Swamps

Swamps are interesting and beautiful places to explore by canoe or kayak, and when I found one in my home state of Illinois, I couldn't resist experiencing it. Totaling 14,961 acres in far southern Illinois, the Cache River State Natural Area is a floodplain carved long ago by glacial melt off. The glaciers stopped just before what is now the Shawnee National Forest, thus creating its lovely hills and rock formations, and when they melted, the Ohio River adopted its current course and the Cache River meandered across rich and vast wetlands.

 The cypress trees are one of the outstanding natural features which developed here. Their flared bases (called buttresses) can exceed 40 feet in circumference, and many are over 1000 years old!

Tupelo trees are also prevalent here...

The Okefenokee Swamp straddles the Georgia-Florida border and is a National Wildlife Preserve covering 396,000 acres and is a designated national wilderness area. I've entered the swamp from all three entrances and paddled and hiked here.

 I also paddled the cypress swamp of Texas' Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge and also Armand Bayou, enjoying the scenery and abundant wildlife of the cypress wonderland. 

We also visited Houston Audubon Society's Smith Oaks Bird Sanctuary with roseate spoonbills and great white herons as well as cormorants, white ibis, and others

Sparkleberry Swamp (also known as Rimini Swamp for the nearby town) and Stump Hole Swamp were the domain of General Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox" of the Revolutionary War.

Congaree National Park is in central South Carolina and was created as the Congaree Swamp National Monument. Its 24,000 acres are not technically a swamp but rather a remnant old growth floodplain forest and the name honors the local Congaree Indians. This area was also home to the legendary Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox."

Audubon Society's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary (Florida) conserves 13,000 magnificent acres, protecting fragile 500-year-old bald cypress trees and providing habitat for migratory and permanent wildlife as well as strangler figs, native grasses, pond apple and red maple trees, and the seasonal ghost orchid plant.

This off-trail slog through the swamp of Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park in Florida entailed 90 minutes of hiking in water up to waist deep in search of elusive orchids and other plants and whatever else caught our attention in this unique eco-system.

Florida's East River near Big Cypress Preserve where our paddling skills were challenged by the narrow, twisting tunnels of mangrove, often barely wider than the kayaks, but a truly beautiful place to boat. Herons, egrets, jumping mullet fish, and even a swimming alligator all enthralled us as we plied the waters.

Twice while biking Georgia's Jekyll Island I encountered this guy was alongside the trail as the trail wends through a bit of a wetlands area...