USGS Realtime Water Levels

[Amazon Bill]

Need to know the depth of the water in the back country? If you are looking for real time online water levels at the hundreds of governement water level/quality stations try this map site below. Then choose the station to get daily and historical surface water flow information. Lat/Long locations of each location, water elevations, tide changes, salinity, temp, velocity...Keep on Paddlin' instead of Walkin' in the mud.

Map to find sites near your chosen routes.

http://wdr.water.usgs.gov/nwisgmap/?state=fl

Main site

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/fl/nwis/current/?type=flow&group_key=...

 

[Terry]

 

Tony did that trip a few years ago, HE reported it was very hard

transitioning from Lostmans Slough to Lostmans River.   This is the

usual issue:  There tends to be mangrove wall at the edge of the

freshwater grassland and deep saltwater creeks, it's rare to find

holes in this barrier.

Tony's group went from Mitchells, down the airboat trail to Coconut and

spent the night there.  The next day they went down to Lostmans Ranger

Station.

But don't look for harder slough trips to do, you've been on the easiest

slough trip, Taylor, now go for the next harder, Shark.

Shark Slough has so much water and is so deep that the transition,

Bottle Creek, breaks straight from grass to an open deep creek.  You

never get out of your boat it's pure paddling, with even a little push from flow.

In fact, if it wasn't for the distance Shark Slough would be the easiest

slough to paddle.

[Flex Kayakfari.com]

Mitchell's landing looks too far west to do a run down-the-middle-slew.

The "old" house of Cocoanut Hammock looks very well kept from GE, you even see lawnmower tracks ..lol & it's about 3 to 4 miles NE of Willy Willy.

This would be for a different kind of trip..

[Esther Luft]

I'm in for Shark Slough!  You're combining two of my favorite things; off-trail grass paddling and Canepatch.  I would love to make it to Cocoanut at some point in time though.

[Flex Kayakfari.com]

found this site with all kinds of good-looking animated charts (of mostly historical data):

 

http://www.gohydrology.org/p/big-cypress-swamp.html

http://www.gohydrology.org/p/everglades.html

 

[vivian]

Thank you flex great links!

[yakmaster]

Cocoanut Hammock is a private camp. There's a caretaker that maintains it.

 

But there are many camping opportunities in the stairsteps. This map shows the designated airboat trails and public access camps. Paddlers are not limited to these trails & camps. You can paddle & camp off trail as well. However, following the established trails is easier than bushwacking through the grass. Also, most of the dry land that is out there is either a deignated public camp or a private camp. The public use camps have picnic tables & fire rings.

 

If you are going to be paddling on the airboat trails be CAREFUL & AWARE. They don't expect you out there so make sure you are visible from a distance (which can be tough in tall grass) and stay out of their wayas much  as possible. Airboats turn like a supertanker & stop even slower...

[Ross Hancock]

I don't think those pool tab buckets are watertight. Paint buckets are.

[Flex Kayakfari.com]

There's also this excellent Google Earth overlay for Big Cypress about half-way down in the ORV trails page::

http://www.nps.gov/bicy/planyourvisit/designated-trail-implementati...  (.KML file)

 

 

 

 

[Robert Sobczak]

Why bother with messy databases

when you can get up to date graphics of the Everglades

in a streamlined easy to use GUI:

 

For desktop/laptop:

http://www.gohydrology.org/p/everglades.html

 

For mobile device:

http://www.gohydrology.org/p/mobile.html

[Robert Sobczak]

The maps within those pages are clickable, 

both traditional style hydrographs

and calendars of historic data.

 

Or from a mobile devise you can access charts here:

http://www.gohydrology.org/p/mobile.html

[Flex Kayakfari.com]

yeah that's a good site ..  LOL  ;)

[Amazon Bill]

i did underwater "ISPX"  test today on the chlorine tablet bucket. After holding it 2 foot underwater in the pool for about 5 minutes is only had a couple of tablespoons of water in it.  so it should work out ok. with the easy access I can use it as a day bucket, during transit. This was a Suncoast bucket with a screw on lid, the kind that has the trigger lever to keep lid from unscrewing.