The Florida Trail begins (or ends) at the boundary between Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve on Loop Road. This is the most rugged portion of the trail, where wading is not an option - it's a must. The payoff is hiking through a tropical wilderness of bromeliad-and-orchid laden cypress sloughs and strands punctuated by pine rocklands islands and vast sawgrass prairies underlain with marl. This section of trail is nearly 45 miles long. North of I-75, the trail follows old forest roads to the Big Cypress Seminole Reservation