Churchhouse Hammock Trail And The Case Of The Missing Boardwalk

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Our second hike in Crystal River was the Churchhouse Hammock Trail, which is also part of Crystal River Preserve State Park.

I was excited for this hike because I saw that at least part of it was a boardwalk, which I always love.

Just a warning, this post is a little chaotic.

That said, we never even saw a boardwalk here, or anything suggesting there was a boardwalk, other than pictures beforehand.

Like most of these trails in the area (by area, I mean Florida), the Churchhouse Hammock Trail (at least what we did) is pretty typical Florida woods and easy to follow.

The trail is a 0.9 mile loop, and part-boardwalk, part-packed dirt (theoretically).

Since we didn’t see the boardwalk, this must be for the forest road loop part of the trail (which is what AllTrails seems to show).

This post talks about the boardwalk and estuary, and includes a map of the trail that includes those detours.

This feels like a weird trail, because I have like, two pictures from this hike that AREN’T of the trail.

I usually have a lot more than that. It’s typical Florida woods, but also feels totally different at the same time.

There are towering palm trees along the whole thing, and the trail itself is pretty wide.

It just feels like more magical Florida woods than usual for some reason, and I loved it!

It was sunny and we had perfect weather without it being too hot either.

There is plenty of parking here and it’s right on a main road so I would imagine it can be somewhat busy but we had the whole trail to ourselves (we were here in March).

We didn’t see any cool mushrooms or flowers on the trail, though if you’re lucky you will find them.

I even saw someone share a picture of a Luna moth on AllTrails, so keep your eyes peeled!

And apparently there’s a way to get a view of the estuary near the boardwalk but I saw no indication of that myself.

Even without all of those things though, I still really liked this trail and would definitely recommend it.

And if you actually do the boardwalk part of it, I bet it’s even better! I actually can’t get over the fact that we entirely missed the boardwalk here!

Travel Services I Recommend:
AllTrails – This is my favorite hike tracking app.
America the Beautiful – The national park pass is essential.
Booking.com – This is great for finding and booking hotels.
Get Your Guide – I recommend Get Your Guide for booking tours.
National Park Obsessed – This is the best national park planner.
Skyscanner – Skyscanner is great for finding and booking flights.
Enterprise – This is my rental car recommendation.
See all my resources here.

Where is the Churchhouse Hammock Trail?

The Churchhouse Hammock Trail is part of Crystal River Preserve State Park, which is spread out around Crystal River.

It’s about two minutes from Crystal River, 5 from Crystal River Archeological State Park, and 11 from the Redfish Hole trail.

In the bigger picture, it’s about one hour 15 minutes from Ocala, 1.5 hours from Gainesville, an hour from Cedar Key, and about two hours from Clearwater.

How long is the Churchhouse Hammock Trail?

I tracked it on AllTrails and it came in at 0.91 miles which is the same as the official distance.

Is the Churchhouse Hammock Trail hard?

Nope! It’s a flat loop, easy peasy lemon squeazy!

Is the Churchhouse Hammock Trail worth it?

Yes! I really enjoyed this trail, and while it’s similar to a lot of trails in Florida, I did think it was beautiful and the vibe here was just really great.