NPS unit count: 79
Hey there Adventurers! Stop number 2 on #USBarkRangers Maisy’s grand tour of the southeast was Ft. Matanzas National Monument in St. Augustine, FL! I forgot to take a picture of the sign, so the cover photo is just the Ft. Matanzas beach….oops!
Some of the entries in this tour will be shorter than others, and this will be one of the shorter ones. If traveling with your pup, this is not going to be a long stop. If you look at the park website it indicates there is a Bark Ranger Program there, however there is not, and this location is not on our map, accordingly. That park website page was last updated over 4 years ago! The out of date info found on NPS websites is one of the reasons why the Sidekick and I created the Bark Ranger group!
Fort Matanzas proper, is accessed only by ferry, and neither the ferry, nor the fort are dog friendly. This fort is old but not as old as others around. Originally a Spanish fort, this one was built in the mid 1700s to protect a backdoor into St. Augustine that would get around the much older, but larger Castillo de San Marcos, the fort that everyone associates with St. Augustine. Fort Matanzas was only engaged in one altercation, and it wasn’t too many years later that it fell into British control, then back to Spain, before the US gained control about 80 years after it was built. By that point the fort has fallen to ruin so the US never really utilized it. The part of the park that is accessible by pups includes the visitor center grounds and a beach across the main road. There are a couple really short trails nearby that dogs can use, on leash of course! I did speak very briefly to the ranger in the small visitor center/ticket facility. It was crowded so I only chatted briefly. He mentioned the park used to have the program years back but has no real plans to bring it back.
The short trail near the visitor center that is dog friendly is only about 3 tenths of a mile long, and is mostly boardwalk. It does not really lead to anything, more of just a small stretch break. Across the road from the entrance is the access to the Ft. Matanzas Beach. This is a dog friendly, on leash beach that’s actually on park land! Be sure to watch out for stranded or dead jellyfish on the beach! The highlight of this park for Maisy and I was the beach. This NPS unit would be best combined with a day trip to Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, also in St. Augustine, and/or Canaveral National Seashore a little ways down the road.
Next up: Timicuan Ecological and Historical Preserve.
The Parks Adventurer 