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Favorite National Park you have visited

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  • dnc
    dnc Member Posts: 56,839
    Yellowstone - BRB, Old Faithful
    Of the ones I've been to I'd rank them roughly

    Tier 1 - Wood go out of my way to go back anytime I had the opportunity
    Yellowstone
    Mount Rainier
    Arches
    Olympic
    Grand Teton
    Glacier

    Tier 2 - Wood gladly visit again
    Grand Canyon (was mildly disappointing)
    Crater Lake
    Rocky Mountain
    North Cascades
    Great Smoky Mountain
    Badlands
    Wind Cave
    Mammoth Cave

    Tier 3 - Glad I visited, wouldn't go out of my way to go back
    Gateway Arch
    Hot Springs
    Shenandoah

    Incomplete - just barely been inside, not enough to have a real opinion
    Petrified Forest (really liked the little bit of the Painted Desert I saw)
    Mesa Verde
    Theodore Roosevelt
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  • creepycoug
    creepycoug Member Posts: 24,016
    Olympic - #TeamJacob or #TeamEdward?
    Been to Rayonier (obviously), Olympic, Grand Canyon, Glacier & Yellastone. And the Everglades.

    If you want to see wildlife from the minute you get there until the minute you leave, Everglades is en fuego. It's great for that. And in its own weird way it can be beautiful.

    Glacier was powerful and felt historic. Loved Lake McDonald and the Lodge. Would like to visit Many Glacier on the other side.

    But something about ONP ... part of it is that I grew up around it, and the other part of it is the combo of amazing wilderness, yuge fucking trees, alpine, and coast all in one park. It's also isolated out there on the peninsula and, IDK, just a fucking beautiful place.

    Yellastone was cool too. Some unique shit there.

    I agree with the PBS tag line: America's best idea.
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  • dnc
    dnc Member Posts: 56,839
    Yellowstone - BRB, Old Faithful
    creepycoug said:

    Been to Rayonier (obviously), Olympic, Grand Canyon, Glacier & Yellastone. And the Everglades.

    If you want to see wildlife from the minute you get there until the minute you leave, Everglades is en fuego. It's great for that. And in its own weird way it can be beautiful.

    Glacier was powerful and felt historic. Loved Lake McDonald and the Lodge. Would like to visit Many Glacier on the other side.

    But something about ONP ... part of it is that I grew up around it, and the other part of it is the combo of amazing wilderness, yuge fucking trees, alpine, and coast all in one park. It's also isolated out there on the peninsula and, IDK, just a fucking beautiful place.

    Yellastone was cool too. Some unique shit there.

    I agree with the PBS tag line: America's best idea.

    I'm going to Everglades (and Biscayne and Dry Tortugas) with my dad and oldest kiddos in June. Really pumped for this . Wifey and I did like a thirty minute airboat excursion in the glades when we got off our honeymoon cruise out of Miami but didn't get into the park at all. Will see much more this tim around. Any recommendations in the Everglades area?
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  • creepycoug
    creepycoug Member Posts: 24,016
    edited December 2020
    Olympic - #TeamJacob or #TeamEdward?
    dflea said:

    dnc said:

    huskyhooligan said:

    Torn between Rainier and Olympic. Haven't been to many others. Glacier like 30 years ago, and Rocky Mtn a few years ago. Rocky Mtn is cool, but North Cascades just at Artist Point alone puts it to shame. Have been meaning to do the Utah ones, have a friend who works at Zi-uhn. Need to do the California ones too. Crater Lake is cool.
















    The only reason I can't rank North Cascades higher is because the dams changed up so much of the scenery and I like the illusion of virginity in my NP's. There aren't many views that compare to Shuksan though. And North Cascades should definitely annex Baker.

    Highly underrated views.
    I agree. That's why Olympic is so awesome. One ridge in from either side, and your ass is in the sticks. Very little of the park is accessible by car, so you don't see too many people - just animals and wilderness. When I was younger, my buddy and I walked in at Brinnon on the Hood Canal side, and walked out a week later at the Queets River on the ocean side. We saw people here and there, but never up close. It was one of the cooler trips I've ever been on.

