Homestead, FL – Everglades National Park located in Southern Florida is comprised of 1,509,000 acres. From the NPS brochure: “This landscape is unlike any other—beautiful, mysterious, and wild. Here, tropical and temperate species flourish side-by-side in an environment, part Caribbean, part North American. The essence of the Everglades is found in the sharp, ragged edges of sawgrass blades, an alligator’s deep bellow, the high-stepping dance of wading birds, the waterway labyrinth of the Ten Thousand Islands, and the sparkling, aquamarine waters of the Florida Bay.”
Everglades National Park and next door neighbor Big Cypress National Preserve were established to protect a unique ecosystem which was being destroyed by over 100 years of land development and water diversion. From the NPS: “Critical restoration projects are attempting to emulate the natural flow of clean water to revitalize altered habitats.” The Everglades are the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States, and have been designated an International Biosphere Reserve, a World Heritage Site, and a Wetland of International Importance. Marjory Stoneman Douglas who fought to get the Everglades protected stated that, “There are no other Everglades in the world.”
The entry sign near Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center
Everglades National Park has four main Visitor Centers: Ernest F. Coe and Flamingo Visitor Centers which are accessed from Homestead Florida, Shark Valley Visitor Center accessed from Tamiami Trail about 40 miles west of Miami and 60 miles from Naples, and the Gulf Coast Visitor Center in Everglades City. Ranger led tours are scheduled at various times in numerous areas of the park, visitor centers are a great way to find out about all of the offerings. The region was hit hard by Hurricane Irma and the park staff are still cleaning up, but as of January 2018 all four Visitor Centers have reopened. Anyone planning a trip to the Everglades should include a visit to the Big Cypress National Preserve.
Alligators are a key attraction to the Everglades
One of our favorite areas of the Everglades is Shark Valley, where we have gone biking with alligators on two trips (December 2011 and January 2018). Mike has written a separate post about Shark Valley Bike Touring. Any visit to Shark Valley should include a stop in the Visitor Center. If you are not into bike riding next to sunning alligators they offer tram tours. We visited Shark Valley from the Naples Motorcoach Resort.
Karla and some alligators
The Gulf Coast Visitor Center Area in Everglades City is the gateway to the Ten Thousand Islands. We wanted to explore this section of the park and made arrangements for a private Boat Assisted Eco Kayak Tour leaving from Chokoloskee. This area is still cleaning up from Hurricane Irma. While our tour was not what we expected (extremely low tide from the Super Moon and bad weather) other reviews indicate that this is a great way to get out and explore the region. There is a boat launch at Everglades City.
We spent another day accessing the southern land region of the park. We reached the park entrance from Homestead and toured via the park road from the Ernest F. Coe to the Flamingo Visitor Center. We visited here while staying on Key Largo at the Keys Palms RV Resort, which was about an hours drive from the entrance. We began by stopping at the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center where they have excellent displays on the flora and fauna of the ecosystem. There is a short film and Rangers can give you information about hiking trails and their status. We learned that the park offers guided canoe tours, but the timing did not work out for us.
A turtle spotted along the Anhinga Trail
After leaving Ernest Coe, we stopped to hike numerous trails along the 38 mile road to Flamingo Visitor Center. Our first stop was at the Royal Palm area which has the Anhinga Trail and the Gumbo Limbo Trail. Interesting side note: we learned that Vultures hang out here and have a penchant for eating the trim around vehicle windows, especially those from 2005 and newer. The park service offers large tarps that you can borrow to cover your vehicle while parked here. We did not cover our car and luckily did not have any damage. The Anhinga Trail is a little under 1 mile in length and winds through a sawgrass marsh, where you may see alligators, turtles, anhingas, herons, egrets, and many other birds, especially during the winter. This is one of the most popular trails in the park because of its abundance of wildlife. We saw turtles, lizards, fish, great egrets, green herons, great blue herons, and anhingas. A good portion of this trail is a raised boardwalk. This trail is wheelchair accessible.
