Adventure

Our friends Elam Stoltzfus and his son Nic spent an amazing weekend on Lake Powell at Camp Helen State Park, capturing every detail of the annual World Paddle For The Planet event. Nic describes their experiences in the story below.

On Friday, October 9th, Dad, Joey, and I loaded up our gear in our Toyota Sequoia and hooked up our boat (a custom built Scandy White) and prepared to head to Panama City Beach.

Uncommon scenes show the hidden beauty just offshore from Grayton Beach on one of our many natural reefs. Local charter Captain Kerry Jones has been a diver for many years and got a new camera and lighting rig to capture this spectacular footage, which was edited and shared by local artist Edmond Alexander.

Kent Mundy delights in showing people the part of South Walton most can’t even imagine.
Mundy is owner and operator of Wetland Wilderness Tours, a one-man, one-boat tour company that explores the outbacks, sloughs and bayous of the Choctawhatchee River, IntraCoastal and other four waterways that spill into the Choctawhatchee Bay.
See story and photos.

Learn all about South Walton's flora and fauna on a hike with nature guide Snookie Parrish along the nature trail at Alys Beach, Florida.

The inaugural South Walton Adventure Run was an adventure-filled weekend for adults and kids. The event, sponsored by SoWal.com, challenged runners from every ability at beautiful Topsail Hill Preserve State Park. 

The fun masquerade ball was Friday night. Saturday’s 1 mile kid run was a scaled down version of the 5k, with obstacles and pirates – so runners had to guard their booty in order to win prizes! There were different age brackets for this event.

Deer Lake State Park is a 1,920 acre park which shares its name with the coastal dune lake within its boundaries. Coastal dune lakes are extremely rare worldwide and in the United States they occur only along the Gulf Coast.

From a misty morning sunrise to a serene golden sunset on Peach Creek Bayou. Mullet leap and Redfish tail, from the kayak Largemouth Bass are hooked. An Osprey (fish eagle) chirps and chases an American Bald Eagle three times his size into the bough of a Longleaf Pine. Pelicans and migrating Mallards dive and feed. Fishermen motor out for a day of trout fishing on the Choctawhatchee (chock-tuh-hatch-ee) Bay.

It was the warm and lazy last day of 2011, and it was a good one, living the dream. Summer never really ended that year.
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What better way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon than kayak fishing on the calm waters of one of South Walton's hidden gems.

Peach Creek flows north from the wetlands of Point Washington State Forest, on the north side of Seagrove Beach, Florida. It's just a short distance from the Gulf of Mexico and Scenic Highway 30A.

What begins as a trickle, widens to SoWal's largest freshwater creek, opening up to a beautiful bayou flowing into the Intracoastal Waterway and the Choctawhatchee (Chock-tuh-hatch-ee) Bay.