photography | Serenity Spell

Nov 20

Cypress Creek Natural Area

We’re always looking for new areas to hike in South Florida, so we were VERY excited to stumble across this newly-created natural area as we were heading towards the Florida Trail in Jupiter (across from Riverbend Park). Besides which, we’re always thrilled when South Florida actively preserves its pristine lands! The Cypress Creek Natural Area protects sensitive pine forest and wetland habitats. Hoorah!

It’s located on the north and south sides of Indiantown Road, near Jupiter Farms Road, approximately one mile west of the turnpike. The main portion is situated on the north side of Indiantown Road, east and west of Gulfstream Citrus Road. A parking area is provided, as are shade pavilions, observation platforms, horse hitches, bicycle racks, and educational exhibits. (Bicycling, hiking, and horseback riding are permitted, but only on the multi-use Historic Jupiter-Indiantown Trail.)

These lands in the Cypress Creek Natural Area — more than 2,000 acres in total — were acquired by Palm Beach County from 1995 to 2010, and are part of the Northeast Everglades Natural Area (NENA), serving as a buffer for the Loxahatchee Wild and Scenic River. NENA holds approximately 165,000 acres of conservation land in northern Palm Beach Country and southern Martin County. Managed by Palm Beach County, current restoration activities in Cypress Creek include the removal of invasive non-native vegetation, filling miles of ditches (we saw the dump/sand trucks to attest to that feat), changing the elevations of shell mining pits to encourage re-vegetation of native plants, and improving the Old Indiantown Road grade — now known as the Historic Jupiter-Indiantown Trail — for use as a multi-use trail.

Work also continues on the 6-mile multi-use Jesup Trail, which will eventually lead into Jonathan Dickinson State Park — VERY exciting.

We investigated the Historic Jupiter-Indiantown Trail, a 16.5-multi-use trail. The trail is being built in phases, along a road that was used from 1900 into the late 1950s for travel between Jupiter and Indiantown. We pursued the hiking-only portion, a very nice, natural backcountry Florida hike, once you really got out there. It offers access into three conservation lands and facilities, each of which is subjected to its own rules: Riverbend Park, Cypress Creek Natural Area, and Jones Hungryland Wildlife and Environmental Area. On this trail, it was important to have snacks and water (we were out there for several hours, but you can easily make it as short a trip as you wish). Portions of the trail were flooded, due to earlier rains, but they weren’t impassable. We wandered through native Florida ecosystems including wetlands, flatwoods, marsh, swamp, and prairie.

Panther Print?!?

Early in the hike, a lonely chimney stands sentinel — most likely a remnant from one of Jupiter’s founding families (documentation doesn’t explain). There weren’t many critters making themselves seen on our initial hiking expedition, despite us being the only 2-legged ones out there — but we did see many butterflies (Fritillary, Swallowtail), birds, a very startled and quick gopher tortoise, and abundant TRACKS! Very fresh tracks at that, all around us. One large grouping we spotted as bobcat … but the other? At first we thought it was coyote, but it was far too large — easily 4″. Also very fresh! PANTHER?!? Oh, how I hope they continue to watch and protect this area exceptionally *CAREFULLY* if this is indeed the case.

For More Information:

Cypress Creek Natural Area

Welcome Sign to the Cypress Creek Natural Area

Flooded Historic Jupiter-Indiantown Trail, Cypress Creek Natural Area

Another Flooded Area of the Historic Jupiter-Indiantown Trail, Cypress Creek Natural Area

Wetlands, Historic Jupiter-Indiantown Trail, Cypress Creek Natural Area

Wildflowers, Historic Jupiter-Indiantown Trail, Cypress Creek Natural Area

Historic Jupiter-Indiantown Trail, Cypress Creek Natural Area

Slash Pines Along the Historic Jupiter-Indiantown Trail, Cypress Creek Natural Area

Bobcat print

Nov 16

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Clyde Butcher, Visionary of the ‘Glades

Clyde Butcher, from Clyde Butcher's Online Gallery and Website

Originally trained as an architect, landscape photographer Clyde Butcher has been exploring and capturing the far reaches of nature for more than 40 years. With his Deardorff, Wisner, and self-designed “Clyde-O-Wide,” Butcher hauls his unwieldy camera equipment (weighing 100-125 pounds) deep into the swamps of the Everglades, where he wades into the waters (and sits — for hours on end, with alligators and other critters) to catch eye-level, pure black-and-white images of such grace and beauty, that words cannot do them justice.

Butcher’s love and passion for nature — and specifically, for the chaotic beauty of the Everglades — gleams through every photograph of his swamps, rivers, bays, and oceansides. He embraces his spiritual connection to nature, and translates it through the photographic medium. Understandably, Butcher is a fierce conservationist; he yearns to protect and preserve wild Florida and its incredibly unique wetlands in the midst of ever-encroaching humanity, and in the face of voracious developers. “My goal,” he says, “is to let people see Florida and make up their own minds whether they want to keep it or not.”

“Wilderness to me, is a spiritual necessity. When my son was killed by a drunken driver, it was to the wilderness that I fled…and being close to nature helped restore my soul. My experience reinforced my sense of dedication to use my art form, photography, to let people know our land is a special place, and to inspire others to work together to save nature’s places of spiritual sanctuary for future generations.” —Clyde Butcher

I’ve been lucky to visit the Big Cypress Gallery, and stand in amazement in front of my favorite photographer’s enormous works. For years now, I’ve said that when my millions arrive … one of these pieces shall be my first purchase. C’mon, millions. Butcher will always be one of my heros — environmentally, spiritually, and artistically.

