One of Florida’s best features is the Everglades, and I have been lucky enough to experience their beauty on more than one occasion. I’ve been walking, air boating, and today I went hiking there for the first time. I’m a pretty avid hiker, and I’m lucky because Ethan is too. We climbed Vermont’s second largest peak this past Summer, and have plans to climb Kilimanjaro in the future. But the Everglades are different. The diversity in animal and plant species is astounding and it makes for the perfect place for a nice leisurely hike.

We started off our hike with a quick immersive walk on a man-made boarded path. There were informative signs telling us about the flora and fauna around us. There was so much to see, but some of the sights were rare opportunities. As we were walking into the park just 10 feet away from us was an alligator that was about 7 feet in length. This big guy was out in the wild no fence holding him in. He was no threat to us, and just sat the whole time basking in the sun. The next sight was an Eagle’s nest soaring high above the trees. Unfortunately for us, the eagle was not there as we passed.

After this quick pit stop we hit the actual trail. As we wandered in we were warned to stay away from the left side. Why you ask? Well being the Everglades, it can get extremely muddy. The men that warned us were covered in mud up to their knees. So we decided that was not the route for us. Finally we chose to do about a 3 mile loop where we avoided the muddy region via a service road.

Unfortunately the sights were not at fruitful during our hike. The only creatures we saw were the immense population of mosquitoes and some slugs. Seriously there weren’t even any birds out. Given that I had been to this region before, I knew that this was odd and it was only because the weather was much colder that normal. So we were resound to the fact that even though we gotten bitten and cut up by tall grasses it was still a great hike and a great day with friend and family.

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