Everglades National Park is a water world, best seen by airboat, kayak, and along boardwalks. Its border contains more than 1.5 million acres, most of that area permanently underwater and harboring fish, alligators, birds, snakes, and even the American crocodile. It’s a wetland dream and a boater’s paradise.
So, naturally, I found the longest dry hiking trail in the park.
My Hiking History in Florida
Coming to Florida was somewhat of an accident for me. In 2018, I was living in Savannah, Georgia, where I was working at River Street Sweets, the Savannah Children’s Museum, and had just created Sidewalk Science Center. In the second half of the year, my sister had just moved to Florida to attend a medical school and was looking for a roommate. I saw an opportunity to make SSC a year-round venture, so packed up my little Kia Soul and moved down to Sarasota (back then, my entire life still fit in the back of that car).
I tell people I got stuck in Florida. With the onset of COVID in 2020, the cost of living down here skyrocketed, rent went up nearly 50%, and I had virtually nothing saved to make any sort of jump to a more affordable area. 2020 also ended up being the year I began hiking a lot more in Florida, despite the flat terrain, often flooded trails in the wet season, and the unbearable heat and humidity that has only gotten worse through the years. Still, I found many new hikes I managed to at least tolerate, and made it a point for a while to try a new hike every week…then every month as reopenings started. For a while there, I made it a point to throw a dart on the map and go hiking wherever it landed.
I’ve had my favorite hikes in the state: Highland Hammock State Park is one of the best within an hour of me, and Hillsborough River State Park up near Thonotosassa north of Tampa is another great one. Up near St. Augustine in Palatka, the could-have-been capital of Florida, you’ll find the beautiful Ravine Gardens State Park nestled just outside the historic town. Take a day to sightsee and tour, too; it’s worth it.
I’ve had my least favorite hike in the state: Duette Preserve, more meant for game and ATVs, I suppose, threw hiking to the wind with trails that are so overgrown they were made impassable by any hiking standard. Unfortunately, by the time I reached the impassable sections, I was well beyond the halfway mark and forced myself to trudge through it. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone for a hike.
On to the Everglades…
Even with all this hiking, I’ve never really had an affinity for the hiking in Florida. I’m a desert vista and mountain guy. I need seasons. I need snow. Cold weather? I’m here for it. Put me out west and I’ll never leave again.
I’m less of a Florida hiker, and more of a reluctant Florida hiker. I live here, and with the exception of 2024, have had no real means to travel extensively outside of work, so I have to make do with the conditions immediately surrounding me.
But in the seven years I’ve lived in Florida, I’ve…never visited the Everglades. Not once. The pride and joy of Florida, the thing it is known for – biodiversity – and I’ve never set foot nor paddle there.
That changed on March 9th.
With big changes coming in life, I knew visiting the Everglades was a “now or never” moment. On top of that, the forecast for clear skies meant stargazing was going to be great, despite the waxing gibbous Moon.
I packed up, plugged in my Jackery 1000w solar generator to power the AstroAI electric cooler I tote around on long-distance trips filled with lunch meat, fruit smoothies, iced coffee, milk, and yogurt, and made the nearly 5 hour trip from Sarasota to Everglades National Park’s Flamingo Campground.
I took SR 41, interchangeably called the Tamiami Trail (for Tampa to Miami). There is an option to take I-75 the whole way, but if you want to do any of the dozen airboat tours, see the canals, stop at Big Cypress National Preserve, or visit Shark Valley Visitor Center, you’ll need to break off 75 at Naples and take Tamiami Trail the rest of the way.
Shark Valley was about 2.5 hours from Sarasota, and the southern entrance to Everglades NP was another 1.5 hours from there. Flamingo Campground was another 38 miles, but unlike other national parks with 25-40 mph speed limits, Everglades’ posted speed limit for a majority of the road is 55 miles per hour, so you reach the other end quickly.
March 9th – Camping and Stargazing
The check-in process at Flamingo was quick. Going on a Sunday evening, maybe only 10-15 of the 58 campsites were full. The tent camping was side-by-side with a paved space for cars at each slot. Each campsite also had a picnic table you could use. The camp lawns were mowed and clean, and all amenities were accessible. The bathrooms were solar powered and had hot water, and on the days I went, had toilet paper. A separate cleaning station right outside the bathroom was there for you to clean utensils and cookware, but NOT for fish.
