Ocala National Forest

The Ocala National Forest is the second largest nationally protected forest in the U.S. State of Florida. It covers 607 sqmi of North Central Florida. It is located three miles (5 km) east of Ocala and 16 mi southeast of Gainesville. The Ocala National Forest, established in 1908, is the oldest national forest east of the Mississippi River and the southernmost national forest in the continental U.S. The word Ocala is thought to be a derivative of a Timucuan term meaning "fair land" or "big hammock". The forest is headquartered in Tallahassee, as are all three National Forests in Florida, but there are local ranger district offices located in Silver Springs and Umatilla.

Geography
The Ocala National Forest lies between the Ocklawaha and St. Johns rivers in North Florida. In descending order of land area, it is located in parts of Marion, Lake, and Putnam counties.

The Ocala Forest is also known for having over 600 natural lakes and ponds. Between the river boundaries of this Forest lie central highlands, coastal lowlands, swamps, springs, and hundreds of lakes and ponds. Near the Juniper Prairie Wilderness and Juniper Springs is "The Yearling Trail", the location where The Yearling was filmed.

The Ocala National Forest receives more visitors than any other national forest in the Sunshine State. Millions visit the forest annually, which is one of North Florida's last-remaining traces of forested land. The forest’s porous sands, and largely undeveloped lands, provide an important recharge for the Floridan Aquifer. The Rodman Reservoir system forms most of the northern and northwestern border as part of the Ocklawaha River Basin.

The United States Navy's Pinecastle Bombing Range in the Ocala National Forest is the only place on the East Coast where the Navy can do live impact training. The Navy drops nearly 20,000 bombs a year at the site, a few hundred of which are live. The Pinecastle Bombing Range is a fenced 5760 acre area, with the eastern edge of the range located about 2 mi west of State Road 19 and the Camp Ocala campgrounds, and one-half mile (800 m) west of the Farles Lake campground. F/A-18 Hornet jet fighters and other aircraft take off from Naval Air Station Jacksonville or from aircraft carriers off the Florida coast, fly low over the forest, and drop their bombs in the middle 450 acre of the range. P-3 Orion and P-8 Poseidon aircraft will also use an instrumented range in the southeast quadrant of Lake George to conduct aerial mining training utilizing inert 500lb mines. All air-to-ground exercises using conventional ordnance up to and including 500 lb MK 82 bombs and five-inch (127 mm) Zuni rockets are authorized. Napalm and High Explosive Incendiary (HEI) are prohibited. Live ordnance is restricted to the Live Ordnance Impact Area; inert ordnance is used on all other targets. Pinecastle targets have also been certified for laser operations. The Navy has used the area for target practice for 50 years under a special use permit from the U.S. Forest Service.

The ghost town of Kerr City is in the forest. It is located on County Road 316 just west of State Road 19.

Ecology
The Ocala National Forest is in the southeastern conifer forests and the Florida scrub ecoregions. Dry, sandy areas support Florida longleaf pine sandhills (also called "high pine") and Florida scrub. Longleaf pine sandhills are woodlands dominated by longleaf pine. Florida scrub consists of a more or less dense shrub layer often with a tree canopy of sand pines. Both of these pine communities are sustained by frequent fires. The Ocala National Forest contains a high proportion of remaining inland scrub habitat and is noted for its sand pine scrub ecosystem. The forest contains the largest concentration of sand pine in the world as well as some of the best remaining stands of longleaf pine in northern Florida. Where fire is absent, southern coastal plain oak domes and hammocks can grow. These are small stands of thick evergreen oaks.

The forest contains several slow-moving rivers and numerous wet "prairies". Blackwater rivers support southern coastal plain blackwater river floodplain forests of baldcypress (Taxodium distichum) along their banks. The forest's spring-fed rivers support southern coastal plain hydric hammocks, hammocks of evergreen and hardwood trees, near their floodplains. The prairies are Floridian highlands freshwater marshes. Southern coastal plain nonriverine basin swamps are large, seasonally flooded depressions of baldcypress (Taxodium distichum) and swamp tupelo (Nyssa biflora).

