Northwest Florida-Taking the High Road

You wouldn’t expect to find a beautifully sculpted cave in Florida. Most of it’s caves are far below the surface and filled with water, but in northwest Florida there is a wonderful small cavern in a state park.

We stopped at Florida Caverns State Park to checkout a part of Florida that was unknown to us. It felt good to be camped in the forest and it’s Spring!!The cavern is located in a floodplain of the Chipola River system. Instead of palm trees there is a mix of pine, tupelo cypress, southern magnolia, sweet gum mixed in with palmetto and an abundance of wildflowers.

The Park offers a number of multi use trails that allowed us to explore the surrounding woods. We saw a variety of flowers blooming. Atamasco Lily

Wild Phlox

???Columbine

And some fauna as well.

While touring the cave a fellow spelunker told us about the highest waterfall in Florida. A waterfalls in Florida? We needed to check this out for ourselves. Here it is in all its glory(76 feet tall). This is where a stream drops into a sinkhole and disappears into a cave. Speaking of high points, we also visited Britton Hill- the highest natural point of Florida. At 345 feet it’s actually the lowest state highpoint in the US. You may not know that there is an organization of high point enthusiasts. These folks visit all 50 state high points. Not many people can claim all 50 but we actually have a handful under our hiking shoes.

It was so easy to get to this highpoint that we decided to hike the park trails.

After a few days in the woods we are heading back to the Gulf coast for more beach time.