Video

Main Park Road

Everglades National Park

Descriptive Transcript

Description Narrator: A group of alligators thrash into the water. Fish swim around underwater vegetation. A controlled fire burns a habitat. A bird appears in a hole in a dead tree. A ranger gives a guided canoe tour. Aerial footage of Mangroves. A snail glides along a tree branch.

Everglades National Park. National Park Service logo.

An RV drives along the Main Park Road.

Ranger Mason: Welcome to Everglades National Park. I'm Ranger Mason, and I'll be your guide for what to see and where to be along the Main Park Road.

Description Narrator: A truck drives past the park entrance sign.

A road sign points to the Visitor Center and Park Headquarters.

Ranger Mason stands in front of vegetation and a road.

Ranger Mason: Here we are at the Coe Visitor Center. This is a great place to start your trip and plan your journey through the Everglades. You can go inside and pick up a map and speak to a ranger. You can also pick up a schedule of our Ranger-led programs for that day.

Description Narrator: Ranger Mason walks across the boardwalk to the Visitor Center and speaks to visitors inside the Center.

Speaker 1: And how long does it take to get all the way through?

Ranger Mason: All the way, all the way to Flamingo? It's about an hour, 38 miles. It’s a beautiful drive though.

Description Narrator: Distance between Coe Visitor Center & Flamingo equals 38 miles. It takes at least half a day if you stop along the way.

Mason points to each stop along the road on a map. 

Ranger Mason: Today we're going to be headed from the entrance all the way down to Flamingo, and along the way we'll be stopping at Royal Palm, Long Pine Key, Pa-hay-okee Overlook, Mahogany Hammock, West Lake and finally, Flamingo.

Description Narrator: Mason drives along the Main Park Road.

Birds stand in and cross the road.

Ranger Mason: As you drive through the park, look out for wildlife crossing the road, and make sure to pay attention to all the road signs.

A lot of people, when they come here for the first time are expecting to see a deep, dark swamp. And they're amazed to really see a mosaic of habitats that include open freshwater sloughs, pinelands, hardwood hammocks, cypress domes, and mangrove swamps.

Description Narrator: Mason turns into the first destination.

Stop 1: Royal Palm. A boardwalk extends out over the water. A seating area and restrooms are next to the parking lot.

Ranger Mason: So, the area that we are standing at is Royal Palm. It's one of the favorite stops of visitors in the Everglades, mainly for the Anhinga Trail. It's a trail that walks you out into the marsh and you get to see a lot of wildlife.

Description Narrator: A sign points visitors to the Anhinga and Gumbo Limbo trails.

Anhinga Trail: Taylor slough, Sawgrass prairie, man-made lake.

Ranger Mason: During the winter, the water levels drop. Everything is concentrated right here, giving you this great opportunity to see the wildlife up close.

Description Narrator: An alligator crawls out of the water next to an Anhinga sitting along the shore.

Dry season at Taylor Slough shows lower water levels; Wet season at Taylor Slough shows higher water levels and more plants.

Ranger Mason: You know, everything is living its life in tune with this up high and low water levels, whether it be fish, alligators, birds, they're all in one way or another, kind of living their life in tune with that.

Description Narrator: Mason points out an Anhinga to some visitors. The visitors get closer to observe.

Ranger Mason: Here's an Anhinga catching a fish here.

Speaker 2: Oh my god, it’s a fish!

Description Narrator: People gather to view the bird; a boy races over with his camera.

Speaker 3: Aw, man! I missed it.

Description Narrator: A road sign warns drivers of panthers crossing, next 2 miles.

Stop 2: Long Pine Key. The road sign lists that Long Pine Key has camping, picnic areas, and an auditorium. Flamingo is 34 miles ahead.

Long Pine Key: Globally imperiled pine rocklands; interspersed prairies and hammocks; man-made lakes. Footage of campsites, visitors observing wildlife, and walking trails.

Various scenery. A picnic area overlooks a lake. A roadway passes through the pine rocklands.

Stop 3: Pa-hay-okee. The road sign shows the stop has a watch tower, and Flamingo is 26 miles ahead.

A portion of a sign at the boardwalk trail reads: Pa-hay-okee Trail. An observation platform halfway around this trail provides a chance to view this Everglades wilderness as it appeared to the early inhabitants. For hundreds of years Calusa, Miccosukee, and early pioneers made their homes in this terrain…

Pa-hay-okee: Shark River slough; Sawgrass prairie; near cypress strands and tree islands. Visitors walk with Ranger Mason to the Pa-hay-okee overlook looking out over the sawgrass prairie dotted with small trees.

Speaker 4: …this was Africa or something.

