile of the rest following SR 373 on the old GF&A railroad bed. Though following the road adequate wooded land barriers the trail. Currently the trail is only on National Forest land which allows hiking and primitive camping during non-hunting season.
The Trout Pond Recreation Area is at the northern end and has restrooms, water fountains and parking. [2] Trout Pond Park also has a stocked fishing lake and picnic facilities. All along the trail, watch for wildlife and be sure to check with the Apalachicola National Forest about hunting season dates.
The trail is open during daylight hours only; pets are allowed but must be on a 6-foot leash at all times. Currently the trail is only on Apalachicola National Forest land which allows hiking and primitive dispersed camping during non-hunting season. [3]
Apalachicola is a city and the county seat of Franklin County, Florida, United States, on the shore of Apalachicola Bay, an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico. The population was 2,341 at the 2020 census.
Carrabelle is a city in Franklin County along Florida's Panhandle, United States. It is located east of Apalachicola at the mouth of the Carrabelle River on the Gulf of Mexico. The population was 2,606 as of the 2020 census.
St. Marks is a city in Wakulla County, Florida, United States. It is part of the Tallahassee, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. St. Marks is located on the Florida Panhandle in North Florida, along the Gulf of Mexico. The population at the 2020 census was 274, down from 293 at the 2010 census.
U.S. Route 319 is a spur of US 19. It runs for 303 miles (488 km) from US 98 at the foot of the John Gorrie Memorial Bridge across from downtown Apalachicola, Florida to US 1/SR 4 in Wadley, Georgia, through the Panhandle of Florida and the southern portion of Georgia.
The Florida panhandle is the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Florida. It is a salient roughly 200 miles (320 km) long, bordered by Alabama on the north and the west, Georgia on the north, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. Its eastern boundary is arbitrarily defined. It is defined by its southern culture and rural geography relative to the rest of Florida, as well as closer cultural links to French-influenced Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Its major communities include Pensacola, Navarre, Destin, Panama City Beach, and Tallahassee.
Ochlockonee River State Park is a Florida State Park located in Wakulla County, Florida, south of the town of Sopchoppy in the Florida Panhandle. Located off of U.S. 319 on the Ochlockonee River, just north of the Gulf of Mexico coast, it is surrounded by the Apalachicola National Forest and the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge and provides important habitat for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker.
St. George Island is an island and Census-designated place (CDP) off the Florida Panhandle in the northern Gulf of Mexico. It is in Franklin County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 990.
The Conecuh National Forest in southern Alabama covers 83,000 acres (340 km2), along the Alabama - Florida line in Covington and Escambia counties. Topography is level to moderately sloping, broad ridges with stream terraces and broad floodplains.
The Apalachicola National Forest is the largest U.S. National Forest in the state of Florida. It encompasses 632,890 acres and is the only national forest located in the Florida Panhandle. The National Forest provides water and land-based outdoors activities such as off-road biking, hiking, swimming, boating, hunting, fishing, horse-back riding, and off-road ATV usage.
Worthington State Forest is a state forest located in Warren County, New Jersey within the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, just north of the water gap in the Skylands Region of the state. It covers an area of 6,660 acres (27.0 km2) and stretches for more than 7 miles (11 km) along the Kittatinny Ridge near Columbia.
Osceola National Forest is a National Forest located in northeast Florida.
Tate's Hell State Forest is 202,000 acres (819 km2) of land in Franklin and Liberty counties in Florida. The forest is located near Carrabelle off US 98 along the Gulf coast and on St. James Island. At one time, Tate's Hell supported at least 12 major habitats including: wet flatwoods, wet prairie, seepage slope, baygall, floodplain forest, floodplain swamp, basin swamp, upland hardwood forest, sandhill, pine ridges, dense titi swamp thickets and scrub. Tate's Hell State Forest is an important hydrologic area and includes a section of the New River. The park's watershed provides fresh water into the Apalachicola Bay, the Carrabelle River and the Ochlockonee River.
Cape St. George Island is an uninhabited barrier island situated on Florida's North Gulf Coast, south-southeast of St. Vincent Island, west of St. George Island and 8–10 miles south-southwest of the town of Apalachicola in Franklin County, Florida. It was formerly part of St. George Island, but was separated from the main island in 1954, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed the ship channel known as Bob Sikes Cut.
The Forgotten Coast refers to a largely undeveloped and sparsely populated coastline in the panhandle of the US state of Florida. The trademarked term was first used in 1992, but the Forgotten Coast's exact extent is not agreed upon.
The Florida Trail is one of eleven National Scenic Trails in the United States, created by the National Trails System Act of 1968. It runs 1,500 miles (2,400 km), from Big Cypress National Preserve to Fort Pickens at Gulf Islands National Seashore, Pensacola Beach. Also known as the Florida National Scenic Trail, the trail provides permanent non-motorized recreation for hiking and other compatible activities within an hour's drive of most Floridians.
The Big Bend of Florida, United States, is an informally named geographic region of North Florida where the Florida Panhandle transitions to the Florida Peninsula south and east of Tallahassee. The region is known for its vast woodlands and marshlands and its low population density relative to much of the state. The area is home to the largest single spring in the United States, the Alapaha Rise, and the longest surveyed underwater cave in the United States, the 32-mile (51 km) Wakulla-Leon Sinks cave system.
The McKissack Ponds are five small ponds in the city limits of Carrabelle, Franklin County, Florida, just west – 0.3 miles (0.48 km) to 0.8 miles (1.3 km) – of the Carrabelle–Thompson Airport, on the north and south sides of Airport Road. The McKissack Ponds are owned by Franklin County.
The Georgia, Florida and Alabama Railroad, known as the Sumatra Leaf Route, and colloquially as the Gopher, Frog & Alligator was a 180 miles (290 km)-long railroad from Richland, Georgia to Carrabelle, Florida. It was founded in 1895 as a logging railroad, the Georgia Pine Railway.
The Florida Gulf and Atlantic Railroad is a shortline railroad owned and operated by RailUSA in the Florida Panhandle. The line consists of 430 miles of track: a main line from Baldwin, Florida, through Tallahassee to Pensacola, as well as a branch from Tallahassee north to Attapulgus, Georgia.