Wilderness Waterway Plus

[Terry]

I canoed from Everglades City to Flamingo in 1975, Coot Bay Pond
to Everglades City in 1977, Hells Bay Trail to Turner River/Tamiami
Trail in 2001 and Hells Bay Trail to Everglades City in 2002.
This year, after a few days of the familiar Cape Sable area, I solo
canoed from Hells Bay Trail to Collier Seminole State Park and had
plenty of time to think.

First, Collier Seminole State Park is the perfect north gateway to
the Wilderness Waterway. Collier Seminole State Park and
Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge adds on an
excellent 20 miles of protected wilderness. Also, the state park
offers a top quality boat ramp, marina and parking lot. It's
quiet, remote and gated at night. The state park already has the
canoe route through the park marked.
I wonder what is necessary to create a Friends of the Wilderness
Waterway group to promote the official extension of the
Wilderness Waterway.

Second, a very handy tool for the gladesgodeep website would be to
create a listing of conditions of questionable places, that
everyone can modify.
Something like this, from north to south:

Gill Rattle Creek - January 2009, open, but only canoeable at higher
tide.

Fish Hawk Creek - January 2009, open, but avoid at low tide.

Charley Creek - December 2002, open, passable but shallow at low
tide. Alan took an Outward Bound group through Charley Creek in December 2008
he didn't comment on any problems so I suspect it's open

Cabbage Creek - December 2008, open, passable by even small boats.

Wood River - December 2008, Keith reported this closed in to the point where he
really struggled to get through. I don't know if he had to get wet. Keith?

Nightmare - December 2008, open, shallow at low tide, this was trimmed this season
by NPS volunteers.

Between marker 17 and 16 - December 2008, open, many snags, also trimmed this
season by volunteers.

Bottle Creek - October 2008, open all the way from Rookery Branch Junction to
the airboat trail but will require some lifting of branches.

North creek out of Canepatch - December 2008, open, canoe only, also trimmed this
season.

It also might be good to include who it is entered by. This would
be very handy and I could see something like this growing to be
a reference for not only Wilderness Waterway travelers but the
park staff themselves.

[Keith W]

Let's move this discussion over to a new thread, this one is getting crowded :) Look under Gerneal Discussion.