Goodland Bridge Sugar Bay loop: 10 DEC 2022 06:28
Trail photos
Author
Trail stats
- Distance
- 6.83 mi
- Elevation gain
- 3 ft
- Technical difficulty
- Moderate
- Elevation loss
- 3 ft
- Max elevation
- 24 ft
- TrailRank
- 30
- Min elevation
- -15 ft
- Trail type
- Loop
- Time
- 2 hours 44 minutes
- Coordinates
- 414
- Uploaded
- December 11, 2022
- Recorded
- December 2022
near Drop Anchor Mobile Home Park, Florida (United States)
Viewed 193 times, downloaded 1 times
Trail photos
Itinerary description
This is the first time we have tried this new launch point. We usually launch from the east side of the Goodland Bridge, but it's possible to launch from the west bank just under the bridge. The area is firm, gently sloped, and has room to park easily, even at low tide.
We paddled south along the east side of Goodland through Goodland Bay and down Coon Key Pass and turned east into Sugar Bay just before Tripod Key, then through Sugar Bay to the Northeast Gate and wound our way through to Lighter Bay. The tide was outgoing the whole trip, and Lighter Bay was so shallow we paddled through the muck for some of the trips. You can see the jog to the west just after the island to avoid a shoal. We should've hugged the west shore, but the bottom moves around after storms.
Then we hit Hell's Gate and almost a straight shot back to the launch. Beautiful morning. Very low tide. Birds, dolphins, and raccoons along the way, and we could hear the shotguns of the duck hunters in the National Wildlife Refuge from the time we hit Sugar Bay to exiting Hell's Gate. I believe we heard more gunfire this morning than we'd ever heard before. Glad we were a couple of miles away.
We paddled south along the east side of Goodland through Goodland Bay and down Coon Key Pass and turned east into Sugar Bay just before Tripod Key, then through Sugar Bay to the Northeast Gate and wound our way through to Lighter Bay. The tide was outgoing the whole trip, and Lighter Bay was so shallow we paddled through the muck for some of the trips. You can see the jog to the west just after the island to avoid a shoal. We should've hugged the west shore, but the bottom moves around after storms.
Then we hit Hell's Gate and almost a straight shot back to the launch. Beautiful morning. Very low tide. Birds, dolphins, and raccoons along the way, and we could hear the shotguns of the duck hunters in the National Wildlife Refuge from the time we hit Sugar Bay to exiting Hell's Gate. I believe we heard more gunfire this morning than we'd ever heard before. Glad we were a couple of miles away.
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