See the Hiking web page for an interactive location map.
Length: 10 miles, one-way
Time: 5 hours, one-way
Difficulty: Easy
The Old Ingraham Highway in Everglades National Park is an old road that has been closed to cars for years, but it is still open to those who want to hike it. Because it is now in a Wilderness Area, biking is no longer allowed.
To get to Old Ingraham Highway you must first drive down a severely potholed road that branches off of the road to the Royal Palm Visitor Center. Take that all the way to the end and you will find the start of the trail. Park along the side of the road. This is a very secluded location, so if you find another parked car, it’s a busy day.
Old Ingraham Highway was once the vehicle road to Flamingo. It was replaced by an alternate route, today’s Ingraham Highway / FL 9336. Construction began on the new road in 1956, and by the end of the 1950s / early 1960s, the old route was no longer in use. Today, any pavement has either completely disintegrated into gravel or is full of potholes.
The roadbed was raised high enough to keep it dry during the winter, but from what I hear, it’s muddy or underwater during the wet season, summer to fall. Perhaps it was flooding that prompted construction of the new route in the first place. I’ve read some reports that it was underwater during the winter of 2021, but that winter was one of the wettest on record. I did the hike in February 2015, and the road was bone dry.
The entire trail is out in the open, so wear a hat and sunscreen if avoiding the sun is of concern to you. Large areas of the trail are surrounded by open land as well, and while you will see some birds, most are pretty far away. If you want to get photos, you’ll need at least a 400mm lens.
The road also passes through the forest, and at times it can get a little overgrown, especially from the 3.5- to 5.5-mile mark on the trail. I found it impossible to avoid whacking into the bushes, and having just read about “poisonwood,” a bush version of poison ivy, I was dreading the outcome. As it turns out, the bushes are not poisonwood, so you don’t have to worry about completely avoiding them. However, there is vegetation growing on the trail—no telling what’s in there—so I suggest wearing long pants.
Elevated roads were built by digging ditches on one or both sides of the roadbed and piling the dirt into the middle. This is why you so often see what look like canals next to the roads in Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve. Officially called borrow ditches, these runs along Old Ingraham Highway. Water collects in them, and birds and alligators love to call them home during the dry season (winter and early spring). On more than one occasion I spooked a sunning alligator when I approached, and I’d hear a giant splash as it took off into the water. All in all, I saw four alligators and heard at least another four splash into ditches before I got to them.
One thing you must realize about alligators, unless you are swimming with them, they are more eager to avoid you than you are to avoid them, especially the more wild ones that live in remote areas such as along the Old Ingraham Highway, not at Shark Valley or on the Anhinga Trail at Royal Palm. Those alligators are so used to people that you’d have to jump on one to get a reaction. It is much more of a thrill to see an alligator in the wilderness when it’s just you and him than to see one with dozens of other people around. That’s just like being at the zoo.
The road comes to a distinct end, so there is no question as to when to stop. There is a trail that leads into the woods where I assume one of the Old Ingraham Highway backcountry campsites located. Camping is allowed along the trail with a permit. See the Backcountry Camping web page here on National Park Planner for more information.
While the Old Ingraham Highway is one of the very few trails, if not the only one, in the park where you can see alligators in a wilderness setting, I can’t imagine anyone walking to the end and back, a 20-mile trip, unless they are camping. If you want to give it a try, just decide how much time you want to spend and walk half that time down the road. The borrow ditch runs the entire length, so you’re as likely to see an alligator in the first few miles as in the last few.
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Last updated on September 21, 2024