Location

Camp La No Che Spring is located about 7 miles east of Altoona and 2 miles south of Paisley, on private property.

Description

Camp La No Che Spring is a fourth-magnitude spring that discharges from a small cavern in the limestone on the east side of a semicircular pool about 25 feet in diameter. The only evident modifications of the site included the remnants of a log and wood retaining along the north edge of the pool. Three or four low-cut, rotting tree stumps remain in the pool, near the spring orifice (Rosenau et al. 1977).

The spring is in a semitropical forest setting at the base of a wooded, gently sloping hillside that rises northward. Discharge is from one submerged horizontal cavern opening about 4 feet from the east edge of the pool. The top of the opening was about 2 feet below the water surface when the site was visited March 29, 1972. The mouth of the opening is about 3 feet wide and 1 foot high. It narrows inward and eastward about 2 feet to a throat with a cross-sectional area of about 1 foot square through which practically all of the flow of the spring appears to emanate.

Most of the pool was only 1 or 2 feet deep; the depth was greatest at the spring orifice, 3.3 feet below water surface. A gentle roll, or boil, was evident at the pool surface above the orifice on the day visited; reportedly, the boil is at times vigorous. Algal growth was on the pool bottom, and a whitish-green deposit was common on the surfaces of bottom vegetation near the spring orifice. The water had a hydrogen sulfide odor. Water from this pool flows in a run about 25 feet wide and 1 foot deep to Lake Norris, 200 feet south.

This run is joined about 30 feet from the main spring by the run from a smaller spring. This smaller second vent is about 85 feet away and has a pool about 4 feet in diameter. The second vent is a foot deep with a mild boil or slick on the surface.

Utilization

The spring is unused and on private property. The remnant retaining wall/dock was built in the 1940s when the area around the spring was used for hunting and the spring was used as a swimming hole/pool. The spring is located in the Camp La-No-Che portion of the Leonard and Marjorie Williams Family Scout Reservation which includes camp areas, pavilions, bathrooms, trails, a firing range, an office, and other facilities for use by members of the Central Florida Council of the Boy Scouts of America. To obtain permission to visit the spring, contact the Scout Reservation.

Contact Information

Leonard and Marjorie Williams Family Scout Reservation
41940 Boy Scout Road
Paisley, FL 32767
(352) 669-8558 Office, or email camplocal@camplanoche.com
Camp La-No-Che website

Associated Water Resources

The following water resources are directly related to this spring:

• Lake Norris – Receiving Waterbody