The Clearwater Lake trail is a 22 mile bicycle scenic route that loops around in the southern portions of Ocala National Forest. The Paisley woods has a long history of early settlements and ghost towns. The area is covered with live oak domes, a pine forest, grassy prairies, and many different bodies of water. What you would see if you hiked the trails are wild cats, bears, alligators, possums and much more wildlife which hides in the wild. But perhaps there is something else that lurks within these woods could it be bigfoot? ghost from these early settlements? A friend of mine told me there is a strange creature the locals know about which lurks that portion of the woods. They do seem a little paranoid up in this region so its quite possible they know something here.

Clearwater Lake is also one of the oldest campgrounds in Ocala forest and before that the Seminoles once thrived off the land. There is a real sense of comfort here its a friendly area no evil or sense of danger like other parts of the forest. But we also drove to a section a few miles deeper into the woods where the trail crosses and there was some bad feelings back there. Our first trip we only hiked a mile back into the woods and it seemed the deeper you went the dark and more narrow the trail became. But what is even more interesting is that near one of the springs the trail passes through a bigfoot sighting did take place. So there is no doubt in my mind that something perhaps uses these trails late at night.

The lake that the trail starts at  is called Clearwater Lake and is supposed to have great fishing. Although not paranormal related it just tells you how nice of a place this is. I do not have much other history but I can tell you deaths have occurred out in these woods its a very old area. So its very likely that there would be ghost I mean when people thrived in these settlements they fell to death due to disease and other illnesses which were common in those early pioneer days. 

If you want a little more history on the trail a man by the name Jim Kern was out hiking the Appalachian Trail on a backpacking trip. When in the 1960s he arrived back in Florida and wanted to create a long-distance hiking trail which was nonexistent in the state of Florida. The only hiking trails during that time were in state parks and the Everglades but nothing that went statewide or connected to other states.

Kern founded the Florida Trail Association and his recruited members from an inaugural hike planned from Big Cypress National Preserve to Highlands Hammock State Park. In 1966 the volunteers newly founded Florida Trail Association painted the first blaze of the Florida Trail at Clearwater Lake in the Ocala Forest. They call this Ocala Trail which was a 70-mile section which was soon to be the first part of the Florida Trail. Then from there it expanded. Despite the rough terrain bike trail only went 22 miles near Clearwater lake there were other trails which interconnected here in the Ocala Forest.  So from then and on congress put the funding and project for a work in progress in hopes to make this Trail much like the Oregon Trail, Ice Age Trail, Appalachian Trail etc etc. 

© By

Rick-AngelOfThyNight