Did you know that a member of the GRM forum, Jon Birkmire, mapped out a 1200-mile off-road trail through Florida? Ever since the route was published a few years ago, I've been itching to try it out. So a friend and I finally completed a section of it.
Here's the route:
Here's the details: https://sunshinestateadvco.com/products/the-f-a-t
And here's what we completed driving from about noon on Saturday to about noon on Sunday:
This won't be an insanely long/detailed thread, but I figured I should do a little write-up in the hopes that Jon's trail gets some love.
Step One: Prep the Trucks
The F.A.T. is a mostly off-road route for trucks or adventure bikes, so we needed something four-wheel-drive to do it. I've got a 1991 Isuzu Trooper I've had since high-school, which mostly rots in the corner of the shop these days. My friend Johnny makes even worse decisions than I do, and has a Humvee. So we figured that would be a perfect two-truck pairing.
I spent an afternoon changing fluids and going over the Trooper, then decided it was good to go:
Then, Johnny showed up... after driving his Hummer from Atlanta with no doors. Dude's insane... but after about an hour of time in the shop his new winch was wired and we decided we were ready to hit the road.
First, though, Johnny wanted to drive on the beach, and it's only five minutes from my house. It took us exactly 20 feet before we found a stuck Jeep, winched it out, and proclaimed the Hummer to be the world's greatest off-road vehicle. Success!
Okay, time to actually hit the trail. We made a beeline across the state and touched our first dirt road in the Goethe State Forest, where we cruised along big, hard-packed logging roads for miles:
Then the trails got tinnier and muddier, and honestly I have next to zero photos. But picture a Hummer whacking trees on both sides constantly, while a Trooper in front of it doesn't hit anything but does rely on its snorkel to get through mud hole after mud hole.
Hummers are just a biiiit wide for overgrown Florida trails. Progress was slow, temps were high and neither of us had A/C, so we were sweating to death for the last few miles.
Then all of a sudden we turned a corner and were at Blue Springs Park, which is right on the trail. So we parked our trucks, grabbed our towels, and cooled off in the crystal clear 72 degree water. Florida does have its perks....
We kept making our way along the trail, entering the Lower Suwanee National Wildlife Refuge. We were now in Florida's Big Bend, a sparsely-populated, heavily wooded section of the state that's been absolutely decimated by hurricanes year after year after year. 
That point was driven home when we arrived at our planned campground for the night on Shired Island. This was apparently a campground with sites, a bathroom, parking lot. etc. etc. Now it's just a beach after the past few storms.
We probably would have camped their anyway, but a FWC officer was hanging out there and (nicely) told us we'd need to find somewhere else. "Try Horseshoe Beach," he said, "I see people camping there all the time."
So we kept driving until the map said we were in a tiny, tiny town called Horseshoe Beach. I don't know how else to describe it other than as a town that had apparently been wiped off the map, with most of the residents living in RVs amid buildings that had been turned into debris fields or barren concrete slabs with utilities poking out, and a smattering of new buildings starting to be erected. The ratio of side-by-sides and golf carts to cars driving on the narrow roads was 10:1, and plenty of them rolled by our camp to ask "What's with the Hummer?!"
But check out our campsite, right next to the town's boat ramp:
We cooked some steaks and toasted to a fun day on the trails.
The next morning we made our way up to Steinhatchee, a bigger town with a few restaurants, for a gourmet breakfast before heading back into the woods:
The terrain opened up a ton as forest gave way to coastal marshland, and we spent five or 10 miles cruising along this amazing road and crossing dams every few miles:
Another shot of Johnny airing down, because his Humvee kept destroying his kidneys:
After a few more hours of driving, we stopped for lunch at a cool seafood place with high-water marks listed for the past few storms:
Then Johnny's Hummer was riding so roughly it threw the positive battery terminal off:
And then, just like that, Sunday afternoon had arrived and we'd nearly made it to Tallahassee. We capped off the trip with a visit to Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park, got in our trucks, and went our separate ways to head home.
Again, sorry I didn't spend a week on the trail and take 1000 photos, but bottom line is the portion of the route we ran was a ton of fun and I can't wait to explore the rest of it. If you're on the fence about overlanding in Florida, come on down!
It's a Hummer thing, you wouldn't understand.
Looks awesome! Some buddies and I ran a similar portion of the trail last summer and really enjoyed it! We also tried to do a night at Shired Island and got the boot :(
Having done many miles in a Humvee, Johnny has my sympathy, but once you get them off the hardball they are fun. And doors off is the only way to go when its hot out.
You had me all confused because I only knew of "Blue Springs" near Deltona and didn't realize there was a "Blue Springs Park" on the gulf side.
Anyhow, everything about this story is awesome and it seems like your buddy Johnny is a hoot! Thanks for sharing.