    I'd like to do that hike again. I'd like to be 25 again, too.

    I did that hike from the Elwha to the North Fork of the Quinault (of course). Long ass trudge. What is that? 35+ miles? Whatever it was, I learned then: it's quality, not quantity. And we did it in like 3 days. I would say be strategic about exactly what you want to see in ONP and take the most direct route, get there, take your tim and enjoy it. Traversing the whole park in 3 days just ate me up, and I that was when I was younger and in better shape.

    Correct. You walk a mile into that park from any direction and you are on your own.

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  • creepycoug
    creepycoug Member Posts: 24,016
    Olympic - #TeamJacob or #TeamEdward?
    dnc said:

    creepycoug said:

    Been to Rayonier (obviously), Olympic, Grand Canyon, Glacier & Yellastone. And the Everglades.

    If you want to see wildlife from the minute you get there until the minute you leave, Everglades is en fuego. It's great for that. And in its own weird way it can be beautiful.

    Glacier was powerful and felt historic. Loved Lake McDonald and the Lodge. Would like to visit Many Glacier on the other side.

    But something about ONP ... part of it is that I grew up around it, and the other part of it is the combo of amazing wilderness, yuge fucking trees, alpine, and coast all in one park. It's also isolated out there on the peninsula and, IDK, just a fucking beautiful place.

    Yellastone was cool too. Some unique shit there.

    I agree with the PBS tag line: America's best idea.

    I'm going to Everglades (and Biscayne and Dry Tortugas) with my dad and oldest kiddos in June. Really pumped for this . Wifey and I did like a thirty minute airboat excursion in the glades when we got off our honeymoon cruise out of Miami but didn't get into the park at all. Will see much more this tim around. Any recommendations in the Everglades area?
    None. I was a kid last tim I went in there on purpose at the age where you don't pay attention to how you get anywhere. As big as it is, I don't think there's a ton of variation by region.
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  • dnc
    dnc Member Posts: 56,839
    Yellowstone - BRB, Old Faithful
    creepycoug said:

    dnc said:

    creepycoug said:

    Been to Rayonier (obviously), Olympic, Grand Canyon, Glacier & Yellastone. And the Everglades.

    If you want to see wildlife from the minute you get there until the minute you leave, Everglades is en fuego. It's great for that. And in its own weird way it can be beautiful.

    Glacier was powerful and felt historic. Loved Lake McDonald and the Lodge. Would like to visit Many Glacier on the other side.

    But something about ONP ... part of it is that I grew up around it, and the other part of it is the combo of amazing wilderness, yuge fucking trees, alpine, and coast all in one park. It's also isolated out there on the peninsula and, IDK, just a fucking beautiful place.

    Yellastone was cool too. Some unique shit there.

    I agree with the PBS tag line: America's best idea.

    I'm going to Everglades (and Biscayne and Dry Tortugas) with my dad and oldest kiddos in June. Really pumped for this . Wifey and I did like a thirty minute airboat excursion in the glades when we got off our honeymoon cruise out of Miami but didn't get into the park at all. Will see much more this tim around. Any recommendations in the Everglades area?
    None. I was a kid last tim I went in there on purpose at the age where you don't pay attention to how you get anywhere. As big as it is, I don't think there's a ton of variation by region.
    tyfys
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  • dnc
    dnc Member Posts: 56,839
    Yellowstone - BRB, Old Faithful
    Edwin_Bambino said:

    I worked at Canyon Lodge in Yellowstone National Park for two summers in college and it was an incredible experience, really glad I did it instead of doing bullshit internships. It was a very eclectic mix of people who worked there, college students, hippies who worked seasonal jobs year round, retirees who just wanted an excuse to explore the parks, and people on their last chance who were running from something and minimum wage cafeteria work was all they could get. I once drove a guy out of the park who got fired who wore the same Arkansas Razorback sweatsuit everyday, he claimed he played there and was also in the Special Forces, both of which I doubt, he was also a raging alcoholic whose teeth were completely rotted and drank two pints of Black Velvet on the drive and by the time I dropped him off in Gardner Montana he was telling me he was the Devil and didn’t have any money and didn’t know what to do, no idea what happened to him but it was an interesting experience.

