Orange Blaze: A Florida Trail Podcast

This episode originally aired in December of 2020. At that point in time it seemed as if Split Oak Forest may have some time before it was decided if a toll road would be built to split the park in two. Unfortunately that time was shorter than expected and the vote to go ahead with the plans for a toll-road has taken place despite overwhelming support to keep Split Oak Forest in-tact and continue...

Julie Gayheart is a section hiker, podcaster, and hiker safety advocate. Coming from a long distance running background, Julie section hiked the Appalachian Trail over the course of 12 years, going on to begin section hiking the Mountains to Sea Trail and other trails along the way. In the last few years she's become a hiking safety advocate after the son of her sister's close friend went missing...

Lu Dodson is the Park Manager for the Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail. This episode is a continuation of my efforts to include land managers into the mix as they are as important and vital to the Florida Trail as hikers are. While the FKOSHT isn't on the offical Florida Trail route, it is part of the Eastern Continental Trail and is increasingly being used by FT hikers as they begin or end an...

Several years ago when Alex Fogt took his skateboard along on his thru-hike of the Florida Trail, he inspired several people, including David 'Moondog' Roop, to use their skateboards along the road sections of the FT. That inspiration led David to embark on his first ever thru-hike, including building his skateboard for the hike and learning to skateboard in the process of it all! Hiking wasn’t ne...

Johnny Molloy is the author of more than 80 books, many of them trail guides to various regions of the United States but he has written several memoirs as well, including his Florida Trail memoir, Hiking the Florida Trail: 1100 Miles, 78 Days, Two Pairs of Boots, and One Heck of an Adventures about his 2006 thru-hike. In this episode Johnny and I chat about this thru-hike but also about how he’s c...

Three years of producing the Orange Blaze: A Florida Trail podcast are in the books. Here are 10 episodes to highlight this wonderful trail!

After Christmas my husband and I took a short trip to the Wichita Mountains and the Charon's Garden Wilderness Trail. Enjoy this mid-break bonus episode!

Jane Pollack is the Florida Trail Association's Gateway Community Coordinator and a 2020 Florida Trail Thru-Hiker.

This episode has been a long time coming as I’ve had several folks recommend having Sammertime on as a guest for the podcast. A multi-time FT thru-hiker, he began his long distance hiking adventures on the Mountains to Sea Trail in the early 2010s. It set forth the upending and changing of his previous life and after a few years away from the trail he found himself on the FT in 2017. Next he compl...

I admit, this last hiker season I checked out a bit from who I was following along the trail. Call it FOMO or maybe pandemic burnout, but I just couldn't get into the hiking season with the exception of a few folks. One of those was Amy Jensen, known online at Trail Trekkin Teacher. Yes, Amy is a teacher and it was pandemic burnout from the school year last year that had her requesting a leave of...

If there ever was a podcast episode to deviate from my typical episodes, this is the one. I take a turn from our typical natural history land management episodes to bring you some cultural history, focused around Fort Pickens and the Santa Rosa Island area of Gulf Islands National Seashore. When I reached out to the park service to see if a representative would be interested in coming on the podca...

As I've set out to create this third season of the podcast I've been trying to bring more land managers to the podcast to get a bit of a more rounded outlook on just what the Florida Trail is overall. Many folks may not even know that the USFS is a key component in the Florida Trail's protection and overall administration. The Florida Trail Association may be the overall face of the Florida Trail...

Eric 'Orange Blazer' Emery is a 3-time Florida Trail thru-hiker. Along with hiking the FT, he volunteers along the Trail and at various parks throughout Florida and other regions in the US. When he's not hiking he's traveling in his RV.

Melanie is a travel writer from Wisconsin who's adventures in trail racing and ultra marathons lead her to first, the Camino de Santiago, and then to the long distance trail in her own backyard, the Ice Age Trail. In 2013 she set the women's fast packing record on the Ice Age Trail and went on to write about her hike and some of the history of the IAT in her memoir Thousand-Miler: Adventures Hikin...

Ben and Louann Williams are Floridians with a deep connection to the land and water in North Florida. After decades in the fisheries industry on the St. Johns River, they began purchasing and conserving land in North Florida with the goal to protect the waterways they loved so much. One mile of the Florida Trail traverses their property in Putnam county, adjacent to Rice Creek Conservation Area.

Rob and Kelley Wimp are full-time RV travelers, working and living from the road. In 2020, Rob completed a thru-hike of the Florida Trail.

Aaron Owens Mayhew is a registered dietician and ultralight backpacker with 20 years of experience as a hiker and nutrition expert.

Kyle 'Mayor' Rohrig thru-hiked the Florida Trail in 2019 with his blind Shiba Inu dog, Katana. With a lot of perseverence they both finished the FT at Fort Pickens.

Park Ranger Lisa Andrews is Outreach and Education Coordinator with Big Cypress National Preserve. She talks about the history and ecology of BCNP.

Split Oak Forest WEA is a tract of conservation land in central Florida under threat of development. Valerie Anderson joins the podcast to talk about the issues and about the property itself.

Patrice Lavigne joins the podcast to talk about thru-hiking New Zealand's Te Araroa trail, travels in Florida, and writing a trail memoir.

Season 3 of the podcast is here! This is a quick update on Florida Trail Closures, guidelines for COVID-19, and what to expect from the podcast!

A short episode wrapping up Season 2 of the podcast! It has been great sharing stories from the Florida Trail this year!

Stephanie Dunn is a landscape architect in south Florida with an avid interest in south Florida ecosystems and native plants.

Lilly Anderson-Messec is a botanist and horticulturist living in Florida's Big Bend region. She explores areas such as St. Marks NWR and Apalachicola NF.