Slough Slog Wet Walk at Everglades National Park

A Slough Slog is likely to be the most memorable part of your trip to Everglades National Park. These walks lead through a slough, which is a shallow body of water that appears to be stagnant but actually flows slowly over time. Yes, you’ll be walking in the water, which can get waist high or deeper. Before attending a Slough Slog, I wouldn’t have ventured into such an area for a million dollars. Snakes, alligators, leeches—definitely not for me. But with a group of people it’s not scary at all, and you soon realize there is nothing to worry about. If you look at the dry ground in the surrounding area, the slough is nothing more than that same ground only with water on it. There’s nothing lurking down below that is going to get you…hopefully.

The National Park Service offers the Shark Valley Slough Slog in January and February on a few select days. The tour is free, but reservations are required. Participants must be at least 12 years old. The best way to get the schedule is to visit the Shark Valley Ranger Guided Tours web page.

If you can’t make the limited-date NPS tour, the Everglades National Park Institute offers a similar tour in the Royal Palm unit of the park. There is a fee for the tour, but they are held twice a day, year-round. See the Institute’s Cypress Dome Wet Walk web page for more information and to make a reservation.

Note: the photos on this page are a combination of those taken on an NPS tour and on an Everglades Institute tour.

Start of the Slough Slog Wet Walk, Everglades National Park

To participate in a Slough Slog, you must wear long pants and lace-up shoes. The bottom of the slough can be muddy, and if you sink in the mud wearing sandals, when you pull your foot out your sandal will no longer be there. In fact, sometimes even lace-up tennis shoes go missing. If you have high-top hiking boots, wear them.

Shoe-sucking mud on the Cypress Dome Wet Walk, Everglades National Park

There are also holes in the terrain. Everglades National Park sits on a large sheet of limestone covered by a very thin layer of soil. Over millions of years, water has eroded the soft rock and pitted it with deep holes, so you never know what you are about to step in every time you put your foot down. While the water is crystal clear if undisturbed, once people stir up the slit, you can’t see a thing. The only one who may be able to see the bottom is the tour guide at the front of the line. To keep from falling, walking sticks are provided. Be sure to constantly probe the ground in front of you for holes using the stick.

Type of terrain at the bottom of the slough in Everglades National Park

While the water is not likely to come up much higher than your waist, there is always a chance of taking a spill, so do not bring an expensive camera or any other electronic devices that aren’t waterproof. For this trip I used my cheap point-and-shoot underwater camera.

The tour stops at various points, and the guide talks about the plants and animals that live in the slough, as well as the geology of the area. The first stop is in an area of dwarf cypress trees, and the tour ends at a cypress dome where full-size cypress trees grow. They are the same species of tree, it’s just that the dwarf cypress live in the shallow water where there are very few nutrients, whereas the cypress trees in the cypress dome grow from a deeper depression in the ground. Nutrients collect in this pit, allowing the trees to grow taller.

Slough Slog tour guide talks about the ecology of the slough, Everglades National Park

Dwarf Cypress trees in Everglades National Park

Eventually the tour ends up in the deeper waters of the cypress dome. This area is more like a forest, as the trees are much bigger and there are many more of them.

Larger cypress trees grow in the cypress dome area in the Royal Palm unit of Everglades National Park

After listening to what the tour guide has to say, you’ll have a few minutes to walk around on your own before the group heads back to the road where the tour started.

Slough Slog participants walk around in the cypress dome area, Everglades National Park

The tour route leads back to the road directly from the Cypress Dome, thus bypassing another trek through the muddy area. While you certainly will be wet when you arrive back at the bus or your car—depending on who gives the tour—you most likely will not be very muddy.

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