Simply

By Jeff and Virginia Orenstein

Everglades National Park

Note: COVID-19 precautions and restrictions are beginning to lift in Florida but it is prudent to wear a mask in all places not outdoors, maintain social distancing and wash your hands frequently. Everglades National Park is open with “modifications in place for COVID-19”. Some concession-operated tours and services have modifications in place for public health.” Check https://www.nps.gov/ever/planyourvisit/basicinfo.htm for the latest updates.

Florida’s Everglades, often referred to as the glades or the river of grass, runs about 400 miles, from the Orlando area to Florida Bay, on the state’s southern tip. It is a unique ecosystem combining huge wetlands, sawgrass marshes, freshwater sloughs, mangrove swamps, pine rocklands and hardwood hammocks (forests). Once covering a huge swath of the state, the glades averaged about a depth of four to five feet of very slowly-moving water, although there were/are many dry areas naturally occurring within it. Today, vast swaths of it have been drained, dammed and replaced by massive commercial agriculture (mostly sugar) and residential development.

Fortunately, more than a million and a half acres are preserved in Everglades National Park and even more are preserved at adjacent state and national preserves such as the Big Cypress National Preserve or Florida’s Fakahatchee Strand preserve. Started in 1934, Everglades National Park is the tenth largest U.S. national park. Unlike most of them, its three entrances are not connected and are located in different areas of southern Florida. Since no public transportation links them, access by car is the only practical way to see it all.

On the east coast, the main entrance is found at Homestead, between Miami and the Florida Keys, near Florida City along U.S. 1. The Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center is located at this entrance, as well as the Royal Palm and Flamingo areas.

The Flamingo Visitor Center is the southernmost visitor center in Everglades National Park, located about an hour’s drive from the park entrance in Homestead.

Closer to greater Miami is the Shark Valley Visitor Center off U.S. 41, the Tamiami Trail that runs down the west coast of the state from Tampa and across to Miami. It is about 25 miles west of Miami and 70 miles east of Naples. Everglades City is 36 miles east of Naples.

Once you enter a park entrance, your first stop should be at the visitor center for an opportunity to talk to a ranger, get a map and absorb some idea of what lies around you. Each center offers a variety of activities and ample opportunities to camp or just observe some interesting plant and wildlife, hike, canoe, kayak, ride on a tour boat and take in the ambiance of this tropical wilderness. Yes, you should see alligators and/or crocodiles, turtles, exotic birds, and other wildlife. Your chances of seeing a Florida black bear, an invasive species like a python or a reclusive panther are remote but not impossible, as well.

A pelican sits on a piling while a kayak glides by near the visitor center at the Gulf Coast entrance to the park off U.41 at Everglades City. Credit: Jeff Orenstein

The sign along a trail at the Fakahatchee Strand state park adjacent to the national park sums up the amphibious critter danger well. (Park page 34) Credit: Jeff Orenstein