Hello everyone!

Welcome back to a new hiking blog series.

If you guys have been following me my blog for years you may know

that every year around Martin Luther King long weekend my friends and

I get together to plan a hiking or camping trip for this specific weekend.

While there were early talks to start the OTL hike back in October of last year,

we never really compromised to go for it and it was just an idea at the time.

We did our proper research on the OTL hike and decided to choose MLK's weekend to do it.

The Ocean to Lake Okeechobee Trail runs for a total of 62-miles and depending on where

you read from it as some will say it's 61 or 62-miles in total but our GPS

ended up clocking in at the 63-miles total once we completed the hike.

The trail is divided by a few trail segments along the hike: from DuPuis WMA Loop Trail,

DuPuis Reserve to JW Corbett, JW Corbett to Lucky Hammock, Loxahatchee Slough.

Later on you will encounter many side & loop trails that will interconnect with other sections.

The OTL hike is a challenging one but rewarding experience all around,

passing through a variety of landscapes including swamps, forests, and prairies.

The trail is open to hikers year-round,

but the best time to hike is during the winter months when the weather is cooler and drier.

While we started on the 2nd weekend of January the weather was still pretty cool to hike.

We noticed the sections are all well-marked and well maintained,

there are plenty of campgrounds and shelters along the way that you can choose from

just make sure to coordinate the amount of miles so you can set camp at one of the campgrounds.

Get ready to be soaked in especially in the early start of the year!

Unfortunately for us the past couple of days prior our hike were full on rain,

therefore, the trail were really swampy and full of water,

you guys will see a couple of more photos on my next blogs!

For Day 1 we set camp at Little Gopher Campsite making it at 18-miles mark

after starting around 6:30AM and averaging a total of 2-3 miles

per hour with some long breaks in between as well.

 If you are looking for a challenging but rewarding hiking experience,

the Ocean to Lake Okeechobee Trail is a great way to experience the natural beauty of Florida.

I'll leave you guys with some of my favorite photos of Day 1,

expecting to complete the Day 2 blog this upcoming week and hopefully I'll have it ready for you guys.

Below you can find the list of trailhead and marks on this entire 62-miles hike.

See you on the next blog!

 

 0.0 – NENA trailhead
8.7 – Loop 4 campsite
14.4 – Powerline campsite
18.6 – Little Gopher campsite
24.6 – Bowman Island campsite
29.4 – Big Marsh campsite
30.3 – Hungryland trailhead
31.3 – Hungryland Slough trailhead
37.9 – Loxahatchee Slough Tower
40.6 – Soggy Socks campsite
42.0 – Lucky Hammock campsite
45.4 – Riverbend Park
50.0 – Cypress Creek East campsite
52.5 – Kitching Creek campsite
53.2 – Kitching Creek trailhead
55.9 – Scrub Jay campsite $
58.3 – Camp Murphy trailhead
61.0 – Hobe Sound Beach

 

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