{"id":6290,"date":"2023-12-03T17:04:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-03T22:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bcpoa.org\/wordpress\/?p=6290"},"modified":"2024-03-31T14:05:23","modified_gmt":"2024-03-31T19:05:23","slug":"rainbow-springs-cypress-glen-in-the-withlacoochee-state-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bcpoa.org\/wordpress\/?p=6290","title":{"rendered":"Rainbow Springs & Cypress Glen in the Withlacoochee State Forest"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Rainbow Springs<\/a>, like Silver Springs used to be a private park and zoo. But years ago FL State Park bought the spring and park in Dunnellon, FL It’s been years since I have been here, I used to camp at the park right on the river but they reworked the campground and we never came back. I camped in a quiet spot at Walmart and got to the park at 8:30am. It is a long walk from the free large parking lot to the put-in ramp and swimming area. I have a nice canoe cart and had no trouble getting my kayak to the launch. There is a nominal $2 fee per person to walk into the park. I walked back and waited for Erin & Kathy to arrive. While they were running the shuttle, I dragged their kayaks down the trail with my cart as well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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It is only a 5 mi paddle to the free take-out. Many paddlers put-in 1-1\/2 mi downstream at KP Hole County Park and paddle up & back to the spring. This is a very popular place to paddle, scuba dive or swim in the\u00a072o<\/sup><\/span>\u00a0spring water. However the right side of the river all the way to the take-out is loaded with houses, the left side is more wild and scenic.<\/span><\/p>\n

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There is a newer bike trail that connects to the 46 mi Withlacoochee State Trail and crosses the river near the take-out. They eventually plan to connect this bike trail to the Cross FL Greenway that I peddled yesterday.<\/span><\/p>\n

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It’s only a 1-1\/2 hr drive to my campground, Cypress Glen, one of 3 campgrounds at Silver Lake outside of Brooksville, FL. It is a really nice State Forest campground, with power & water hookups. They do take reservations but you only\u00a0<\/span>need one<\/span>\u00a0if you are here on a weekend. I planned to stay for two weeks and needed to make reservations.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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It is 1-1\/2 mi through the camp on the paved camp roads to the Withlacoochee StateTrail. You have three nice options from here, you can bike 11mi to the southern terminus, bike 12-1\/2 mi to Brooksville on the Good Neighbor trail or bike 37 miles North to near the Dunnellon. That’s too far for me do I usually just do a roundtrip ride to Floral City and back.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The camp is right on Silver Lake, a wide spot on the\u00a0<\/span>Withlacoochee River. It is slow moving river and you can paddle upstream or downstream here for miles.<\/span><\/div>\n
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When I got to the park the road was blocked since the EMT’s were waiting for a helicopter to land in the road and life flight someone who fell off a ladder, to Tampa. After they flew away I was allowed to enter the park.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I decided to have a rest day in my hammock on Saturday. The weather was sunny and a hot 87o<\/sup>F.<\/span><\/div>\n
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It was hot again on Sunday morning with a forecast of late afternoon showers, so I did a 25 mi roundtrip bike ride in the morning to Brooksville & back. Peggy loved this trail. river and campground.<\/span><\/div>\n
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When I looked in the mirror I realized that I badly needed to get a haircut.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Peggy used to cut my hair but I may peddle south past the end of the trail tomorrow to near Dade City and go to a barbershop.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Rainbow Springs, like Silver Springs used to be a private park and zoo. But years ago FL State Park bought the spring and park in Dunnellon, FL It’s been years since I have been here, I used to camp at the park right on the river but they reworked the campground and we never came … Continue reading Rainbow Springs & Cypress Glen in the Withlacoochee State Forest<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2324trip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcpoa.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcpoa.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcpoa.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcpoa.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcpoa.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6290"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bcpoa.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6432,"href":"https:\/\/bcpoa.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6290\/revisions\/6432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcpoa.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcpoa.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcpoa.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}