Customer Reviews

Along the Florida Trail

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While I enjoyed the book, I did not get a real sense of the trail. The real trail is more than pretty pictures for the coffee table.

This is a beautiful book. A compilation of Bart Smith's wonderful photography and Sandra Friend's recounting her experiences section hiking the Florida Trail, the book is in a sense two seperate works under one cover. But both parts complement each other well. Between Friend's text and the accompanying photos, I got a very good sense of what hiking the trail would be like. I don't usually appreciate coffee table books, but this one is an exception.

Smith's plates, for the most part, are are detailed glimpses of life along the trail. Broad panoramas are for the most part avoided in favor of a cougar print slowly dissolving in the mud, an alligator sliding into the water, and various majestic raptors perched atop snags. Even those photos which show larger features, the Suwanee River for example, tend to focus on minute details. I personally enjoy this sort of photography. When I hike for extended periods of time, I initially see the whole scope of the landscape around me, but gradually begin focusing on the minutiae which make life so interesting.

In all, this is a beautiful book. However, it is clear from the text that a large part of the trail travels through swamps and hikers are sometimes waist deep in water. I guess this is to be expected in Florida, but it doesn't sound all that fun. I'm intrigued by an area so different from where I live, and I would like to visit and section hike, but if anything this book gave me almost too good a sense of the trail. I appreciate those who preserved this land, and think it is a state treasure, but I'm not sure, after examining the book, that I would like to experience all of it.