    The Park itself is amazing, by being there two summers I got to really explore the Park and see the stuff you don’t get to see if your just hitting up Old Faithful and such. Would work 4 days a week, and then go backpacking and fly fishing and drink a lot of beer the other three with my brother, great memories. When I would get bored after work I would just walk around the Canyon and waterfalls, very cool to have as my back yard. I did almost get killed by a female elk who I legit almost ran into on a run and I got charged by a bear who broke off hiking once, but after I shit myself I looked back on those memories fondly.

    Are the rumors of the dope log cabin employee basketball gyms real?
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  • Edwin_Bambino
    Edwin_Bambino Member Posts: 2,944
    Yellowstone - BRB, Old Faithful
    dnc said:

    Edwin_Bambino said:

    I worked at Canyon Lodge in Yellowstone National Park for two summers in college and it was an incredible experience, really glad I did it instead of doing bullshit internships. It was a very eclectic mix of people who worked there, college students, hippies who worked seasonal jobs year round, retirees who just wanted an excuse to explore the parks, and people on their last chance who were running from something and minimum wage cafeteria work was all they could get. I once drove a guy out of the park who got fired who wore the same Arkansas Razorback sweatsuit everyday, he claimed he played there and was also in the Special Forces, both of which I doubt, he was also a raging alcoholic whose teeth were completely rotted and drank two pints of Black Velvet on the drive and by the time I dropped him off in Gardner Montana he was telling me he was the Devil and didn’t have any money and didn’t know what to do, no idea what happened to him but it was an interesting experience.

    The Park itself is amazing, by being there two summers I got to really explore the Park and see the stuff you don’t get to see if your just hitting up Old Faithful and such. Would work 4 days a week, and then go backpacking and fly fishing and drink a lot of beer the other three with my brother, great memories. When I would get bored after work I would just walk around the Canyon and waterfalls, very cool to have as my back yard. I did almost get killed by a female elk who I legit almost ran into on a run and I got charged by a bear who broke off hiking once, but after I shit myself I looked back on those memories fondly.

    Are the rumors of the dope log cabin employee basketball gyms real?
    Canyon had an outdoor cement court back by the employee dorms, I can’t speak for the other parts of the park, I never heard that rumor before but doesn’t mean it’s not true.
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  • dnc
    dnc Member Posts: 56,839
    Yellowstone - BRB, Old Faithful
    Edwin_Bambino said:

    dnc said:

    Edwin_Bambino said:

    I worked at Canyon Lodge in Yellowstone National Park for two summers in college and it was an incredible experience, really glad I did it instead of doing bullshit internships. It was a very eclectic mix of people who worked there, college students, hippies who worked seasonal jobs year round, retirees who just wanted an excuse to explore the parks, and people on their last chance who were running from something and minimum wage cafeteria work was all they could get. I once drove a guy out of the park who got fired who wore the same Arkansas Razorback sweatsuit everyday, he claimed he played there and was also in the Special Forces, both of which I doubt, he was also a raging alcoholic whose teeth were completely rotted and drank two pints of Black Velvet on the drive and by the time I dropped him off in Gardner Montana he was telling me he was the Devil and didn’t have any money and didn’t know what to do, no idea what happened to him but it was an interesting experience.

    The Park itself is amazing, by being there two summers I got to really explore the Park and see the stuff you don’t get to see if your just hitting up Old Faithful and such. Would work 4 days a week, and then go backpacking and fly fishing and drink a lot of beer the other three with my brother, great memories. When I would get bored after work I would just walk around the Canyon and waterfalls, very cool to have as my back yard. I did almost get killed by a female elk who I legit almost ran into on a run and I got charged by a bear who broke off hiking once, but after I shit myself I looked back on those memories fondly.