Big Scrub
The Big Scrub (earlier called the Etonia scrub) is a large area of Florida scrub, about 40 mi long and 15 to 20 mi wide, including about 200,000 acre of scrub habitat, out of the 366,037 acre in the national forest. It has been described as a sea of scrub with islands of high pine (Florida longleaf pine sandhill), while elsewhere in Florida patches of scrub have been described as islands occurring in a sea of high pine. The shrub layer of the Big Scrub generally consists of several evergreen oaks and other woody shrubs, some of which are not commonly found elsewhere in Florida scrub patches.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings lived much of her adult life just a few miles north of the Big Scrub in Cross Creek, Florida. She reported that the only inhabitants of the area lived in hammocks along streams or next to lakes, but not in the scrub itself. Rawlings based some of her writings (including South Moon Under and The Yearling) on the lives of the settlers around the Big Scrub after staying with families there. She described the Big Scrub in detail, stating that it was unique in the world. She wrote, "There is no human habitation—there never has been and probably never will be—in the scrub itself." She called the scrub "a vast wall, keeping out the timid and the alien." Patrick D. Smith, in writing about Rawlings, stated about the Big Scrub, "In all of America there is not a more wild and hostile land."

Periodic fires are necessary for the long term maintenance of Florida scrub. Fires in scrub are intense, killing sand pine trees and burning shrubs to the ground. A fire started by a lightning strike in the Big Scrub in 1935 became the fastest spreading wildfire in the history of the United States Forest Service. The fire consumed 35,000 acre in four hours, spreading at 6 mph. The Forest Service now conducts periodic burns in the Big Scrub after sand pines have been harvested from an area.

Animals
Ocala has a wide variety of wildlife. The Florida black bear population has its highest concentration here, and West Indian manatees frequent the inland waterways. Alligators, boar, bobcat, coyote, and white-tailed deer are all common. There are also numerous smaller animals, including (several types of) bats, eastern gray squirrels, gray fox, opossum, raccoon, red fox, nine-banded armadillo, river otter, striped skunks and southeastern pocket gophers. The sandy soil is home to the endangered gopher frog and gopher tortoise, whose extensive burrows provide important refuge for many other mammals, reptiles and amphibians. Herpetiles are abundant at Ocala, including species such as the barking frog, bullfrog, coachwhip, corn snake, brown and banded watersnakes, common snapping turtle, eastern coralsnakes, diamondback rattlesnakes, fence lizards, musk turtles, spadefoot toads and ratsnakes, Florida cottonmouths, Florida crowned snake, redbelly turtles, scrub lizards and softshell turtles, garter snakes, green anole (as well as the invasive brown anole), little brown skink, North American green treefrogs and racers, oak toads, peninsula cooter, pig frogs, pine snakes, pine woods tree frogs, pond sliders, pygmy rattlesnakes, ribbon snakes, ring-necked snakes, rough green snakes, the scarletsnake, six-lined racerunner, squirrel treefrogs, and southern five-lined skinks, southern leopard frogs and southern toads. An introduced population of Asian Rhesus macaques, originally a tourist attraction at Silver Springs State Park, have also ranged into the region and are occasionally seen.

Activities
The Ocala National Forest has an accommodating climate for year-round recreation. The mild winters are fine for family camping while a summer canoe trip down a palm-lined stream is a cool way to spend an August day. The temperatures for the dry months of November through February range from a daily average of 50 F to a high of 72 F. The summer season is much warmer and wetter. Short afternoon thundershowers often raise the humidity to about 90% while the temperatures range from 80 F to 95 F. The average rainfall is approximately 55 in per year.

Water plays an important part in a variety of recreational opportunities in the forest. Activities range from canoeing, boating, fishing, skiing, snorkeling, scuba diving, swimming, and the use of personal watercraft. Several boat ramps are available in the forest.

Many hiking trails run through the forest including the Florida Trail, Salt Springs Observation Trail, Lake Eaton Sinkhole Trail, St. Francis Trail, and Yearling Trail. Bicyclists can travel along a challenging 22 mi long ride on the Paisley Woods Bicycle Trail. Because this trail is not paved, bicycles need to be suited for rough terrain. Mountain bikes are ideal and encouraged for this environment.

