A Look From The Inside

“Why would you want to do that?” they ask. “Aren’t you worried about getting eaten by an alligator?” or just , “Your crazy”.
That’s the reaction I get from people when I tell them what I do for fun.
Ok, maybe I am a little looney, but when you are out there, it’s beautiful, it’s creepy, it’s breathtaking, it’s ethereal and I know I am alive.




There are places in the Everglades that look like they came right out of a National Geographic special on the Amazon Jungle, complete with the funky, spooky animal noises. I recently read a story about people on a fishing trip in Everglades National Park. They were in their lodge at night and started hearing horrible, inhuman sounds of screaming coming from the forest around them. It sounded like a dying soul was being ripped from its body.
Anyway, my name is Dan and this blog is my attempt to take you inside the wilderness of the Everglades National Park and the surrounding national and state parks. Noooo, we’re not walking down the boardwalk or the scenic nature trails, we’re going inside. Every time I drive over alligator alley or across US41 I look at the thick sub-tropical forests going by and I wonder what’s in there? What’s on the other side of that canal, through those trees? That is how my hiking got started…I wanted to know what is in there. I read somewhere that over a million people visit the Everglades each year. Well I think like 999,999 of them are on the boardwalk because on the twenty or so off-trail hikes I’ve done so far I have only seen one soul out there and that was a hunter during hunting season in the Big Cypress National Preserve.


Now, don’t try this at home folks unless you really want to.
Why? Because it really is a dangerous place. There are five different kinds of poisonous snakes in Florida and four of them are in there. There are gators, wild pigs, bears, very large pythons and panthers, but the predators that scare me the most are the two legged ones. If you’re out there alone, there will be no way for any help to reach you if you run into a poacher (yes it goes on) or a drug smuggler or some sickos like in that movie Deliverance with Burt Reynolds. (yick) The only ones who will witness what goes down are the ever-present buzzards that will be feasting on your corpse. Off-trail hiking in the Everglades is not for the faint of heart. Not to mention the other dangers like getting lost, it is very easy to get lost there, I never, ever go without a GPS and extra batteries. There are little holes to step in and break a leg and big holes to fall in and break every thing else. Oh and did I tell you about all the little critters that like to attach themselves to you and go for a ride? Everglades is bug central: flies, gnats, leeches, scorpions and ticks are just some of the inhabitants that want to go home with you. If you go there, check yourself out when you get home.
Here’s the plan, I go in there and take a bunch of pictures and some recordings so that you can see what it is really like and I will publish them to this blog. I will try to go as often as possible in a different part of the Everglades every time.
Feel free to comment (using appropriate language) and if you are enjoying the posts e-mail them to someone else that might be interested. The idea is to share the beauty of this incredible place so that more people will understand why we need to contribute to conservation efforts.