Hiking The Old Fort King Trail

Entrance to the Old Fort King Trail

After driving by the entrance to the Old Fort King Trail on our way to the Hillsborough River State Park, my girlfriend and I decided to head back to check it out.

The Old Fort King Trail is approximately 6.7 miles long and runs just south of the Hillsborough River State Park. It also runs into the John B. Sargeant Sr. Park which is right along the 301. It’s great for hiking and also looks like it would be fun to ride a bike on.

Judging by the lack of people we saw, I would assume this is not that popular of a hike in the summer. I have a feeling it’s due to the large quantity of flying creatures including wasps, bees, mosquitos and who knows what else. And don’t forget the massive amount of spiders dangling from the trees.

We also learned from our experience that the trail can definitely be wet during the rainy season. We ended up turning around on the trail since we didn’t want to walk through all the water. Instead, we ended up following some roads and eventually found a different trail.

Here’s the path we ended up taking:

Our Makeshift Hike Path

It actually turned out to be an awesome hike. We walked along the Dead River Road for what seemed like forever and saw some of the largest wasps ever. We then ran into the Dead River Youth Camp and found a nice trail along the river. The total hike came in around 7 miles since we had to repeat our path back to the car.

Photos From the Hike

Below is a collection of the best pictures I took during the hike. Don’t forget to click on them to view the better quality version:

My Favorite Photo Of The Hike

Scary Looking Water

A Velvet Ant (Wasp)

An Old Tractor

Standing Under Some Spanish Moss

Following An Old Road

Our Dog Leading The Way

What Appears To Be An Alligator Track

Our Dog Had A Blast

A Huge Grasshopper

Great Shot Of The Sky

I must say, the Old Fort King Trail was a fun hike. I was disappointed at first because I thought we would be walking along the road the whole time but once we got further in it turned out to be really cool.

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You can check out the rest of my pictures in the Old Fort King Trail photo gallery.