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The landscape of Everglades National Park is utterly unique among American
vistas. A patchwork of overwhelmingly open saw grass marshes, tangled mangrove
forests, and jungle-like tropical hardwood hammocks, it's called the River of
Grass. Indeed, most of the park's 1.5 million acres are either fresh or brackish
water wetlands, or are submerged beneath the shallow estuarine waters of Florida
Bay. With no place more than eight feet above sea level, even the few hummocks
of pineland or hardwood uplands succumb to the dominating force of water during
high water events.
This is the largest remaining subtropical wilderness in the United States,
and it's home to a veritable zoo of endangered, rare, and exotic species. The
Everglades' simple, uncluttered vistas highlight wildlife's presence. Against
the muted green and brown tones of the freshwater prairies, you can't miss the
bright whites of great egrets and white ibis. Discordant ripples in the saw
grass signal the movement of alligators.
Mix a spectacularly rich, diverse ecosystem with all that water, and
it's no surprise that the truest way to get at the soul of the Everglades is by
picking up a paddle. In wintertime, when the temperatures and swarms of
mosquitoes abate somewhat, the park draws large numbers of kayak and canoe
campers, along with birders, hikers, anglers, and plenty of car-bound
curiosity-seekers with alligators on the brain. |
