Note: You may click on thumbnail images to view larger images. To return to thumbnail/text gallery, click anywhere on a large photograph. Here is why the area is called Big Cypress. About 75 percent is covered with Cypress tree stands called Cypress domes. In between most domes are grassy marshes that are often covered with small Cypress trees from a few inches to about six feet high. The ground is always wet in these areas so all plants that grow here can survive in water year around. Every Cypress tree is host to at least one and often several symbiotic air plants that, like many orchids, get their nutrients and moisture entirely form the air.

Our watery trail. Not quite in the thick of it, but close.

Here we transition from a Hammock environment to a Slash Pine stand environment. Big Cypress Preserve has three types of plant environments; Cypress domes, Slash Pine fields and Hammocks. Cypress domes are the main feature of the area, hence the name, Big Cypress. Second most prevalent are Slash Pine stands with Palmetto Palms and the third most prevalent are Hammocks, which are islands elevated about three feet higher then the Cypress dome floor upon which grows a very thick and varied collection of Florida Oak, Royal Palm, Gumbo Limbo Tree, White  Mangrove, Mahogany and more.

Part of the Florida Trail through a Hammock environment.

Our first evening in camp in a Slash Pine field. Slash pine wood burns with a sweet smelling odor and a lively and warm flame even though it is often soggy and wet. Among the pines are Palmetto plants.

Taking it easy on our first day. It was warm and sunny and we were glad to get on the trail. Our plan was to hike seven miles per day. Though the terrain is flat, this was not necessarily a leisurely pace with full packs. As it turns out, seven miles per day was the perfect pace. Had we tried to do the trail in three days, we would have been miserable as the last ten miles were entirely under water and the going was very slow.

Home sweet home.

Slash Pine camp fire.

Relaxing in camp.

Sunset on our first evening. Mature Slash Pines have very tall and thin trunks. It seems as if one might measure their age by their height rather then their growth rings. They are majestic and stout and are just as beautiful in life as in death.

Campfire burns like the sunset.

Hot breakfast!

Kris and Chris, the morning of the second day.

In many places, the bedrock, which is limestone formed from coral, is right at the surface. Underground, it is filled with watery hollows which, when at the surface make for some tricky hiking in many areas. The water table rarely drops more then a foot or two beneath the surface and in areas that are covered with water during the wet season, fish and other fresh water aquatic creatures hide in the subterranean hollows during the dry season.

Typical grass lands of the Cypress marshes. The orange vine is called a love vine. It is a symbiotic plant that produces no leaves and twines itself delicately around almost anything it comes in contact with, adding a golden glow to many plant forms. It is very common in grassy environments.

The bark of a Slash Pine tree. It peels off in papery thin sheets yet is very thick thus providing excellent protection from fire.

Slash Pine needle and immature cone. The slash pine and Palmetto environment is very prone to fire and has therefore developed a symbiotic relationship with it. Slash pine cones are dependent upon fire in order to open and mature into viable seeds. Palmetto plants depend upon fire to trim dead leaf growth. Like all palms, they are a grass so their new growth emerges from the center of the plant and old dead growth sluffs off to the outside. Most palm have the wind to blow away this old growth. Palmettos grow close to the ground, so they can't depend upon the wind. Therefore, they depend upon fire to burn away old and dead growth.

In the thick of a Cypress dome. So beautiful and mysterious. So calm and quiet. There are few fish so there are also few predators, and then only small ones.

Kris, up to his ankles.

Chris, up to his ankles.

In a few places, the Cypress dome abutted an Everglade, sea of grass environment. These were few and far between and there were almost no large fields like this. The small ones would appear in the grassy fields between the Cypress domes and often looked as if they were craters formed by meteorites. All the more mystical too because our night sky was often quite abundant with shooting stars when it was clear.

A crusty old Cypress knee. They often took on almost human characteristics. Cypress trees do not reproduce from seeds. Instead, they send out roots that pop up in the form of knees or low stumps which then will form into a new tree. They are a very prevalent tripping hazard and like to hide in the grasses.

Camp at the end of day two. Again, in the Slash Pine and Palmetto fields.

Always wet. One of the greatest pleasures of the trip was getting out of wet and muddy boots, socks and pants and into clean and dry camp cloths at the end of the day. Then, of course, there was getting into the wet ones again each morning. Oh well...

The muddy trail through a grassy field between Cypress domes. This kind of mud existed on about thirty percent of the trail. Twenty percent was dry and the rest was covered with water of varying depth.

A camp site on a Hammock. We didn't stay here.

These images are of a Slash Pine and Palmetto field that had burned in the last three or four months. These fires burn fast and hot, consuming only dead matter in the form of grasses and pine needles. Because the fields are surrounded by wet Cypress domes, the fires are contained and never burn beyond the Pine and Palmetto field.

Fresh and new yet slightly singed Palmetto leaf fans.

Haunting and beautiful. The main fuel for the fire in these areas is the grasses that stand about knee deep and dry out during the dry season. The fires are started by the sun as it heats the slightly flammable sap that occasionally drips off the Slash Pine trees. Only the outermost bark of the taller trees burns as do the dry Palmetto leaves. Sometimes the fire gets hot enough to boil the sap out of trees that have fallen, encrusting them with bubbles and globs of crystalline sap like amber.

A medium size Palmetto plant with the burned lower trunk of a Slash Pine beyond.

Flowers are plentiful this time of year. They are small and delicate and many of them resemble orchids that grow from the ground.

These little clusters grow on a plant that smells like spearmint.

A delicate four petal cluster about one inch across.

Air plant bloom.

These little daisy like flowers were fairly common. There was also a larger variety with a yellow center that we found everywhere.

Thistle. Insects love their blooms. They seem to grow everywhere in the US. They were common in the dry areas of Big Cypress.

Kris. A day three rest stop. It was rainy and a bit dreary and there were few places to sit down without getting wet.

Chris. A day three rest stop. It was rainy and a bit dreary and there were few places to sit down without getting wet.

The water was crystal clear. As a precaution tough, we filtered it for drinking. Last year it was a bit scarce in parts of the area and one evening we spent collecting rainfall. This year it was plentiful.

These mile markers were our goal posts. The Florida Trail Association has done a great job maintaining a very difficult and challenging trail.

A small air plant in early stages of growth and new green leafy shoots of the Cypress tree.

Plant? Animal? A Cypress knee with character.

A smaller variety of air plant with a bloom.