Santa Fe River FL, Canoe Trip

Trail Description

Spent two days out on the Santa Fe River starting from High Springs, FL. The Santa Fe is a beautiful river with many springs along the way. Some of the springs (Ginnie, Blue, & Poe) are located in public or private parks that may require admission fees if you dock there. Ginnie Springs in particular was EXTREMELY busy with college students 'celebrating' Memorial Day. This filled the river with drunken students on a variety of floating objects and made it unpleasant to seek out the springs there. The 'Spring in the River' was really our favorite, because of its location and features. Don't miss this one. Camping along the river is easy and safe as there are large areas of public lands, especially west of SR 47. The camp site we selected had easy docking and had two fire rings for safe fires--we even found some would already laid out for us. Note: Two campers did find ticks after camping so check yourself. The Itchetucknee River is another beautiful feature, a cold, clear spring feed river that attracts a lot of tubers. The mouth of the river also seems to be a popular hangout for the boating crown. There must have been 30-50 boats parked all around the mouth. Canoing west of the Itchetucknee River is not recommended from our experience. The river is much wider, well populated and less interesting. It is also swamped with large, fast boats that 2/3rd's of refused to slow down, producing 2-3' wakes. We had some issues with one of the canoes and it was sunk twice. It was very difficult to get back underway because the wakes did not stop. Progress in this section was very slow because we had to turn into or away from the wakes to survive. I recommend getting out at the Itchetucknee River. - kurtisk

Trail Statistics

Map Length: 26.60 miles / 42.81 km

Real Length: 26.60 miles / 42.81 km

Elevation Range: 0 - 0 feet / 0 - 0 meters

Elevation Traveled: 0 feet (0 up, 0 down)

0 meters (0 up, 0 down)

Elevation per Mile: 0 feet / 0 meters

Activities:

Elevation Profile