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The Florida Trail Association develops, maintains, protects, and promotes a network of hiking trails throughout the state, including the unique Florida National Scenic Trail.
Together with our partners we provide opportunities for the public to hike, engage in outdoor recreation, participate in environmental education, and contribute to meaningful volunteer work.
| | Central Florida Chapter Update | | |
We are starting to warm up, and FAST! The wildflowers are popping, and prime hiking season is winding down — which means summer is right around the corner. Our chapter is stepping into spring with a lot to reflect on and even more to look forward to.
This month I want to share something personal. April marked my final meeting as a member of the Florida Trail Association Board of Directors. Serving on the Board over these past few years gave me a perspective I couldn't have gained any other way — not just the scope of what it takes to move the Florida Trail forward, but the unglamorous, essential work of building the kind of leadership that lasts. The Nomination Committee was a particular focus for me, and I'm proud of the foundation we laid there. Good governance doesn't make headlines, but it shapes everything.
One thing I know is, our chapter won't miss a beat on the Board. Chris Stevens and Eugene Stoccardo carry our representation forward, and I have full confidence in both of them. This isn't an ending. Just a new stretch of trail ahead.
Before we break for summer, we have one more chapter meeting to look forward to — and it's a good one. On Thursday, May 21st from 6:30 to 8:30 PM, we'll gather at the Geneva Wilderness Area for an end-of-season cookout. Chris Stevens will be presenting on the release of his new book, A Hiker's Guide to the Sunshine State, co-written with Sandra Friend — an instrumental resource for hikers throughout the state of Florida. Come hungry, come curious, and come ready to celebrate everything this season brought us.
After May, we'll take our summer break and return in September at Leu Gardens. Enjoy the trails, stay hydrated, and we'll see you on the other side of the heat.
Speaking of people who embody everything the Florida Trail stands for — I hope you'll read the tribute below to Joan Jarvis, who recently received the Trail Angel of the Year award from the Florida Trail Thru-Hike community. Visiting her home to deliver that award in person was one of the highlights of my spring, and her story deserves to be told fully. She is, in every sense, a pioneer.
See you on the trail!
Chelsey Stevens
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Joan Jarvis, Trail Angel of the Year
Honoring Joan Jarvis — A Pioneer of the Florida National Scenic Trail
If you've spent any time in the long-distance hiking community, you've likely heard the term "trail angel." It refers to someone who provides support to hikers out of pure generosity — a ride to town, a hot meal, a place to sleep, a resupply box received and held without question. Trail magic is what they leave behind. The Florida Trail Hikers Alliance, a nonprofit founded in 2014 whose motto is hikers helping hikers, exists in part to connect thru-hikers with these angels — the people who make a 1,100-mile journey through Florida not just possible, but memorable. Their annual Trail Angel of the Year award recognizes the individuals whose generosity has left the deepest mark on the hiking community.
This year, that award belongs to Joan Jarvis. And it was long overdue.
Joan was meant to receive the honor at Florida Trail Fest, but when she wasn't able to attend, we hand-delivered it to her home. Sitting with her, listening to her stories, was a reminder of something easy to forget in the business of trail work: the Florida Trail isn't just a path through the woods. It's a community built one act of kindness at a time. Joan has been building it for decades.
Her trail name is Bluetrail. She earned it because hikers passing through Oviedo considered a stay at her home worthy of a blue blaze detour. On the Florida National Scenic Trail, blue blazes mark side trails that lead somewhere worth the extra steps — a water source, a shelter, a view. Joan's home became exactly that kind of place. Word traveled up and down the trail. If you were passing through Central Florida, Bluetrail's door was open.
What she offered wasn't just a roof or a meal, though she provided both generously. It was genuine, sustained care. She kept in touch with hikers long after they'd finished their journeys. She wrangled northbound thru-hikers to community events. She arranged transportation, accepted mail drops, and stayed connected year after year to a community that grows and changes with every hiking season. A trail journal entry from 2006 captures it simply — a thru-hiker stopping at a library mid-hike just long enough to note: "SHortCut and I are heading to Blue Trail's (Joan Jarvis) for the night... Joan is real good people." Those words appear again and again across decades of trail journals. Real good people. The kind you remember.
