The Big O Hike

Memories from Florida's longest running hiking event

One of the biggest hiking events in Florida during the 28 years it persisted, the Big O Hike drew over a thousand people to walk around Lake Okeechobee during Thanksgiving week. Renowned for its sunrises and sunsets, panoramic views, birding, and wildlife, it is the second largest lake entirely within the United States.

After two of their members backpacked around the lake, the Loxahatchee Chapter of the Florida Trail Association started this annual event. It transitioned from backpacking to day hikes, which attracted a far greater number of participants.

I was fortunate to have friends steer me towards the Big O Hike in 2002, the tenth anniversary of its inception. For the next 12 years, I was pretty much a regular, although I didn't loop the lake every time.

Sandra and Phyllis (left), Bart Smith waving (middle), hike founders Paul Cummings and Gordon Johnson (right). Bart and I joined the hike in 2002 as part of our research for our book "Along the Florida Trail."

It took us nine days of day hikes to walk 109 miles of the Florida Trail circling the lake, skipping the roadwalks across bridges that persist to this day, walking past cattle ranches, sugar cane fields, and through communities built on agriculture.

With group camping at major campgrounds, dedicated volunteers organizing shuttles, and after-hike activities and meals, the Big O Hike appealed to a broad spectrum of hikers. You could do the whole thing, or do your own thing.

For me, it was a way to make fast friends. It was also how I met John.

John was a first-timer on the 2011 Big O Hike

We continued with the hike after our Not Quite Thru on the Appalachian Trail, but logistics kept getting tougher: not just for us, but for the hike. The Army Corps of Engineers began closing and repairing sections in 2011 after discovering cracks and seepage through the earthen dike. They didn't reopen the full circuit again until after 2019, the final year the Loxahatchee Chapter put on the hike.

Moved here from FloridaHikes.com, the stories below recount our adventures along Lake Okeechobee on those annual Big O Hikes.