Who’s Visiting the Florida Trail? by Kelly Van Patten, Trail Program Director
Kotryna Klizentyte of UF installing a counter at Apalachicola National Forest
W
hen I talk to Florida Trail thruhikers about their experience on the trail, many of them reminisce about long stretches of time that they never saw another person. For many, the solitude of the Florida Trail is part of what makes it an attractive hike. It allows hikers to escape and reflect while immersed in some of Florida’s most beautiful landscapes. Given the solitude most hikers experience, you may be surprised to learn that over 337,000 people set foot on the Florida Trail every year. When I share this information, the next question one often asks is, “How do you calculate that!?” The Ecotourism and Recreation Lab at the University of Florida (UF), in partnership with the US Forest Service, has been studying visitation on the Florida Trail
since 2003. The purpose of this research is to continuously monitor visitor counts throughout the trail each year, and to gather trends in visitor characteristics. This research represents one of the only holistic visitor assessments on a National Scenic Trail in the country and is one of the longest running visitor assessment studies at 17 years and counting. The research has been of benefit to recreation professionals across the country, resulting in numerous research publications that help other institutions understand recreational visitor monitoring efforts on a large-scale trail. To conduct this research, the UF team installed infrared trail counters on trees or posts along the Florida Trail. To help increase the accuracy of the numbers across the trail, counter locations are changed each trail
season. Staff from UF, the Forest Service, or the FTA are assigned to visit each counter on a monthly basis to collect data and ensure that the counter is functioning properly. This year, the trail counter program has been expanded to include more locations than ever before. This expansion was made possible by a grant from our partners at REI, whose corporate leadership recognized the immense value of this research. REI’s Outdoor Places grant program invested $4,000 into the program, which allowed us to purchase and deploy three additional counters. As always, we are incredibly thankful for our continued partnership with REI and for their strong commitment to supporting the FTA and the Florida Trail. For the 20202021 season, counters will be placed at Gulf Islands National Seashore, Econfina WMA,
Footprint
Summer/Fall 2020
19