Sandra Friend, one of Florida's most celebrated trail writers and a longtime friend of Joan's, traces her own introduction to the Florida Trail directly back to Joan's front door. Sandra wrote: "Joan's decades as a trail angel — taking in and feeding hikers, arranging transportation, keeping in touch with past hikers — and her genuine care about hikers has made such a positive impact on the Florida Trail hiking community."
Joan is kindness personified. She has a wonderful sense of humor, and her friendship means more than she probably knows — even to those of us who only get to see her on occasion. Our chapter is proud to count her as one of our own, and the Florida Trail is better because of the home she opened and the people she welcomed in.
Congratulations, Joan. The award found its way to you because you've spent decades finding your way to everyone else.
Chelsey Stevens
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📅 Thursday, April 16, 2026
🕡 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM
📍 Leu Gardens – Magnolia Room
🍎 Bring a snack to share and join us for an evening of community, conservation, and storytelling.
🥾 Featured Speaker
Gallus C. Quigley
This month, we’re excited to welcome Gallus C. Quigley Jr., Associate Director of the Office of Parks & Trails for Lake County. Gallus brings extensive experience working with multi-use trails, regional trail systems, and outdoor recreation planning across Central Florida.
In this talk, Gallus will share insights on:
- The development and growth of multi-use (paved) trail systems
- Birding opportunities and how trails support wildlife experiences
- Connections between local trails and larger regional and state systems
- The role of partnerships with organizations like FDOT in expanding access
With a primary focus on Lake County and surrounding regions, this presentation will offer a broader look at how trail systems are evolving across Central Florida—and what that means for outdoor recreation in the years ahead.
Whether you’re a hiker, cyclist, birder, or simply someone who enjoys getting outside, this is a great opportunity to learn more about the trails in our extended backyard.
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Highlighted Hike of the Month
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Lake Jesup Wilderness Area
Nestled along its namesake’s north shore, Lake Jesup Wilderness Area is one of several wild preserves owned and managed by Seminole County. Prone to flooding in summer and fall, the best time to explore this property is in the spring, before our daily rains return. In dry years, it is also a great place to see swamp sunflowers up close, which grow profusely along the trail in early October. Although the sunflowers are a bit showier, another plant in the same family, Asteraceae, produces smaller yellow flowers in abundance this time of year.
A pair of loop trails meander across the landscape, starting at a parking lot that is shared with a boat ramp. From the trailhead, red trail markers lead through a stand of palms and along a wide, grassy pathway to a covered bench and bridge leading to a fork in the trail.
To the north, yellow trail markers indicate the trail as it follows a berm into shady hardwood forest on a one-mile round trip. To the south, glimpses of Lake Jesup can be seen through dense vegetation growing on the artificial ridge. Red trail markers head deeper into the floodplain, traversing an oak and palm hammock on a two mile trek through truly jungle-like settings. A round trip on both loops returns to the trailhead in four miles.
| | | For Summer Hiking in Utah, the Needles District in Canyonlands National Park Should Not Be Missed | | |
By Rob Rogers
For summer travelers, no state offers a greater variety of spectacular national parks within a half-day drive from a city that can be reached by a direct flight from Orlando than Utah, with Arches, Brice Canyon, Canyonlands, and Capitol Reef all four hours or less by car from Salt Lake City. Moab is an ideal gateway town to Arches and Canyonlands, and while Arches typically receives more attention with its closer proximity to Moab, few national parks offer more spectacular hiking and backpacking than the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park.
