Greetings from Big Cypress National Preserve

This is the most recent national park property I have visited. I have been going to National Parks all my life, but I have really stepped it up over the last 8 years after being invited to hike the High Sierra Camp loop in Yosemite. I now have 2 National Park Passport Books…the first one is full in many of the regions, so I had to get a second one. While on this recent trip to Florida for a wedding, I visited the Everglades National Park several times, Biscayne National Park, as well as Big Cypress. I look forward to many more National Park adventures ahead!

Sincerely,
Shellie

Big Cypress National Preserve

The country’s first national preserve, Big Cypress protects 729,000 acres of wetlands that flow clean water across the Greater Everglades ecosystem, into Everglades National Park, and into the vital estuaries along Florida’s southwest coast. Big Cypress is remarkable for its temperate and tropical mixture of species found across five major habitats: cypress swamps, marl prairies, pinelands, hardwood hammocks and estuaries including tidal marshes and mangrove forests. Explore hiking and paddling trails among these habitats that are home to more than 100 endangered and threatened animals and plants such as the Florida panther, the American alligator, and the famed ghost orchid. The preserve is also home to diverse species of flora and fauna found nowhere else on earth, from the Florida bonneted bat to the Big Cypress fox squirrel to Everglades crabgrass.

State(s): Florida

Established: 1974

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