The Big Cypress Swamp Trail is Dry
We went to get our feet wet in the Florida swamps of Big Cypress Swamp National Preserve, but the dry season is here and the Florida trail was dry and smoke hung in the air from the seasonal wild fires.
One of the benefits of working out of town and in a new area is all of the new places to explore. Since being here in Florida, I have enjoyed exploring and learning about the Everglades and remote wilderness areas of South Florida. On a recent Saturday I met up with a friend at Big Cypress Swamp for a day hike.
We had prepared ourselves for getting wet feet, as for much of the year, the Florida trail is under water. We thought a wet hike through Big Cypress Swamp would be an exciting experience. However, when we arrived, the trail was dry.
Big Cypress Swamp neighbors the Everglades and the Big Cypress National Preserve is over 729,000 acres. Big Cypress National Preserve contains a mixture of tropical and temperate plant communities that are home to a diversity of wildlife, including the elusive Florida panther.
On our hike, I kept a lookout for a panther, but I’m still waiting for my first sighting and encounter.
We met at the Big Cypress National Preserve Visitor’s center and after I took a few photographs of the local gators, we hit the trail.
While I’m scanning the cypress and pines for wildlife,my friend would notice the flowers and plant life along the edges of the trail, stopping often to photograph the blooms to later identify them. She gave me a new prospective on the natural world around and I began to enjoy finding the many different types of plants along the trail.
Sometimes its hard to believe it is winter with this Florida weather
Our big discovery for the day was these wild looking black with yellow striped grasshoppers, later identified as immature eastern lubber grasshoppers.
We followed the dry single track through open prairies, Hardwood hammocks, pinelands and dry cypress swamp. At around the 4 mile mark we, (maybe I was in the lead) left the trail and traveled down and old fire trail. A mile or so later we discovered the wrong turn and stopped for a quick lunch before retracing our steps.
On our return trip, we found the location of our miss step. The engineer and construction manager in us took over. We erected a barrier from dead tree branches and formed a directional arrow of branches to direct future hikes to the correct path.
In total we hiked 10 miles exploring the Big Cypress Swamp never getting our feet wet. I guess I’ll have to return and find another route to explore.
Other Florida Adventures