Founded in 1964 and surrounding the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers, Canyonlands is Utah’s largest national park at a whopping 337,598 acres and lies south of Arches National Park and its gateway community of Moab, about 4 hours southeast of Salt Lake City. Canyonlands is a wonderland of mesas, canyons, and rock formations carved through more than 300 million years of rock layers. Having once lain beneath ancient seas, the terrain at Canyonlands has been ground down by the Colorado and Green Rivers as the tectonic forces that formed the Rocky Mountains lifted the Colorado Plateau. Canyonlands was among the last sections of Utah’s backcountry to catch the attention of the National Park Service. It therefore missed the golden era of road and facility construction in the first half of the 20th century, when the Park Service focused on maximizing attendance by appealing to automotive tourism. As a result, Canyonlands has remained much less “improved” than many other national parks.
The vast majority of visitors to Canyonlands focus on the Island in the Sky District, which is only 30 minutes from Moab and more easily toured by car. Sitting atop a mesa more than 2,000 feet above the canyons and rivers below, Island in the Sky provides spectacular perches for gazing at endless skies and panoramic vistas of the canyons and rivers below. By comparison, the Needles District is more than 90 minutes from Moab and has fewer paved roads and scenic pull offs. But it trades parking lots and asphalt for more than 60 miles of trails through some of the most scenic terrain in the country.
During a recent spring break trip, my family spent our single day in the Needles District doing a 6-mile out-and-back hike from the Elephant Hill trailhead to the Chesler Park overlook. And although we returned after almost 1,300 feet of cumulative elevation gain with sore legs and empty lungs, we spent virtually the entire hike struggling to lift our jaws off the trail, awestruck at the beauty and variety of the natural wonders surrounding us. If you go to Moab and have only one day to spend in the Needles, this hike will provide a great taste of the trails there.
Although the “moderately” rated route to Chesler Park can feel strenuous if you’re unaccustomed to elevation gain (like me), the trail is well maintained with thoughtfully placed stepping stones to minimize scrambling. It begins with a short but aggressive climb from the trailhead, then flattens into a mile-and-a-half roll over grassy hills and slickrock mounds, surrounded by multi-layered canyon walls and spires. Eventually the district’s namesake Needles burst into view, after you’ve already been treated to countless panoramas of canyons and eroded fins and buttes. Eventually the terrain becomes more rugged, with trails climbing up and down canyon walls (albeit with minimal drops for those afraid of heights), and you’ll even pass through several narrow ravines that are barely wider than an airline seat. After 2½ miles, you’ll finish the last quarter mile in Chesler Park with a steep ascent to the overlook, where you’re rewarded with a breathtaking view down into Chesler Park’s red and yellow rock formations and the Island in the Sky in the distance.
The Needles District also caters to backpackers and has more than 20 backcountry campsites, making it ideal for one- to three-night trips. Backcountry campsites must be reserved in advance for $5 per person per night, plus an additional non-refundable $36 reservation fee. Campsites at Canyonlands book up quickly during summer, so you’ll want to consider booking several months in advance if you plan to camp there then.
Daily admission to Canyonlands and all other national parks costs $15 per person or $30 per private vehicle. (If you plan to visit one or more national parks multiple times in a year, you may prefer to purchase an Annual Pass, which costs only $80 for U.S. citizens and covers park admission for a single private vehicle (i.e., a family) to any national park for 365 continuous days.) If you’re looking for a national park with fewer crowds but breathtaking scenery, the Needles District in Canyonlands National Park should not be missed.
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Rob Rogers is the award-winning author of Finding My Way Home: Fighting Depression Backpacking in Central Florida. He also writes a blog called the “Central Florida Backpacking Desk Jockey”, and his essays and articles on backpacking have been published on FloridaHikes.com and in the Wilderness House Literary Review, Outdoors Unlimited, and Go World Travel.
| | The Second Edition of Hiker's Guide to the Sunshine State Will Hit Shelves in May! | |
Bike Ride on Seminole Wekiva Trail
When: April 18th, 10:00 AM
Activity Leader: Stuart Dropkin
The Central Florida Chapter of the Florida Trail Association sponsors this bike ride along the Seminole Wekiva Trail from the San Sebastien Trailhead, 753 West SR 436, Altamonte Springs, FL, 32714, to the Markham Woods Trailhead, 8515 Markham Road, Lake Mary, FL 32746, a distance of approximately 13.5 miles each way.
