Silver Glen and Juniper Springs

Tuesday November 6, 2012
Site 81 Salt Springs Recreation Area
Salt Spring Florida

 

We packed a picnic lunch and headed out to check out some of the other springs in the area.

 

Silver Glen Springs was the first one we came to about 11 miles down US 19.  It is a day use area only and the fee is $5.50 a person.  With the National Parks discount pass it is half off entry not free.  American Land and Leisure runs the Ocala parks and concessionaires do not have to honor the passes at all and may do so however they wish.

We asked it we could just take a look around after they told us their only trail, The Lake George Trail, was closed for maintenance.  They gave us a 10 minute pass which is about all we needed to see that the area was lovely but there wasn’t much to do.  The kayak launch was looked fine but a long way from parking and difficult to get to.  It’s a 4 mile spring run into lake George and even today it was clear that there are large boats with motors that come up and down.

 

Path to the picnic area

 

Lovely spring waters

 

Kayak put in

 

 Glenn Spring Run

 

The Glen Spring would be wonderful for swimming in on a warm day when it wasn’t packed with people.  I particularly liked that it had no cement wall around it and looked much more natural than many we have been to including Salt Springs.   Glen Springs appears to be a local swimming hole in the main and would be very busy on week-ends especially in the summer. 

Since I have spent so much time in Florida these past 3 years, I may set myself the goal of swimming in every one of their springs.  Although there are 700 known springs I’m only aware of about 34 that have public swimming.  I’ve been swimming in about to 5 of those so I will have a long way to go.  But that quest could bring me back to Silver Glen.

After our 10 minute look, we decided not to pay $5.50 to eat our picnic lunch at their many picnic tables and headed out for the 11 more miles to Juniper Springs.  Juniper was completely different than Silver Glen.  It is a full use area, much larger with a mill, several lovely trails, 3 very nice campground loops and what looks like a great 7 mile spring run paddle.

 

We had our picnic down by the Juniper Spring which is again cemented around.  I guess there must be good reasons why they do this but I much prefer the natural banks.  See the mill on the far side?

 

 

 

After lunch we went into the mill building which had an exhibit on the CCC.  Those young men built most of this park including the mill which provided electricity.

 

 

 

You can click this picture to make it larger if you’d like to read it.

 

 

David is a big fan of the CCC and always likes to spend time in any of the exhibits in the many parks which they constructed and maintained.  We both think such a program would be an excellent use of government monies for young people between high school and college as a type of National Service or as an alternative to welfare monies.

 

 

The Juniper springs Nature Trail begins just beyond the mill wheel and so we spent most of the rest of the afternoon enjoying it.

 

 

 

Along the trail I finally found a bench that is not too tall for folks with short legs but David isn’t so sure it’s the right size for sitting.

 

 

The trail winds around through beautiful sub tropical vegetation

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of the nature trail, the sign suggested that we retrace our steps back to the mill, but from our map, we could see we were close to the campground loops so we went on to check them out.

 

There were very few people here during the week.  This site was at the end of a tent’s only loop just steps from the beautiful area pictured above.  It would have been my #1 site desire back in my tenting days.

 

 

In addition to the tents only loop, there are two RV loops.  The sites have no hook ups although there are water spigots and a dump site.  From looking at the map, I was interested in seeing Site #15 and when we came up to it, we found it was already occupied.

 

 

 

We continued on to check out the kayak launch spot which is a good walk from its parking lot but the park has carts on which you can tote your boats and then return them for others to use.  The boardwalk from parking lot to launch is a good 1/4 mile we think so to use their carts would mean one trip down, one back to bring the cart back and one back to get in your boat.  We may just use our carts instead even though we have to put them together, strap the kayaks on and then undo and stow them in the boats. 

 

 

 

There obviously has not been a major rain event lately.

 

In spite of this caution David wants to come back and do the run next week some time.  It sounds and looks like our kind of paddle.

 

 

 

 

If we move Winnona over to Juniper Springs we would avoid the $5 launch fee.  Not sure about that.  We’ll see.

It was a fun and informative day.  We’ll definitely be back to Juniper Springs with or without Winnona. 

Hope the folks in site #15 will welcome us.