PARKS & OUTDOORS
Tate’s Hell State Forest
Franklin County · Panhandle & Emerald Coast
Over 202,000 acres of swamp named for a man who said he had just come from Hell, with a boardwalk through dwarf cypress under fifteen feet tall.
ABOUT THIS PLACE
Tates Hell covers more than 202,000 acres, roughly 315 square miles, between Eastpoint, Sumatra and Carrabelle. The name comes from a story: in 1875 a man is said to have staggered out of the swamp and told the people who found him, my name is Cebe Tate, and I just came from Hell. In the 1960s and 1970s timber companies cut roads all through it and planted slash pine among the cypress. Florida bought it in the mid-1990s, mainly to stop the runoff reaching the oyster beds of Apalachicola Bay, and has been putting the water back the way it was ever since. More than half is still swamp: cypress strands, wet prairie, bayheads, and bowls of dwarf cypress like those in Big Cypress and the Everglades. The Ralph Kendrick Boardwalk carries you out among dwarf cypress that are centuries old and still under fifteen feet tall. The High Bluff Coastal Trail runs over ancient sand dunes in loops of 3.5, 5.5 or 8.8 miles. There are over 35 miles of paddling water, with primitive campsites along the New River, and 53 designated campsites taken by permit. Bears are here, so food goes away at night. Bring a paper map; the satellite navigation is not reliable in this forest
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