"Fisheating Creek 14," from Clyde Butcher's Online Gallery and Website

“Like the work of Ansel Adams, Clyde Butcher’s remarkable photographs gives us an access to nature we rarely see or experience. They not only reveal the intimate and majestic beauty of the Everglades — and the need to save the fragile environment — they also remind us of the abiding kinship we mortals share when we work together to preserve these magnificent places. Butcher’s art is a national treasure.” —Ken Burns, Emmy-winning filmmaker

For More Information on Clyde Butcher:

For More Information on Big Cypress National Preserve:

Nov 13

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Big Cypress National Preserve

Big Cypress offers myriad amazing trails, offering the opportunity to hike for an hour or a week. During our last trip, we hit the Florida Trail for the majority of the time (6 hours) — winding through hardwood hammocks, pinelands, prairies, and cypress — and finishing with a stroll through an easy but magnificent swamp boardwalk. But your options are endless; so research carefully to make the most of it (something we don’t usually do).

Established October 11, 1974, Big Cypress National Preserve was the first national preserve in the US National Park System. The critical role of this watershed to the Everglades National Park was of foremost concern for its establishment. It encompasses 720,000 acres of the Big Cypress Watershed, bordering the Everglades National Park to the south, and other protected areas to the west. The freshwaters of the Big Cypress Swamp are essential to the health of the Everglades, and support the marine estuaries along Florida’s southwest coast.

Historically, Big Cypress has been home to Native Americans, including the Miccosukee and Seminole tribes. Early settlers in the Everglades region heavily hunted herons and egrets for their much-desired feathers, which were then shipped to hatmakers throughout America and Europe; alligators and crocodiles were also hunted to near-extinction.

Petroleum exploration was allowed within Big Cypress — as in Everglades National Park — but plans have been underway to buy out the remaining leases. However, Florida’s Governor Rick Scott has emphasized that he is open to expanding oil drilling in the Everglades.

Another invasive force at odds with conservationists is the ORV. Long established as a recreational activity, off-road vehicles (ORVs) were originally used by many who worked to protect the preserve from development, and to access remote areas for drainage. With the increase of tourism and hunting, however, came an increase in ORVs’ use. Since 2001, scientists and conservationists prompted the National Park Service (NPS) to actively manage ORV recreation, and to reduce the number of their trails within Big Cypress, due to the “impacted wildlife populations and habitats through modifications to water flow patterns (direction and velocity) and water quality, soil displacement and compaction, direct vegetation damage, disturbance to foraging individuals, and, ultimately, overall suitability of habitats for wildlife” (2001 United States Geological Survey). The battle continues, with overwhelming concerns for the wildlife — mainly for the elusive Florida Panther’s habitat. As of early November 2011, a lawsuit has been filed to protect Big Cypress from invasive ORV employment — seeking to overturn NPS’ decision to introduce extensive ORV use in the Addition Lands. According to the lawsuit, NPS authorized the ORVs in the Addition Lands, a result they achieved “by improperly excluding pristine lands from a wilderness eligibility study, which allowed NPS to bypass recommending those areas to Congress for long-term preservation as wilderness for the public’s enjoyment of these lands in their natural state. The lawsuit also raises concerns with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Biological Opinion, which failed to address several key threats to the highly imperiled Florida panther, as well as other species. Here is a link to the press release, and here is a link to the complaint.” (WE-blog: Wildlife and Environment Blog). As one who’s encountered these mechanical beasts within the far reaches of Big Cypress, it’s indeed a sad and scary thing to witness — their sheer size, their bellowing noise, their enormous tracks — after walking for hours through the silence and beauty of Big Cypress’ flora and fauna, their force is all that more mind-blowingly evident.

For More Information on the ORV Issue and Lawsuit:

The most biologically diverse region in the Everglades, Big Cypress is home to alligators, venomous snakes, myriad birds, the Florida Black Bear, the Florida Panther, bobcat, deer, turkey, wild hogs, and the West Indian Manatee. The preserve is slightly more elevated than other areas of the Everglades, with rock outcroppings visible throughout.

Big Cypress is located off of the potentially dangerous Tamiami Trail (U.S.41), approximately half-way between Naples and Miami. The road doesn’t have to be fatal, if people gave it the respect it was due — a two-lane road in parts, it’s replete with twists and tricky bends. You can’t rush it. On our way out of the preserve during our last visit, we came upon an SUV … up a tree. It had obviously just happened, and to this day, we have no idea how a tight turn could hurl a vehicle 20 feet into a tree. Be careful on the Tamiami Trail — just go slow in the parts that make sense, watch for critters, and enjoy the scenery.

Coming up: The amazing, otherworldly Everglades vision of Clyde Butcher.

For More Information on Big Cypress National Preserve:

Trail in Big Cypress (Florida Trail)

Swamp Scene in Big Cypress

Trail in Big Cypress (Florida Trail)

Trees Along the Florida Trail, in Big Cypress

Prairie in Big Cypress

Nov 7

8 Comments

Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee: Breezy ‘Glades

A very windy day at Arthur R. Marshall — absolutely LOVELY! And the visiting (human) snowbirds are beginning their weekend trips to the Florida sanctuaries and parks. Hopefully the trash won’t accumulate, as it sadly can during such times of increased traffic — definitely a mixed blessing.