Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Mountain Biking the Twilight Loop...

...in Florida's Apalachicola National Forest is a magnificent ride. This loop is the second and longer of the two loops at the Munson Hills Offroad Bicycle area, the other being the adjacent Munson Hills Loop which I reported on here. Both trails appear on this map (click to enlarge.)



Both trails traverse a rare environment that represents sand dunes from a shoreline formed here a million years ago. The sandhills form a foundation for a towering longleaf pine forest sporadically intermixed with sinkhole ponds and wetlands, and the bike trail often dips down into the sandhills through hammock ecosystems of oak, cherry, sassafras and other hardwoods, but the climbs are gentle. This 10 mile loop singletrack trail traverses the pine forest and the ocasional brief hardwood forest sections delivering mostly easy pedaling and endless gorgeous scenery...


The local white "Sugar Sand" is encountered frequently, and the few deeper sand areas are longer in length on this trail than on the Munson Hills Trail, so care must constantly be taken to avoid a spill, especially when rounding a blind curve or topping a rise. Several shallow ditches are biked through -- normally fun to speed down -- but here they have an accumulation of deep sand at the bottom, so don't go too fast...

...because, apparently, not everyone makes it all the way around the loop...



You reach the trailhead from the Tallahassee - St. Marks Trail parking area located just south of Tallahassee, Florida. Take Monroe Street/Woodville Highway/State Route 363 south of town, and then just south of Capital Circle (US Highway 319) is the large parking lot on your right. It's well marked and obvious. Ride the paved trail 1.25 miles south and you'll find the well-marked entrance to the Apalachicola National Forest off -road bike area, also well marked -- which is a singletrack trail for a tenth of a mile to the mountain bike trailhead with kiosks of information including a map of the 2 trails. (There is no car access here -- you must bike from the lot mentioned above.)

To get to the Twilight Trail, you turn left on the first blue blazed trail (which is the Munson Hills Loop) and go about 25 yards to a left turn onto the white blazed East Connector Trail. It runs .6 miles to the blue blazed Twilight Loop.

A second access to this trail is through the J.Lewis Hall Park in Woodville which is just a mile or so south of the parking area mentioned above. Park by the washroom building, and then bike the grass between the washrooms and the baseball field fence to the trail access shown below...


You can't miss the short fence sections seen above. A short .1 mile access trail gets you to the Twilight Loop.

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