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Everglades -- Florida
Descriptive:
Covering about 4,000 miles, that's a million and a half acres, this shallow marshy region is water moving slowly from Lake Okeechobee to swamps bordering the Gulf of Mexico and Florida Bay. A river, 50 miles wide and only 6 inches deep, creeps slowly southward on its way through the Everglades. These stretching lowlands teem with life in this mild subtropical wilderness, with an very unusual mixture of land and sea, salt water and fresh water.
Geography/terrain:
A vast marsh, much of the Everglades is covered with saw grass, which grows 10 to 15 feet high. There are many small, fertile raised areas which form island glades of dense vegetation and clusters of trees. The Everglades has been called by the Indians the River of Grass.
One's first impression is of great distance in a remote, untamed wilderness.
Vegetation:
Island glades called hammocks, mere elevated mounds rising out of the swamps, are abundant with royal palms, pines, live oaks, cypress, saw palmettos, mangrove thickets, as well as many of the hardwood trees, such as mahogany, strangler fig and the mysterious gumbo-limbo. Ferns and orchids also cluster in rich abundance.
Wildlife:
The wood stork, which is the only stork in the U.S., shares its home in the Everglades with the night heron, the avocet, the willet, egret, heron, four species of kite, ibis, coot, grebe, osprey, cormorant, the spoonbill, and numerous others, including hawks and bald eagles. Great beds of oyster and clam lay underneath the water.
The celebrated blunt-nosed and the long-snouted alligator both live in different regions of the Park, as well as the relatively rare American crocodile, which prefers the saltier waters of the mangrove swamps and salt marshes. The manatee, a vegetarian sea cow, finds pasture in the lagoons. Porpoises and turtles are also common here.
On the land, the Park is the last refuge to the Florida panther. Deer, bobcat, cougar, and black bear all inhabit the Everglades, along with smaller mammals such as raccoons, otters, muskrats and foxes.
Key locations:
With the waterways through the Park, an ideal way to see the Park is by boat, and guided trips from Flamingo and West Lake take you into the backwaters. A sunset cruise into the roosting grounds of thousands of birds is spectacular.
Numerous trails run through the Park, many of them beginning at Flamingo, the main visitor's center. From here, you can set out on numerous hikes through the glades and enter dense tropical mangrove swamps by means of an elevated boardwalk.
By car, Shark Valley Loop Road is a one-way road which takes you fifteen miles into the glades. At the halfway point, an observation tower affords great views across the wetlands.
Activities:
Camping is permitted at designated sites; backwoods camping is available but by special permit only.
Fishing is excellent in the Everglades and include freshwater bass and sunfish, and saltwater snapper, grouper and sea trout. A state license is required.
Boating, either on a guided tour or through a rental, is perhaps the best way to see the Park, and become immersed in the wilderness of the 'Glades. If heading out alone by boat, picking up a set of navigational maps is strongly recommended; skiffs are available for rental.
Geology:
A large portion of the Everglades rests on oölitic limestone, which is characterized by tiny calcerous spheres resembling fish roe. Rock Reef Pass has perhaps the most signifacant outcropping of oölitic limestone.
With a strange mixture of dunes, coastal prairies, swamps, the Everglades have alternately been covered by shallow seas or exposed as dry lowlands, causing many thousands of feet of sedimentary strata.
As much or more of the Everglades extends out into the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico where it lies beneath the waters and, together, comprises the Floridian Plateau.
