Friday, February 22, Everglades National Park

Packed up a lunch and we were off to Everglades National Park at 8:30 under sunny skies, 24C (75F).

After making a fuel stop in Homestead ($4.099/gallon for diesel), we arrived at the Park entrance at 9:30.
Everglades National Park, the largest remaining subtropical wilderness in the nation, is a diverse and intricately linked series of habitats sheltering a variety of plants and animals, many of them threatened or endangered. The Everglades was originally a slow-moving freshwater river, 50 miles wide and a few inches deep, fed by Lake Okeechobee. At nearly 1.5 million acres in size, the park provides important habitat for numerous rare and endangered species like the manatee, American crocodile, and the elusive Florida panther.We stopped at the Visitor Centre at the entrance and watched a movie about the Park.

This map shows the location and size of the Park.

Next stop was at the Royal Palm Visitor Centre just in time for a Ranger-led hike on the Anhinga Trail. Along this elevated boardwalk, we saw alligators, anhingas garfish & double-breasted Cormorants. This is a male Anhinga drying his wings after diving for his lunch.

The highlight of the hike was, of course, the alligators, of which there were many! The average size for an adult female American alligator is 8.2 feet (2.6 m), and the average size for a male is 11.2 feet (3.4 m). Exceptionally large males can reach a weight of nearly half a ton or 1,000 pounds.
Both males and females have an "armored" body with a muscular flat tail. The skin on the back is armored with embedded bony plates called osteoderms or scutes. They have four short legs; the front legs have five toes while the back legs have four toes. Alligators have a long snout with upward facing nostrils at the end; this lets them breathe while the rest of the body is underwater. It is a freshwater animal. It thrives in wetlands like swamps, marshes, bogs, lakes and rivers, as opposed to crocodiles which are salt-water animals.

Following the hike, we decided to drive to Flamingo, which is the southernmost point of the US mainland, have lunch rhen work our way back to the entrance. On arrival at Flamingo, it was a pleasant 28C (82.4F). Along the main Park road between Flamingo and park headquarters, there are six major boardwalk or blacktop nature trails.  Each trail is 1/2 mile or less in length.





The west Lake Boardwalk Trail extends through a mangrove forest.
Mangrove forests are present in the coastal channels and winding rivers around the tip of south Florida. The term "mangrove" does not signify a particular botanical relation, but rather is used to identify several species of salt-tolerant trees that thrive amidst the harsh growing conditions of the coast.
Red mangroves (Rhizophora mangle), identified by their stilt-like roots, and the black (Avicennia germinans) and white mangroves (Laguncularia racemosa) thrive in tidal waters, where freshwater from the Everglades mixes with saltwater. Everglades National Park boast contains the largest contiguous stand of protected mangrove forest in the hemisphere. We saw all three varieties on the hike.

The next trail was the Mahogany Hammock Nature trail. This elevated boardwalk winds through a forest of mahogany trees and many other subtropical plants which are labeled for easy identification. The boardwalk bridges the sawgrass river and enters a lush tree island - a Tropical Hammock. Hidden from historic logging activities, old growth mahogany trees have grown to record size on the Hammock's higher, drier ground. They support an abundance of plants and animals, act as windbreaks and help prevent soil erosion. The importance of older-growth trees is often overlooked, as in the case of mahogony trees, which are extensively logged in tropical regions throughout the world for their high quality wood.






Next stop was the Pa-Hay-Okee Overlook, which consists of a 1/4 mile boardwalk leading to a 12-foot observation platform at Shark River Slough which affords views of the vast sawgrass wilderness.
The freshwater slough is without a doubt a very wet habitat. Even in the dry season, you can find water in the deeper parts of the slough. Its very name, the freshwater slough (which sounds like slew and rhymes with two) means a deeper body of slow moving water.

Our last stop was at the Pinelands Trail, a ½ mile loop which explores a subtropical pine forest maintained by fire. The pinelands are the most diverse land habitat in south Florida. Pinelands habitats have no fixed borders. Fires and hurricanes shift them and enable these temperate islands to survive in the damp, subtropical environment. We saw charred pine bark and wind-snapped trunks.

 

We next drove find the Nike Missile site, a relic of the Cold War. However, access to the site is only available through ranger guided tours at 11:00am. We’ll have to pass on this one. www.nps.gov/ever

 

We left the park at 4:30 and made a top-up fuel stop in Homestead before returning to the park at 6:15. It was a full day.