Comments (0) Best Park - 2009
Riverbend Park
It's easy to look out on that sea of green west of the Sawgrass Expressway and call it Everglades. But if you want true Glades swamp, if you want strands of cypress that slap the heat out of the Florida sun, you've got to go north. You'll find one of Florida's most pristine cypress strands at Jupiter's Riverbend Park, where you can canoe, bike, and hike in backwoods Everglades. The 680-acre Riverbend is just 2 years old, but for years, the piece of undeveloped land has served as the starting point for canoe trips down the Loxahatchee. The all-day trip takes you over two dams that become waterfalls when the river's high. Along the way is the old Trapper Nelson homestead, which provides one hell of a picnic spot. And with the creation of the park, there's now more to do in Riverbend than just canoe. The county added 15 miles of hiking and biking trails that take you through that same cypress canopy that covers the river. It's like natural air conditioning, and it's one of the state's most pristine examples of old, swampy, cypress-covered Florida, the way it should be.
