Big Cypress Swamp

Or West Everglades…Big Cypress National Preserve

Five nights camping in Big Cypress National Preserve (#231), at Monument Lake Campground. It is only our 5th time camping with Lizzy in a National Park! Despite the website info that there was limited cell service and no showers, we were pleasantly surprised to discover that was old info. Monument Lake has the only showers at a Preserve Campground, and is across the street from the only cell tower in the Preserve!

Thank Goodness! Or this post wouldn’t be out for a few more days!

Surprise, Surprise!

Enroute to Big Cypress, Mark called his cousin Janice in Ohio to wish her a Happy Birthday. Surprise, surprise, she was actually in Estero, FL, only 71 miles from where we would be camping (even closer to where we were visiting the 1st day). So we got to spend an afternoon and evening with Janice, and made plans for another visit with her and more family, next week from Sarasota. Oh…we had dinner at Ford’s Garage. Mark was so excited about the decor, he even took pictures in the Men’s Room!

Back to…Big Cypress National Preserve!

What an amazing place! We will never look at Swamps (“just” a Wet Forest) the same way again! The freshwaters of the Big Cypress Swamp are essential to the health of the neighboring Everglades (not too mention, water for Miami!) Fascinating to us…slight variations in elevation (~13′ total) effect the length of time an area spends under water in a year, which determines what plants and animals live there, resulting in Five Distinct Habitats in the preserve:

• Hardwood Hammocks, ~13′ above sea level (and home of the Endangered Florida Panther)
• Pinelands
• Prairies
• Cypress swamps, home to Cypress Trees (and also very many Air plants)
  • In a Cypress Dome, the Cypress grow in a hole, where the tallest trees grow in the deepest water and the smaller trees grow along the edge in the shallower water, hence the Dome. They look circular from above, or like an open hole doughnut. This happens when the hole is too deep in the center for cypress trees to become established. They almost always hold water year-round and are an important refuge for aquatic animals like alligators. Alligators will make these holes deeper and wider by displacing the peat and other debris. In the dry season, the remaining water for wildlife is found here and we call it an Alligator hole.
  • Cypress Strands, similar to cypress domes, are an elongated or linear feature, generally much larger than domes. They are flow ways of inland swamps (small creek or slough) moving southwest.
• Estuaries and mangrove swamps, at sea level, where the freshwater from the swamp meets the saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico.

We spent most of our exploring time in and learning about Cypress Swamps. Who’d a thunk we’d go tromping through a Cypress Swamp, up above our knees in water? Well, we did, although one of us was really excited to do it, the other, not so much. Can tell which is which?

Can you tell we loved our 231st National Park?

And…Gail’s picture of Ranger Jessica, leading us on our Swamp Walk, pointing at Swamp Maple (Florida’s only Fall Foliage), got selected for the latest Cover Pic on Rangers Pointing at Things!

Also, 1 very brief “revisit” to a National Park:

• Everglades National Park (#65-Revisit), we stopped at the Gulf Coast Visitor Center, the only one we missed on our first visit in 2015. It is in a Portable, the 3rd “Temporary” Visitor Center there since Irma took out the original Gulf Coast Visitor Center in 2017. Since then, Ien (2022) and Idalia (2023) wiped out the first 2 temporary Visitor Centers. They are wary of “I” Hurricanes!

Now we are off for for a week in Sarasota

For more pictures, see (in-work) Adventure Album:  Florida thru Gulf Coast

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