    Are the rumors of the dope log cabin employee basketball gyms real?
    Canyon had an outdoor cement court back by the employee dorms, I can’t speak for the other parts of the park, I never heard that rumor before but doesn’t mean it’s not true.

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  • Edwin_Bambino
    Edwin_Bambino Member Posts: 2,944
    Yellowstone - BRB, Old Faithful
    dnc said:

    Edwin_Bambino said:

    dnc said:

    Edwin_Bambino said:

    I worked at Canyon Lodge in Yellowstone National Park for two summers in college and it was an incredible experience, really glad I did it instead of doing bullshit internships. It was a very eclectic mix of people who worked there, college students, hippies who worked seasonal jobs year round, retirees who just wanted an excuse to explore the parks, and people on their last chance who were running from something and minimum wage cafeteria work was all they could get. I once drove a guy out of the park who got fired who wore the same Arkansas Razorback sweatsuit everyday, he claimed he played there and was also in the Special Forces, both of which I doubt, he was also a raging alcoholic whose teeth were completely rotted and drank two pints of Black Velvet on the drive and by the time I dropped him off in Gardner Montana he was telling me he was the Devil and didn’t have any money and didn’t know what to do, no idea what happened to him but it was an interesting experience.

    The Park itself is amazing, by being there two summers I got to really explore the Park and see the stuff you don’t get to see if your just hitting up Old Faithful and such. Would work 4 days a week, and then go backpacking and fly fishing and drink a lot of beer the other three with my brother, great memories. When I would get bored after work I would just walk around the Canyon and waterfalls, very cool to have as my back yard. I did almost get killed by a female elk who I legit almost ran into on a run and I got charged by a bear who broke off hiking once, but after I shit myself I looked back on those memories fondly.

    Are the rumors of the dope log cabin employee basketball gyms real?
    Canyon had an outdoor cement court back by the employee dorms, I can’t speak for the other parts of the park, I never heard that rumor before but doesn’t mean it’s not true.

    Ah, judging by the building I guess that was either Old Faithful or the Lake, the employee facilities there were supposedly much nicer than Canyon.
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  • AtomicDawg
    AtomicDawg Member Posts: 7,327
    Other
    creepycoug said:

    AtomicDawg said:

    dnc said:

    AtomicDawg said:

    Angels landing at Zion is my favorite hike of any.

    Arches is the most unique of any imo. Crazy rock formations and a lot of them look like huge dildos which is always fun.

    Grand Teton though is my favorite in the country because of the mountains, lakes and wildlife. Seeing moose and grizzlies up close is awesome.

    I've seen moose pretty close at Grand Teton and Yellowstone. Never seen a grizz in the wild. How close/scared were you? Were you strapped?
    Grizzlies scare the shit out of me. 2 were in the meadow across from Jenny lake turn off. Saw them safely from the road.
    They should.
    Tell that to the Asians with cameras. I know my place.
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  • dflea
    dflea Member, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 7,287 Swaye's Wigwam
    Olympic - #TeamJacob or #TeamEdward?
    RoadDawg55 said:

    I once almost froze to death at glacier. Got in my buddy’s truck last minute to go to Glacier. Didn’t even pack a bag. Ate shrooms. Went on a journey with a friend. It got dark. We couldn’t find our way back to the tent/truck. Never been so fucking cold in my life. The thought of being eaten by a wild animal crossed my mind while coming down off the shrooms.

    Great place tho. Went back a few times after that a little more prepared and loved it.

