Myakka Island Trail is a wilderness trail that connects the Myakka River State Forest in Sarasota with the Carlton Reserve in Venice.  It's about 10 miles or so.  The north end starts on Clark Road (State Road 72) near the Myakka River State Park.  The South end finishes in the Carlton Reserve.

It's primarily a rough trail that was "bush hogged" through the woods.  There are lots of ruts.  It floods easy, and it's not graded like trails in the Myakka River State Park.  In some places small brooks cut right across the trail so that you have to construct make-shift bridges with logs to keep from getting too wet.  Oh, and there's no bathrooms!  This is a "carry in, carry out" scenario.

There are roughly 3 types of terrain that you walk through.  The southern most section is oak woods.  The middle section is pine woods.  The northern most section is prairie.

Jody and I walked the whole trail from south to north on 3/5/05.  Some photos are below.  A large section of the trail was flooded so our feet were soaked the whole trip, and it took us about 6 hours. 

At one point, a big alligator slid off of trail ahead of us into a flooded field.  This was a bit unnerving because we were surrounded by flooded woods and fields, so the alligator had home field advantage.  Luckily, he didn't notice us or wasn't interested.  He kept pushing the weeds aside and slid into the deeper water in the field.  Unfortunately, he slid away too fast for us to get a good picture.

There were loads of hawks and wading birds.  We finished the hike on the north end in the early to mid afternoon.  Near the end of the trail we saw a flock of wild turkeys.  Again, they were too far away and too skiddish to let us get close enough to take a good picture.

We did get a few pictures of the hike, though.  They are posted below.  To see a slide show of the photos, hold your mouse pointer over one of the photos, a menu will appear, then click on "slideshow".

 On Saturday 12/2/06, several of us (Van, Deborah, Dan, Susie, Jenna, and Barbara) are going to hike the trail again.  This time we are going to go from north to south.  I'll post some photos from that trip, and I'll try to post a map, too.  This time it should be a lot drier than when Jody and I first hiked the trail.  Hopefully, my feet will stay dry this time.

Five of us (Van, Deborah, Susie, Jenna, and Barbara) hiked the Myakka Island Trail from North to South on 12/2/06.  Dan had to leave town at the last minute and couldn't join us.  We discovered that it's actually an 11.5 mile hike instead of a 10 mile hike by studying the map at the begining of the trail.  The Myakka Island Trail is actually two paths.  One of the paths is for horse back riding.  Both paths are about the same length.  We took the standard path.

We started out at about 7:40 AM or so from the North Entrance, which starts in the "Myakka Prairie" park.  Initially, it was misty, which made for some great early morning shots.  However, the heavy dew made my feet wet for the whole trip!  Within an hour or two, the sun burned off the mist and made for a fairly warm day.  Luckily we were into the Carlton Reserve which had more trees before the sun had been strong for too long.  There was a decent breeze most of the day, too, which kept it from being too hot.  I still picked up some sun, but not enough for a sun burn.

As far as animal sitings go, there were a variety of birds.  Also, a deer dashed across the trail in the early morning.  There were all kinds of animal tracks on the trail including hunters and prey.  A large snake, probably an Indigo, had left its skin in the middle of the path.  There were some small toads along the path in the pine woods.  Some predator had left the unwanted inards of its prey in the middle of the trail at one point.  Susie almost stepped on a black snake. There was also a snake skeleton in the path.  We did not see any hogs, scrub jays, tortoises, or armadillos, though.

Gary and Jody picked us up at the Carlton Reserve when we were done, which was just after 1:00 PM.  I hadn't realized it at the time, but I had picked up a few decent blisters on my feet, probably from trudging along in wet shoes all day.

I had a great time, and am looking forward to doing some more hiking.

To see photos from this hike, scroll to the "Hike - 2006-12-02 - Gallery" section below.  There are 66 photos, so it's going to be easist to view them using the slideshow option rather than clicking through 11 pages of photos.  To view the photos using the slideshow option, use the following procedure:

1. Move your mouse pointer over one of the photos in the gallery.
2. A menu will appear.
3. Click on the "slideshow" option.

Five of us (Van, Deborah, Susie, Jenna, and Barbara) hiked the Myakka Island Trail from North to South on 12/2/06.  Dan had to leave town at the last minute and couldn't join us.  We discovered that it's actually an 11.5 mile hike instead of a 10 mile hike by studying the map at the begining of the trail.  The Myakka Island Trail is actually two paths.  One of the paths is for horse back riding.  Both paths are about the same length.  We took the standard path.

We started out at about 7:40 AM or so from the North Entrance, which starts in the "Myakka Prairie" park.  Initially, it was misty, which made for some great early morning shots.  However, the heavy dew made my feet wet for the whole trip!  Within an hour or two, the sun burned off the mist and made for a fairly warm day.  Luckily we were into the Carlton Reserve which had more trees before the sun had been strong for too long.  There was a decent breeze most of the day, too, which kept it from being too hot.  I still picked up some sun, but not enough for a sun burn.

As far as animal sitings go, there were a variety of birds.  Also, a deer dashed across the trail in the early morning.  There were all kinds of animal tracks on the trail including hunters and prey.  A large snake, probably an Indigo, had left its skin in the middle of the path.  There were some small toads along the path in the pine woods.  Some predator had left the unwanted inards of its prey in the middle of the trail at one point.  Susie almost stepped on a black snake. There was also a snake skeleton in the path.  We did not see any hogs, scrub jays, tortoises, or armadillos, though.

Gary and Jody picked us up at the Carlton Reserve when we were done, which was just after 1:00 PM.  I hadn't realized it at the time, but I had picked up a few decent blisters on my feet, probably from trudging along in wet shoes all day.

I had a great time, and am looking forward to doing some more hiking.

To see photos from this hike, scroll to the "Hike - 2006-12-02 - Gallery" section below.  There are 66 photos, so it's going to be easist to view them using the slideshow option rather than clicking through 11 pages of photos.  To view the photos using the slideshow option, use the following procedure:

1. Move your mouse pointer over one of the photos in the gallery.
2. A menu will appear.
3. Click on the "slideshow" option.