I set up my tent, telescope, and chair (video of setup/breakdown) and then went on a brief hike to scout out the trail I wanted to hit the next morning: the Coastal Prairie Hiking Trail that runs right along the southern tip of Florida. For the evening, I only hiked to the mangroves right at the water’s edge, where a stunning, diffuse sunset painted the sky gray, blue, and orange (video).
In those mangroves, I encountered a very cool phenomenon: in the transition from the prairie to the mangrove trees, the temperature went up maybe 10 degrees! Feeling how well the trees insulated the heat radiating off the ground, directly compared to an area with no insulation, was very cool (no pun intended!) The change was immediate, in the space of about 5-10 feet.
Walking back to the campground, Venus shined bright in the sunset, and I managed to spot Mercury off to the left. Mercury is notoriously difficult to spot on any day, being that it’s only naked-eye visible for about 4-6 days under good conditions.
Back at the campground, I powered on the telescope and tracked the Moon, then sat back and ate dinner before getting deeper into stargazing. The gibbous Moon polluted the sky, taking away from many of the darker views, but objects like the Orion Nebula, Pleiades, Beehive Cluster, Andromeda Galaxy, Bode’s Nebulae, Hyades Cluster, Jupiter, Sirius, Aldebaran, Betelgeuse, and other prominent objects made for a fulfilling night. At one point, a college student who had driven past the telescope came over, and we hung out for 10-15 minutes talking about astronomy and letting them see through the scope, including getting them pics of the Moon and Orion Nebula on their phone.
From there, I took a few cell phone exposures of the night sky, then closed up (but kept the telescope assembled overnight), read for a bit, then journaled and went to bed.
March 10th – 9:32 AM – Hiking the Coastal Prairie Trail
I woke up at sunrise and ate a breakfast of granola and berries before breaking down the telescope and campsite. Then it was off to the Coastal Prairie Trail, where I set out to hike the full 6 miles (12 out and back) along the southern tip of Florida.
I’ll start off with two bits of advice: wear pants and double-lace your boots. You’re walk through low brush a majority of the hike, with lots of twigs and branches sticking out at ankle height. My laces caught on them time and time again, and even double-knotted, managed to come loose more than once.
So maybe triple knot?
I went during a cooler period of the year, and didn’t face many mosquitos, even at night. That is not at all typical, however. Plan for mosquitos even if they won’t be there. That said, I didn’t face many on the trail, even in the wetter areas.
This trail was mentally challenging, as I personally find most all flat trails that trace through an unchanging landscape (the trails I mentioned above as being my favorite Florida trails do tend to have scenic shifts, and in the case of Ravine Gardens, diverse terrain). For being only six miles out, I felt the toll this trail took on my mind. It wasn’t a bad trail by any means, but by Mile 2, I had seen all the landscape I would see the entire time, minus the lake and beach at the end.
At no point, until the very end, did the trail take you by the water. With the exception of a few areas in the watershed/flood zone that stayed on your right side the entire time, the path remained dry. It was neat, however, to see how the water table soaked some of the ground in the watershed: the dry brown and white dirt would suddenly become mushy and dark brown, and just beyond it, a layer of deepening water led into the southern heart of the true everglades.
I can generally hike a flat 6 miles in 1.5-2 hours, but this trail took me closer to 3 hours one-way with minimal stops. The underlying brush was a factor in this, as I kept fighting to push through the low twigs and occasional branches crossing the path. I did go much faster on the way back, thanks in part to hiking mostly in the flat open watershed, and giving a few straight stretches of the trail a good sprint just to pass them by.
The end of the trail hooks a sharp left and goes straight into the water. People have clearly walked through – you’ll see footsteps the presumably cross the 300 or so feet of water – but I stayed at the edge and went no further, admiring the endpoint for what it was. Some waterfowl and shorebirds poked around the grasses and mud, and I saw an osprey make off with a silver fish in talon, but those were the only animals I saw. There was evidence of coyotes with typical scat on the trail, but during the heat of the day, I saw none.
