IO: Florida's Ocean to Lake Hiking Trail (61 miles)

The Ocean to Lake Hiking Trail is a 61 mile span of trail between Hobe Sound Beach and Lake Okeechobee. It's long been on my list to try backpacking in Florida and the MLK holiday weekend seems like great timing for it. I'm running this hike in reverse of the name, starting from the Lake and ending at the Atlantic Ocean.

Here's the plan:
Friday (8.7 miles)

• Fly into Palm Beach International Airport (PBI)
• Get a rideshare from the airport to the Western trailhead
• Hike 8.7 miles to Loop 4 Camp (mile marker 8.7)

Saturday (20.7 miles)

• Hike to Big Marsh Campsite (mile marker 29.4)

Sunday (23.1 miles)

• Hike to Kitching Creek Campsite (mm 52.5)

Monday (8.5 miles)

• Hike to Hobe Sound Beach
• Enjoy the beach and surrounding restaurants
• I'll probably rent an Airbnb or hotel room nearby where people can freshen up.

The FarOut guide (yes, there's one of those for this trail!) shows a laughable 305 ft of ascent and 312 ft of descent. Florida in January is pretty warm at mid 70s during the day and high 50s at night on average so I plan to bring my summer setup on this trip. Whether this is big-mile bliss or a slow-slog may depend on how flooded the trails are.

This event is "IO" meaning Invite Only. As explained in our Trip Ranks, "To participate in this sort of trip, you should expect that you will need to do a number of trips with the organizer beforehand and/or have achieved the Veteran Plus status." If you're interested in coming on this one, please add yourself to the waitlist.