The Ocala National Forest offers many locations to ride Off-Road Vehicles. Currently, two trail systems offer a variety of recreation experiences: (1) the Ocala North OHV Trail System offers a longer experience with six distinct trail loops totaling 125 mi and (2) the Wandering Wiregrass OHV Trail in the Southeast portion of the forest offers shorter day-use riding with a trail length of 17 mi. A new trail system was added in 2008 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the forest. It is part of the south trail system off FR 573.. A small trail 20 mi long called the Scrubjay and a longer trail 42 mi long called the Centennial may be accessed from trailheads off FR 573. SR 40, and the Big Scrub Campground. Some areas are restricted to off-road vehicles; a detailed forest map can help provide information on areas open to off-road vehicles.

There are many trails for horseback riding in the forest. Forest riding trails are old roads 6 to 8 ft wide, marked at intervals with painted spots – called blazes – on the trees. Some of the best trails include the One Hundred Mile trail and the LAM trail.

The Ocala National Forest is a wildlife management area, in which hunting and fishing activities are managed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. A permit is required for all hunters (except those indicated as exempt) to hunt in this area. A Quota Hunt Permit may also be required during certain periods or certain game.

A public shooting range is located at the center of the National Forest Forest Road 11, north of S.R. 40 in the Ocala National Forest. GPS Coordinates: 29°11’16.80” N 81°46’14.15” W 12-position 100-yard rifle/handgun shooting range One single-station, self-throw shotgun pad Cost: Free Open daily from sunrise to sunset, except on Wednesday when closed until noon for maintenance. Closed sunset to sunrise, and Wednesday mornings until noon. This unsupervised facility in the Ocala National Forest offers a rifle and handgun range, and a single-station, self-throw shotgun pad. It was built with the cooperation of the U.S. Forest Service with funding provided by the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program (WSFR).

Lakes
The following is a list of lakes in or on the border of the forest:


 * Blue Sink
 * Lake Bryant
 * Lake Delancy
 * Lake Dexter
 * Doe Lake
 * Lake Dorr
 * Lake George
 * Halfmoon Lake
 * Lake Kathryn


 * Lake Kerr
 * Lochloosa Lake
 * Lake Mary
 * Mill Dam Lake
 * Lake Ocklawaha
 * Orange Lake
 * Lake Weir
 * Wildcat Lake
 * Lake Woodruff

Campsites

 * Doe Lake – western part of the forest, five miles (8 km) east of Lake Weir by the Ocklawaha River
 * Salt Springs - within the town of Salt Springs.
 * Big Bass Lake – southernmost campsite in the forest, known as a halfway mark between Weirsdale and Altoona
 * Big Scrub – two miles (3 km) northeast of Doe Lake campsite, the nearest town is Moss Bluff
 * Clearwater Lake Recreation Area – easternmost major campsite, close to Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge, named after nearby Clearwater Lake – the nearest town to this campsite is Paisley
 * Buck Lake – three miles (5 km) north of Altoona, six miles (10 km) north of Umatilla; located about 100 ft above sea level, where State Road 19 and Lake County road 445 meet.
 * Alexander Springs – about four miles (6 km) northeast of Buck Lake, close to CR 445, ten miles (16 km) southwest of Astor
 * Halfmoon Lake – named after nearby Halfmoon Lake.
 * Lake Delancy – northernmost major campsite, three miles (5 km) east of Rodman Reservoir, 10 mi southeast of Orange Springs
 * Juniper Springs – lies near the junction of State Road 19 and State Road 40
 * Fore Lake- Government campsite located 6.5 miles north of Hwy 40 on CR 314.
 * Camp La-No-Che – a 1400 acre Boy Scout camp located on the south side of the forest in the town of Paisley
 * Wildcat Lake - campsite, boat launching, and water skiing area along State Road 40 0.9 mi east of State Road 19.

Wilderness areas
There are four officially designated wilderness areas lying within Ocala National Forest that are part of the National Wilderness Preservation System.
 * Alexander Springs Wilderness
 * Billies Bay Wilderness
 * Juniper Prairie Wilderness
 * Little Lake George Wilderness