Florida- Britton Hill (Lakewood Park)

| About Britton Hill |

Few people, I'm sure, travel to Florida to climb mountains. Infact, if I stacked all the peaks I've climbed so far (AR, RI, FL) one on top of another, I probably wouldn't even surpass the height of my apartment building.

Nevertheless, Britton Hill holds the glory of being Florida's highest point and therefore just had to be conquered. Finding the summit is pretty easy, climbing it even easier and the best thing of it all is that only 30 or so minutes away and you're on some of the best beaches in the US.

Finding Britton Hill is pretty straight-forward:
1. From Florida, take the De Funiak Springs turn-off (331)
2. Follow this north (the road is reasonable sign posted)
3. Take the Co Hwy 285 turn-off ( ~18 miles on the right). Again sign-posted, but not a major turn-off
4. Britton Hill is then sign-posted a few miles along the country road (~3 miles). The park is on the left (travelling north). There are a few park benches, toilets etc at the park.

Britton Hill is part of Lakewood Park (which I thought was also a town, it isn't). Plugging in a GPS location - I used Lakewood Park which worked.

From Alabama, I'm not sure. But Florala looks the closest town.

| Britton Hill Trail |

Alright, so not much of climb. This is more a saunter through a park and voila, you're standing at the highest point in Florida.

I'd just finished a week in Orlando and had the weekend to kill. Given the temperature was 90-100 (35C) everyday, and I was only an hour away from the beach, I thought it more prudent to instead sit in a car and drive 7 hours to the Florida pan-handle and climb Britton Hill.

I guess in the end it was worth it, not only to tick off another peak, but to then visit the beaches of the panhandle (sheesh are they nice). Anyway, back to my climb.

After opening the door to my rental, I was blasted by the hot air outside. Fortunately, the high-point is only a walk across the park. There are a bunch of picnic tables, a toilet block and even a notice board about the highpoint (although the date on the visitors book was 2008 and the pages looked...well kinda crusty, so I didn't open it).

I did read though that the actual highpoint is apparently somewhere in the woods behind the actual monument. I followed all the paths (there were three), which while nice, didn't lead me to anything which I thought was actually any higher than the monument.

Not much else to say otherwise. Climb the mountain, snap a few photos and then head to the beach.

A little side-note. Apparently Lakewood Park is also a popular "gay" meeting place. I discovered this while sitting on a bench in the woods, when I had a somewhat awkward conversation with a nice man who came and sat down next to me. Given I hadn't actually found a 'higher' point while on my brief foray into the woods, we both left dissapointed :)

| The Weather |

Britton Hill can be climbed all year round.Given you are doing little more than getting out of the car, even Sun or Rain are unlikely to stop you reaching the summit.

On this adventure: Roland