Some 28 miles of the trail cross the Gulf Island National Seashore. The Florida National Scenic Trail is a 1,330-mile trailway that begins at Fort Pickens in Gulf Breeze and ends at Big Cypress National Preserve in the Florida Everglades. Behind the visitor center are more than 7.5 miles of trails, including the paved Breckenridge Nature Trail which is just less than a mile. A 20-minute orientation film is instructive for planning purposes. The visitor center is a cool respite from the Florida summer heat and a good place to duck into if a thunderstorm is blowing through. Another bridge takes visitors to Pensacola Beach from here. Park headquarters is at Naval Live Oaks in Gulf Breeze on a barrier island across Pensacola Bay and about seven miles from Pensacola. Some of the paved trails are less than a mile but they give visitors a taste of the tree canopies that shade the area for much of the year. Perdido Key and Naval Live Oaks will be your best bets. Other visitor centers back on the Florida side of Gulf Islands can get you acquainted with the accessible trails there. Colmer Visitor Center in Ocean Springs to get a map and see the exhibits. To find out how much of the trail is paved and the best places to access it, stop into the William M. One of the best birding spots is along the Davis Bayou trail, which is on the Mississippi side of the park. These are the seasons, too, in which the Gulf of Mexico is at its clearest. Brown pelicans and painted buntings are commonly spotted in spring and fall as they migrate to and from South America. Year-round bird watching includes herons, egrets and ospreys. Who doesn’t like balmy Florida in January? Winter tends to be the best time to spy American Oystercatchers, all sorts of terns (tricolored, least, gull-billed, sandwich) plus playful and seasonal sparrow varieties. Just like winter human visitors, the parkland is a hot spot for migrating birds when the temperatures elsewhere turn frigid. The bird checklist will help in determining that. Bird checklists are available at park visitor centers and the folks at the Interpretation Division in nearby Gulf Breeze there would love a phone call (85) to report unusual or new sightings. There are more than 280 species of birds within Gulf Islands’ boundaries so bring a pair of binoculars along. The diverse ecological communities include beaches, dunes, freshwater and salt marches and wooded areas. For the most part, though, we will stay on land to enjoy the park. The watery portions are a draw for divers, snorkelers, anglers and boaters. And, get this, more than 80 percent of the designated parkland is underwater, stretching about a mile out into the azure water of the Gulf. This stretch of protected gulf is quiet and a visitor needs to slow down to get the full effect of what nature is bringing. So what’s to see at Gulf Islands National Seashore? Well, nothing and everything. In Mississippi, Gulf Islands is largely a string of barrier islands accessible by boat.īut in Florida, the seashore is reachable by road with intermittent parking lots that include handicapped parking slots. The city has lots of accommodations for those who want to enjoy the scenery but want to stay in a hotel rather than camp. In Florida, the nearest major city to Gulf Islands is Pensacola. This is one of the few national parklands that calls two states home. Gulf Islands National Seashore bridges Florida and Mississippi, stretching some 150 miles along the Gulf of Mexico coast. And there’s not much point of visiting this part of Florida without a stop on the glorious, sugar-sand beaches. In addition, there are places to rent beach wheelchairs whose balloon tires can make a beach day a perfect day. Gulf Islands National Seashore in the Florida Panhandle and some nearby locations offer several paved trails that are more easily negotiated by wheelchairs. Hiking trails are often unpaved, uneven and hilly, and in Florida many of them are sandy, which means thin wheels, whether they be on bicycles or wheelchairs, are easily stuck. At the very least, some planning is required. Nature has the power to restore our weary souls, but getting up close and personal to that healing potential can be difficult for people who use wheelchairs.
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