From the beach, I meandered a bit to check out the wider plain 1,000 feet to the north, then returned to the trail and made my way back to the car. At the end, I did the full mangrove loop: the gusty wind signaling the oncoming rain shower than would wash over a few hours later made for a nice cool breeze to dampen the heat of the day, and the outgoing tide lapped up heavy against the rotting leaves and undergrowth swept onto shore.
Finally back at the car, I changed out of my boots and socks into my trail runners, parked for lunch then began the 38 mile trip to the entrance.
March 10th – 3:30 PM – Speedrunning the Boardwalks
As you drive the main road of Everglades NP, you’ll find lots of turns that take you to other regions of the park, most all that have a boardwalk rising over the features or water. I hit up several of them, my favorite being the Pa-Hay-Okee, where you could watch the field of water slowly moving south. In its depths sat layers of limestone carved and broken over centuries. I found that extremely fascinating: I’ve never seen exposed limestone such as this in Florida, but I know it sits just under the water table in most of the southern areas of the state. Physically seeing it was neat!
I wanted to grab one last item from the gift shop, so I made a quick run back to the entrance of the park before the 5pm closure, then headed straight back in to get one last hike: the Anhinga Trail, a raised boardwalk above a marshy landscape. At this point, it was pouring down rain, so I waited it out (while amusedly watching other people on the trail run back to their cars!), then when it passed around 5:30pm, I got out and hiked it for myself.
Of all the trails in the park that I hit, this was the most dynamic, with the most wildlife. Anhingas, tricolored herons, egrets, fish, and of course, a few alligators! The Anhinga Trail was very easy, but very rewarding, and never made for a dull moment. It’s also 100% ADA accessible.
The final trail I hit is directly connected to the Anhinga Trail, the Gumbo Limbo Trail. This trail reminded me of Highland Hammock State Park, with many similar features and trees and marshes spread within. Part of the old Everglades Road passes through this section of the park, which you can freely hike down. A sign showing how easy it was for cars to get stuck in muddy ruts made for an eye-opening realization of just how frequented, but dangerous this road could be.
Near the end of the Gumbo Limbo trail, I happened across a soft puttering up in the branches. It took some time to find it, but I managed to spot the pileated woodpecker hammering away at tree bark to get to the bugs inside. I’ve always loved watching them do their work, so sat there for several minutes admiring the woodpecker until it sprang out of view.
Leaving the Everglades Behind…
In all, the Everglades was a good park to visit, protecting 1.5 million acres of land. The Everglades is a sad story that is still on the upswing: it used to consist of nearly 10 million acres, but human development has largely overrun most of the ecosystem and fragmented uncountable habitats, going so far as to change the flow of Lake Okeechobee. Birds used to be hunted almost to extinction for their plumes, gators were hunted endlessly for meat.
Its status as being the first park designated to protect not the land, but the biodiversity, paints a stark picture of Florida, where urban and suburban development dominates the coasts, and the housing push toward the center of Florida leaves less and less room for wildlife, and has all but destroyed the night sky in any populated area of Florida. Even my stargazing spot an hour east of where I live now sees light bubbles rising up on all sides, where darkness used to linger mostly to the south and east.
The light pollution above Sebring, Arcadia, Sarasota, Fort Myers, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Bradenton, Port Charlotte, and Naples are now all visible on the horizon from that area out near Myakka City, once a haven for stargazing.
I imagine Flamingo Campground is a little more protected from light pollution, though I would need to visit again with no Moon in the sky to be sure. I saw no obvious light bubble rising from where Miami would have been, nor from the Florida Keys to the south.
I’m glad I did at least a portion of the Everglades. I’m glad it’s here for so many others to enjoy in a way I personally wouldn’t. I understand and appreciate the ecosystem, and I know so many people would love spending days down here on boats, and camping, and stargazing under as pristine skies as you’re going to get in Florida (at least a couple months in the year…)
Me? I still stand by what I say, that Florida isn’t for me and I need cold weather, snow, and mountains. Those are my happy places, as some would call it. Those regions and ecosystems resonate with me more than the generally hot and humid landscapes found in Florida. I know there is so much more to explore, that I missed a huge part of the park, that there’s still kayaking, air boating, even SCUBA diving to be done in some places. Maybe I’ll return one day and engage with those other ways of exploring this landscape – but I’m not someone who will go out of my way to make that happen right now.
My sights are set elsewhere.
Alex
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