    Shroom stories are always awesome. Glad you survived.
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  • BleachedAnusDawg
    BleachedAnusDawg Member Posts: 13,160 Standard Supporter
    Other
    Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. @dnc
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  • dnc
    dnc Member Posts: 56,839
    Yellowstone - BRB, Old Faithful
    BleachedAnusDawg said:

    Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. @dnc

    Did you know drive it, hike it, helicopter it, abundance?
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  • Purple_Pills
    Purple_Pills Member Posts: 2,110
    I stayed at Volcano House back in January and could see the crater glow all night long from my hotel room.
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  • BleachedAnusDawg
    BleachedAnusDawg Member Posts: 13,160 Standard Supporter
    Other
    dnc said:

    BleachedAnusDawg said:

    Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. @dnc

    Did you know drive it, hike it, helicopter it, abundance?
    Wife and I drove to the park, got out and immediately realized that we did not dress correctly because it was 25 degrees cooler up there than at Hapuna Beach so we went to the gift shop for clothes. Couldn't drive the road around the rim due to high sulfur levels and portions of it being knocked out from an eruption a couple years prior, etc so we toured the perimeter area at the main Kilauea lookout, listened to it erupting for a bit, hiked a big portion of the park over lava fields, through lava tubes, steam vents, etc. At the end of the day we had dinner at the restaurant that sits near the rim there. They shut off the lights every 20 minutes so that you could watch the volcano glowing at night and you could hear it rumbling while eating. Took some pictures that looked like this (just pretend the lights are out inside the restaurant). Very cool to experience in person. That, and going up Mauna Kea at night to view the galaxy were incredible experiences. Definitely want to go back. Both places felt like an entirely different planet from anything I've visited before.

    image
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  • Miley_Cyrus
    Miley_Cyrus Member Posts: 832
    Crater Lake is just an awesome fucking place.

    I know it’s smaller compared to the bigger parks and I don’t claim it to be “the best”... but damn it is just breathtaking on a clear day.
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  • dnc
    dnc Member Posts: 56,839
    Yellowstone - BRB, Old Faithful
    Miley_Cyrus said:

    Crater Lake is just an awesome fucking place.

    I know it’s smaller compared to the bigger parks and I don’t claim it to be “the best”... but damn it is just breathtaking on a clear day.

    Only been there once and it was real cloudy, hope to make it on a clear day at some point.
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  • YellowSnow
    YellowSnow Moderator, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 37,215 Founders Club
    Other
    Miley_Cyrus said:

    Crater Lake is just an awesome fucking place.

    I know it’s smaller compared to the bigger parks and I don’t claim it to be “the best”... but damn it is just breathtaking on a clear day.

    I haven’t been there in over 30 years. But now I live only 88 miles away. Gonna have to day trip it down there soon.
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  • dnc
    dnc Member Posts: 56,839
    Yellowstone - BRB, Old Faithful
    dnc said:

    creepycoug said:

    Been to Rayonier (obviously), Olympic, Grand Canyon, Glacier & Yellastone. And the Everglades.

    If you want to see wildlife from the minute you get there until the minute you leave, Everglades is en fuego. It's great for that. And in its own weird way it can be beautiful.

    Glacier was powerful and felt historic. Loved Lake McDonald and the Lodge. Would like to visit Many Glacier on the other side.

    But something about ONP ... part of it is that I grew up around it, and the other part of it is the combo of amazing wilderness, yuge fucking trees, alpine, and coast all in one park. It's also isolated out there on the peninsula and, IDK, just a fucking beautiful place.

    Yellastone was cool too. Some unique shit there.

    I agree with the PBS tag line: America's best idea.

    I'm going to Everglades (and Biscayne and Dry Tortugas) with my dad and oldest kiddos in June. Really pumped for this . Wifey and I did like a thirty minute airboat excursion in the glades when we got off our honeymoon cruise out of Miami but didn't get into the park at all. Will see much more this tim around. Any recommendations in the Everglades area?
    Alright so it's been almost three months, time for me to recap this (at times) grand event.

    I apologize in advance to all of you who DNGAF. Stop reading, now.

    You've been warned.











    So my oldest two joined me and we drove to NC to pick up my Dad (who turned 77 shortly after the trip). We left NC for a one week driving trip mostly through Florida the first week of June. We hit four NPs in total plus a brief stop at a National Monument.

    First up was Congaree National Park near Columbia, SC. This is one of the newer parks (promoted from National Monument in 2003), and one of the least visited parks in the nation (10th least according to this, ahead of only 3 NPs in the Continental 48). My family has lived only a couple hours from Congaree for two and a half decades and never even considered taking a trip trip there.