Ranger Mason: That’s what people say, they look out there and, “it looks like a, you know, Kenyan grasslands or something,” but this what we're looking out at is Shark River Slough. Shark River Slough is the main heart of the Everglades. When Marjory Stoneman Douglas wrote that book River of Grass. This is what she was talking about, and it's all a flow of water that's coming down through these sawgrass prairies heading down south, eventually making its way out into the Gulf of Mexico.

All right, you guys ready to head on down to Mahogany Hammock?

Description Narrator: Scenery from the moving car.

Stop 4: Mahogany Hammock. The road sign shows Flamingo 18 miles ahead.

Ranger Mason: Our next stop is going to be walking inside one of those at Mahogany Hammock and those areas are literally islands out in the marsh. They might only be a foot or two higher, but they're high enough so that even during the summer, when the water levels rise, they don't flood.

Description Narrator: A visitor walks across a boardwalk over wetland and enters the forested hammock.

Ranger Mason: And then those hardwood trees, those gumbo limbos and mahogany trees can take root and they form these tree islands there.

Description Narrator: Mahogany Hammock: hardwood hammock (tree island); surrounded by sawgrass prairie.

Ranger Mason: And so, Shark River Slough all the way down is dotted by these tree islands. You can see just what, you know, what a different habitat this is than when we were standing out in that open marsh.

Description Narrator: A close-up of a palm frond, a tree snail on a branch, a thick forest, fern, and shaded boardwalk trail.

And that really is, if there's one thing that you'll see today as you go down the road, it's going to be the diversity of habitats. So, you know, you not only have the open sawgrass marshes, but right side by side, you know, you've got this dense tropical forest that's shaded. Completely different wildlife, you know, living in these things.

Elevation plays a huge role out here, and you probably look out of this landscape and think, you know what elevation there is, there's nothing, you know, it's as flat as it gets.

Description Narrator: A road sign reads: Dwarf Cypress Forest. Elevation 4 ft.

Ranger Mason: But the difference of just several inches to one foot can make the difference of what kind of plant community is growing. And it all has to do with water levels. Lower spots are going to hold water for longer out of the year. And so that's where you get marshes. Meanwhile, hardwood trees, it's generally not going to want to grow out of areas that flooded for most of the year, and it won’t grow out there in the marsh.

Description Narrator: Stop 5: West Lake. A portion of a sign at the boardwalk trail reads: West Lake Trail. Without this boardwalk, it would be a difficult challenge to reach West Lake through the tangle of mangrove branches and prop roots. This border world between land and sea is also dense with animal life, but much of it is hidden or beneath the surface…

Visitors exit the trail. A sign reads: This trail is a chance to explore part of the largest protected mangrove forest in the Northern Hemisphere. The far section opens onto the waters of West Lake.

A bird walks along the boardwalk handrails.

The boardwalk extends from inside the forest to out over the water.

West Lake: mangrove forest; Estuary. Islands of mangroves grow from the water. Mangrove roots hang down from the branches. Forests line the Main Park Road.

Two ospreys sit in the nest atop a dead palm tree next to the road.

Stop 6: Flamingo. Flamingo: mangrove forest; coastal prairie; estuary; Florida Bay. People camp and boat around the bay. The Flamingo Visitor Center.

A sign points to the Marina Store for food, fuel, tour boats, and to the boat ramp. The Coastal Prairie Trail sign notifies visitors that pets are not permitted.

Ranger Mason stands in front of the open water of Florida Bay with islands in the background.

Ranger Mason: And so here we are at the end of our journey, we have gone from the entrance of the park all the way down to Flamingo. And along the way we passed through saw grass prairies, a pine forest, tropical hardwood hammocks, mangrove forests. And now we find ourselves in the Flamingo area, which overlooks Florida Bay. Florida Bay is the recipient of all of the fresh water that we were looking at today. When we were standing at Taylor Slough, the water that was flowing through those sawgrass prairies was slowly making its way to this shallow ocean bay.

Well, thanks for joining me on this trip down the Main Park Road. Enjoy your trip!

Description Narrator: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. Everglades National Park.

Everglades National Park video.

Featuring: Ranger Mason McLeod. 

Producer, Director, Editor: Jennifer Brown.

Executive Producers: Allyson Gantt, Greg Litten, Alan Scott.

Music performed by: Jami Sieber, ‘Invisible Wings’ from the Lush Mechanique album, ‘Benediction’ from the Unspoken album, ‘The River Between’ from the Unspoken album. Magnatunes Records, www.magnatunes.com.

This program is dedicated to the memory of Ranger Mason McLeod who was lost in a plane crash while on duty in Katmai National Park, Alaska in August 2010.

Description

Informational video about the diversity of habitats accessible from the Main Park Road.

Duration

9 minutes, 37 seconds

Credit

NPS video by Jennifer Brown

Date Created

11/04/2010

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