Upper Myakka Lake is a broad, shallow lake on the Myakka River east of Sarasota, the centerpiece of Myakka River State Park, one of the oldest and largest parks in Florida's state system. The river winds through marshes, prairies and hammocks, spreading into the Upper and Lower Myakka lakes, and it is Florida's only state-designated Wild and Scenic River. In the dry season, when water gathers in the lakes and deep holes, the park can hold remarkable numbers of alligators. The Civilian Conservation Corps built much of the park in the 1930s, including the palm-log cabins, and it opened to the public in 1942. A small weir at the south end of the upper lake, built in the 1930s to hold water in the lake, was removed in 2022 to restore the river's natural flow. In 2000 the park opened one of the first public canopy walkways in the United States, a suspended bridge that climbs about 25 feet into the hammock to a tower rising above the trees. At the south end of the lower lake lies Deep Hole, a sinkhole more than 130 feet deep, where more than a hundred alligators have been counted crowding together in the dry season. The Myakka's floodplain is also a winter home for sandhill cranes, wood storks and roseate spoonbills.
Getting there
27.2734, -82.2879
Locations are approximate and may be inaccurate, on private land, or otherwise inaccessible. Check before you travel.
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