    Needless to say, expectations were low.

    But I have a goal of seeing them all that means even the ones that NOGAF about have to be checked off the list. And it was only about 25 minutes out of the way on our trek south so it felt like the best time to check it out.



    It's essentially a hardwood forest in a floodplain preserved for it's ecosystem rather than it's scenic beauty, and in true @BearsWiin fashion I can confidently say it's nothing special. It's basically a big bog, covered in thick mud and underbrush. Obviously taking a five year old, six year old and 76 year old limits the backcountry options significantly, so we settled on the 2.6 mile wooden platform loop just outside the Visitors Center that takes you around the swamp with a self guided tour. We set out on the trek but about the time we had made it 3/4 of a mile Pops' back started acting up so we had to turn around and return. Which was fine with my son who was already complaining of boredom.

    Great start to the proceedings, but thankfully my expectations were low to begin with so I wasn't too disappointed.

    It did give Pops and I a brief Dad laugh thanks to this meter at the VC.



    So southward we rolled. We made it to St Augustine, FL for our first night out of Dad's house, with no other real sightseeing on day one except a brief drive around Old Town Savannah.

    Cool fucking city.

    Day two we hit up Castillo De San Marcos National Monument in St Augustine, the oldest masonry fort in the US. Not a must see by any means but if you're ever in the area and need to kill some tim it's definitely worth a stop.

    Then it was off down the east coast of Florida headed for Key West. We spent a bit too much time at CDSMNM and missed out on daylight for the last quarter of the drive through the keys or so. Honestly wasn't as spectacular of a drive as I expected but was still very cool.

    Next morning it was down to the ferry dock for the 2 1/2 ride to Dry Tortugas National Park. Dry Tortugas gets about 1/3 of the visitors that Congaree does (ranking 7th least visited) but for vastly different reasons. It's in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico so you can only get there via boat or floatplane. The payoff here was far better than Congaree.

    Dry Tortugas is a collection of keys on a reef in the middle of nowhere with the largest key the host to Fort Jefferson, the third largest fort we ever built and at one point in time the most heavily armed. Gorgeous water, good swimming, lots of fish, hot as balls. Not cheap to get there and it takes a full day at minimum, but extremely cool place.







    Will give the minor Biscayne NP and major Everglades NP reports later on.

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  • alumni94
    alumni94 Member Posts: 4,862
    edited August 2021
    I just completed a trip to Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming.

    Went to:

    Little Big Horn
    Devil's Tower
    Mount Rushmore
    Crazy Horse
    Custer State Park (Needles Highway)
    Badlands
    Grand Tetons
    Yellowstone.

    I think as a family we were most impressed with Custer State Park and the Needles Highway.
    https://www.google.com/search?q=needles+highway+south+dakota&rlz=1C1GCEB_enUS910US910&sxsrf=AOaemvJ924yFwlnp1RkQ0fCX31pUG2iu-g:1630356056992&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjU_YjNzdnyAhU-STABHZz8CH4Q_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=2400&bih=1171#imgrc=BbLkCZPf-WWKAM

    My kids as liked this small little place the best of everything:
    Columbia Falls about 10 miles outside of Hot Springs, SD.




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  • dnc
    dnc Member Posts: 56,839
    Yellowstone - BRB, Old Faithful
    Obviously all national parks are best seen outside of your car, but most of the western parks are at least worthwhile to visit even if you're just passing through. These South Florida parks are completely different, they aren't really drivable (you physically can't drive to Dry Tortugas, can barely enter Biscayne by car and while there are plenty of roads through the Everglades you really don't see anything worthwhile).

    Also unlike the western parks they aren't especially hikable. Everglades is the only one where it's really an option and I wasn't especially keen on taking three people I'd be responsible for keeping alive out into a gator and python infested river.