Upon the return , we may break for refreshment at one of the many commercial establishments available.
All FTA members are allowed to participate even if MEETUP places you on the WAITLIST. It is required to wear a Bike Helmet and suggested to bring hydration and a bike lock.
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Conservation Florida Launches Inaugural "Tasting on the Trail" at D Ranch Preserve
When: April 18th, 4:00 -7:00 PM
Join us for Tasting on the Trail, a one‑of‑a‑kind sip + stroll experience through the beautiful conservation land of D Ranch Preserve!
Enjoy a scenic afternoon on permanently protected land - all while sampling delicious beers, wines, juices, and more from local craft makers.
As you arrive, you’ll receive a trail map guiding you to tasting stations and conservation activations throughout the beautiful trail system. As you sip, you’ll learn more about the land beneath your feet and the legacy of conservation that keeps this landscape wild and working for generations to come.
We will be checking IDs at entry. Guests that are not drinking or are under 21 may purchase a discounted ticket and enjoy non‑alcoholic stations, though most vendors will be breweries.
Your ticket purchase protects wild Florida! Every dollar raised supports Conservation Florida’s mission to protect our state’s water, wildlife, and wild places.
Along the way, take in stunning wild Florida views, relax for a picnic in the open fields, and keep an eye out for gopher tortoises, bald eagles, white-tailed deer, and other native wildlife that call this D Ranch Preserve home.
Florida Trail Association members can use the discount code WILDFLORIDA for 40% off the ticket price for this event.
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🌿 Trail Mix — End of Season Cookout
📍 Geneva Wilderness Area Pavilion
3485 N County Rd 426,
Geneva, FL 32732
📅 Thursday, May 21st
🕡 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Come join us for a relaxing evening with fellow trail lovers at the beautiful Geneva Wilderness Area! We'll be gathering at the pavilion near the Ed & Imogene Yarborough Nature Center for our end-of-season chapter meetup — complete with good food, great company, and a sendoff worthy of another fantastic year on the trail.
🎤 Featured Speaker: Chris Stevens will be presenting on the release of his new book, A Hiker's Guide to the Sunshine State, co-written with Sandra Friend — an instrumental resource for hikers throughout the state of Florida. Come hungry, come curious, and come ready to celebrate everything this season brought us.
🍽️ Food & Potluck Food will be provided — more details coming soon! In the meantime, plan to bring a side dish or sweet to share. A potluck sign-up will be shared ahead of the event.
🅿️ Parking & Gate Access Follow the signs for the Ed Yarborough Nature Center and park in the gravel lot. The pavilion is just a short walk from there. A gate code will be shared with all RSVP'd attendees prior to the event.
🪑 A Few Tips Bring a camp chair if you'd like extra seating, and feel free to invite a friend. This is a wonderful opportunity to meet new folks, reconnect with the trail community, and enjoy a beautiful evening outdoors before we break for summer.
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North Peninsula State Park - Coastal Strand Trail
Spanning from mangroves to scrubby hilltops with glimpses of the ocean, this 2.3 mile footpath near the Atlantic Ocean provides quite a workout along hilly terrain.
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Welcome New Members👋
Joining the Florida Trail Association and affiliating with our Chapter has it’s perks...taking that step forward since our last newsletter were:
Joe Marsh
Susie Marsh
Donna Nemeth
James Watts
Chuck Womack
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Upcoming Trail Maintenance
Our chapter has some tentative bridge build projects coming up, so stay tuned. The 2026-2027 schedule will be released later this year, starting with our annual Trail Maintenance Kick-off at the Mills Creek Woodlands in September. Request to be added to the Trail Maintenance email list here - cfchapter@floridatrail.org
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🌟 Ready to Lead the Way?
