Alafia River State Park in Hillsborough County, Florida

Photograph: Hurrah Lake - Alafia River State Park.jpg by Mwanner at en.wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Restored from the credited Wikimedia Commons file, normalized to the consistent attraction-card frame and converted to WebP by 1stFlorida.com. Portrait originals retain their complete composition over a softly blurred extension of the same photograph.

Hillsborough County attraction

Alafia River State Park

Hillsborough County · Gulf Coast

A former phosphate mine near Lithia turned into a state park, with the steepest hills and the hardest mountain bike trails in Florida.

ABOUT THIS PLACE

The land was strip mined for phosphate for decades. American Cyanamid and its subsidiary Brewster Phosphates worked the Lonesome Mine here with draglines until it stopped paying, and in 1996 Cytec Industries gave the property to the state. What the draglines left behind is terrain Florida does not otherwise have: steep spoil ridges, sharp drops and two dozen named lakes sitting in old pits. The park is at 14326 South County Road 39 south of Lithia, and it opens at eight in the morning and closes at sunset every day of the year. About 17 miles of mountain bike trail run through the reclaimed pits, named by the International Mountain Bicycling Association as one of its Epic rides, and the harder sections are genuinely difficult by any measure. Roughly 20 miles of separate trail carry hikers and horses through mixed hardwood, pine flatwoods and rolling hills, away from the bike traffic. The South Prong of the Alafia River runs through the park and can be paddled upstream toward Lake Hurrah. There are 30 family campsites with water and electric, 12 equestrian sites with tie-outs, a bike shop, pavilions and a playground

GETTING THERE

Get Directions ↗Official place website ↗

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