    So unlike basically every other experience I've ever had with my Dad in an NP, we invested heavily in some professional tours. I already mentioned the ferry to Dry Tortugas. We also had a boat tour scheduled to some islands in Biscayne Bay. Unfortunately my daughter had a cough and they were extra COVID cautious so we didn't get to do that one. That left us essentially walking out on a jetty into Biscayne Bay from the VC. We saw a ton of iguanas (non native species) and plenty of fish. Encountered a number of dudes who could have passed for the darkness brothers and looked like they would have played for the U 20 years ago. @creepycoug. Wasn't a single @dflea or @YellowSnow cracka fishing out there, all brothas.

    So Biscayne was kind of a bust as we only scratched the surface on it. Definitely a place I'd like to explore more.

    Did get a shot of Pops and the kids I can actually share there.





    Now to the easily the best part of the trip. Everglades National Park is huge, iconic, unique and yet not entirely what I expected. I've always associated the Everglades with gators and airboats, and there are plenty of both. But there's a ton more to it than that.


    Everglades was actually the first NP set aside for environmental/ecosystem reasons rather than scenic ones. And most of it is not what I would call especially beautiful. It is absolutely full of animal life though, and a lot of animals you're not going to see anywhere else in the NP system. Certainly not anywhere out west.

    As the third largest park in the lower 48, Everglades actually preserves 7 unique ecosystems, rather than just the obvious swamp I've always associated with it. We got to check out a number of them:

    Tram tour through the poorly named Shark Valley (this is what most would think of when thinking of the Everglades). Saw a number of gators here, a black snake of some sort (much smaller than a python), a few turtles and a crapload of wading birds. Most exciting experience was at the one stop the tram makes there was a nest of baby gators we were able to view from a distance. I took the kids over there, we looked, and then we heard a low growling sound. I was curious as hell but smart enough to gtfo there. Told the tour guide about it and he said "yeah that was Mama letting you know you were too close to her babies."

    My son swears the guide is wrong and it was a Florida Panther who was babysitting for the Mama Gator.

    CSB




    We also did the classic airboat tour. Lots more wading birds and gators, and saw a bunch of turtles on this as well (softshell and hardshell). I had done an airboat tour in November years ago and the wildlife was much more plentiful so it was a bit of a disappointment for me. Apparently the water levels are lower November to April and so you see a lot more critters then. Summer is the wet season and they have a lot more water to hide in. But the other three had never been on an airboat and were very impressed with what we saw.





    But the highlight for all four of us was not these more classic Everglades experiences, it was what did on the Everglades coast. The glades includes large chunks of the south Florida coastline were the river of grass meets the sea. This brackish environment is absolute gold for wildlife. We did two tour boats out here - first on the southwest side through 10,000 islands and secondly at the far south edge at Flamingo. Both were extremely worthwhile.

    The 10,000 Islands trip was easily the best though. We went out amongst the mangrove island (basically a floating tree that builds a root down below the water line and creates it's own island) in this extremely shallow brackish water and honestly my big hope was to see a manatee. We did see one although we didn't get a very good look. On that end it was a bust.

    But we found a pod of bottlenose dolphins who decided to ride in our wake for a good 5-10 minutes and it was probably the most fun my kids have ever had. Hell up there with the most fun me and pops have had too. Pics don't do it justice but this site doesn't have a good mechanism for uploading video so it's the best you'll get.






    Also saw tons of seabirds: Ospreys and kites and plenty of others.

    My son had one big goal for the trip that hadn't been accomplished - he wanted to see a crocodile. So we added an extra trip and went to the aforementioned Flamingo for another boat tour with the express purpose of seeing some crocs. We did see four or five (none especially close). We also had a much closer encounter with a couple manatees this time around including a baby one.



    Both kids completed some assignments and became Everglades Junior Park Rangers which they were very proud of. My son was most excited to have seen the crocodiles, my daughter fell in love with the manatees. The dolphins were far and away the highlight for me.



    All told I think we spent about 2 1/2 days exploring the Everglades.

    Worth all the tim and every pemmy.

    If you ever get the chance to visit it's easily my favorite one to visit of any that I've seen east of the Rockies.
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