Tucked just north of Lake City and only about an hour’s drive from Gainesville, Big Shoals State Park in White Springs features a truly rare slice of Florida.
Eighty feet below the towering limestone bluffs located in Big Shoals State Park runs the great Suwannee River. These bluffs allow visitors outstanding vistas not found anywhere else in Florida. This section of the Suwannee River, which runs 246 miles south from Georgia through North Central Florida and into the Gulf of Mexico, offers a rare Florida adventure for those willing and able to take it on: genuine whitewater rapids.
These rapids are caused by the shoals that give the park its name—the Big Shoals create the largest whitewater rapids in Florida, while the Little Shoals provide a smaller set of rapids downstream. When the river’s water levels are between 59 and 61 feet, the Big Shoals rapids earn a Class III designation as determined by the American Whitewater Association.
Learn more about Big Shoals State Park in the November issue of 352 Preview Magazine at https://issuu.com/352preview/docs/_book_1121/14.
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