As the trail comes alive with fall wildflowers and cooler breezes, it’s the perfect time to turn your passion for hiking into something even more impactful—becoming a Certified Activity Leader with the Central Florida Chapter.
Our trail community thrives because of the volunteers who step up, lace up, and lead the way. If you’ve ever thought, “I could do that”—you can. And we’re here to help you every step of the way.
🥾 It’s easier than you think:
To become certified, simply co-lead two different activities with two different certified leaders. This shadowing experience is a great way to build confidence and learn the ropes in a low-pressure, supportive environment.
🤝 Team up with current leaders:
Many of our Activity Leaders have upcoming hikes and would love a helping hand. Whether you’re interested in weekend treks, beginner-friendly walks, or rugged backwoods adventures—there’s a space for you.
📞 Let’s get you started:
Reach out to our Activity Leader Coordinator, Bill Turman, at 407-413-2950 or email HokieBill@bellsouth.net. He’ll connect you with upcoming opportunities and answer any questions you may have.
✅ Certified Activity Leaders:
Rachael Augspurg
Ron Aube
Stuart Dropkin
Kristen Gilbert
Kelley Galvin
Erica Johnson
Ned James
Jim Krell
Elda Larche
Mary-Slater Linn
David Magness
Tom Regan
Jerry Rogers
Chelsey Stevens
Chris Stevens
Bill Turman
🌱 Whether you want to give back, grow your leadership skills, or just share your love of the outdoors with others, becoming an Activity Leader is one of the most meaningful ways to make a difference. Let’s hit the trail—together.
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Newsletter Archives
In August of 2023, our chapter newsletter moved from printed copies to a digital format. Thanks to our Past Chair and acting Activity Coordinator Bill Turman and his safekeeping of these documents, our website now hosts Footpath Newsletters dating back to September 2013. All of the newsletters can be viewed on our website here!
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10% off all regularly priced clothing, footwear, and gear
Offer limited & some exclusions apply
Travel Country Outfitters supports Florida Trail Members Simply show proof of membership at the register
www.travelcountry.com 407-831-0777
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Chelsey Stevens - Chapter Chair
Jerry Rogers - Trail Coordinator
David Magness - Membership Coordinator
Kelley Galvin - Treasurer
Doug Kucklick - Outreach Coordinator
Chris Stevens - Media Coordinator
Tara Treuil - Secretary
Bill Turman - Activity Coordinator
Mary-Slater Linn - Program Coordinator
Media Committee
Rob Rogers
Outreach Committee
Rue Nilson
Stuart Dropkin
Roxane Abelow
Hospitality
Rue Nilson
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Join Our Committees!
Interested in getting more involved without the commitment of a leadership position? We're excited to announce the formation of committees to support our leadership roles, and we're seeking enthusiastic volunteers. Initially, we're focusing on the following committees, with plans to expand to additional roles in the future:
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Media Committee: This team will manage social media, share photos, write articles, and coordinate contributions from others.
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Outreach Committee: Members will help set up and staff tables at various outreach events.
If you're interested in joining one of these committees, please don't hesitate to reach out to us!
We hope everyone enjoys a cool and safe summer. Thank you for your dedication to our community and for taking the time to connect with your leadership team. Have a wonderful season!
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📬 Note on Newsletter Distribution
We’re excited to share that our chapter membership is growing — and that’s a great thing! To ensure we’re able to continue sharing updates with our active members, we regularly remove addresses from our email list who are not current members of the Florida Trail Association.
Due to the limitations of our current email platform, we’re capped at 500 subscribers. As much as we’d love to send the newsletter to everyone, the cost and platform restrictions make it unsustainable.
If your membership has lapsed, this newsletter may no longer arrive in your inbox — but you can still access it anytime on our website and social media pages.
Want to keep receiving updates by email? Simply renew your membership and we’ll gladly add you back to the list!
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