The Anhinga Trail boardwalks take you through a saltwater marsh
We saw several Green Heron along the Anhinga Trail
Our second trail at Royal Palm was the Gumbo Limbo Trail. This 0.4 mile self-guiding paved nature trail meanders through a shaded, jungle-like hammock of gumbo limbo trees, royal palms, ferns, and air plants. The gumbo-limbo is comically referred to as the tourist tree because the tree’s bark is red and peeling, like the skin of sunburnt tourists, who are a common sight in the plant’s range. The resin of the Gumbo Limbo Tree is used to make glue, varnish and incense. Gumbo-limbo is the traditional wood used for the manufacture of carousel horses in the United States. Air plants are typically epiphytic (living on the surface of other plants), sometimes rootless, tropical plants with grasslike or fingerlike leaves through which water and airborne or waterborne nutrients are absorbed. A hammock is a dense stand of trees located in the Everglades that is an island surrounded by marsh, usually just a couple of inches higher in elevation than the surrounding region which allows the trees to grow.
The Gumbo Limbo Trail is paved
There are numerous hiking trails located at the Long Pine Key area, which also has a campground and picnic area. We had a nice picnic lunch here. We next stopped to hike the Mahogany Hammock Trail which is 1/2 a mile in length and a self-guiding boardwalk trail meandering through a dense, jungle-like hardwood “hammock.” Lush vegetation includes gumbo-limbo trees, air plants, and the largest living mahogany tree. This trail is also wheelchair accessible.
Hammocks are tree islands located in seas of sawgrass
The Mahogany Hammock Trail
An alligator we spotted sunning along the road
Between the Mahogany Hammock Trail and the Flamingo area are 5 canoe trail entry points. For future trips we would like to rent a canoe and check out some of these trails. These canoe trails are: Nine Mile Pond, Noble Hammock, Hells Bay, West Lake, and Mud Lake which leads to the Wilderness Waterway. We would enjoy exploring the region on multi-day canoe trip with stays in campsites called “Chickees” which are platforms built above the water with a roof and a port-a-potty.
Everglades chickee photo from Boats.com: “Waterway less traveled: Exploring Everglades by Boat”
We were glad we made it over the Rock Reef Pass (we were surprised it was signed)
We also stopped at West Lake and walked the boardwalk trail. The mangroves in this area were all missing their leaves from Hurricane Irma. They are not dead and will regrow leaves over time. The hurricane also damaged the boardwalk which has not yet been repaired with the broken area being roped off.
A flock of water birds in West Lake were in a long line
Hurricane Irma damaged the West Lake boardwalk
Our final stop in the park was at the Flamingo Visitor Center area, which had only reopened the weekend before our visit in December. The Visitor Center had not completely reopened and there were no bathrooms at Flamingo. The closest bathrooms open were at West Lake. Usually park service vendors offer boat tours and kayak rentals but these were not open yet. I took a boat tour here in my first trip to the Everglades (1996) and it was very memorable. I highly recommend a boat tour from Flamingo once they resume. Mike and I walked around the dock area and spotted at least 5 separate crocodiles and a group of manatees in the harbor. Everglades is one of the only places you can see both alligators and crocodiles. There is a 7.5 mile (one way) hiking trail, Coastal Prairie Trail, that leaves from Flamingo, but it had not been cleared of debris and is not currently being maintained while the park service makes a new management plan to protect thoroughwort, a threatened plant along the route. Flamingo also offers a boat launch, campground and picnic area.
An Everglades crocodile who lives in saltwater
If time permits, I recommend an airboat tour. We stopped at Everglades Alligator Farm located near the Homestead entrance of the Everglades at 40351 S.W. 192nd Avenue, Florida City 33034. They have a small animal sanctuary with a large number of alligators. They also have snakes, a bobcat, emu, tortoises, and macaws. They offered snake and alligator shows throughout the day as well as 20-25 minute airboat rides. During our airboat ride we spotted alligators, iguanas, herons and egrets. It was fun but do expect to get a little wet. People in the front row got sprayed the most. They provide hearing protection. Our guide stopped to point out wildlife along the route. On a future visit I would like to take a longer ride on a warmer day. Several other airboat tours can be found along the Tamiami Trail and enroute to Everglades City.
