The Six Mile Cypress Slough Boardwalk Closes Twice in September. Here's What's Actually Open in Between.

If you drove out to Six Mile Cypress Slough Preserve this week expecting your usual boardwalk loop, you found a locked gate instead. That's real, and it's not a one-time thing. The boardwalk is closing twice before the month is out, on two separate windows that don't line up the way most people assume.

Here's the part that surprised even a longtime Fort Myers resident when I dug into it: the same stretch of days that has the boardwalk shut down is also the stretch when the Slough's most exclusive access point is wide open. You just have to know which door to walk through.

Two Closures, Not One

The original plan called for a single, continuous maintenance window. Contractor delays changed that. According to reporting from WGCU, the closure got rescheduled into two separate blocks: the boardwalk shuts down from August 31 through September 4, reopens just for Labor Day weekend on September 5, 6, and 7, then closes again from September 8 through 14.

That reopening in the middle isn't a fluke. It's a deliberate carve-out so the county isn't locking residents and visiting family out of the boardwalk on the one long weekend most people actually plan around.

Here's the calendar laid out plainly:

If you're planning a weeknight walk or an early birding trip in the first two weeks of September, check the date against this table before you load the car. Guided walks are also paused during both closure windows.

What Stays Open While the Boardwalk Doesn't

A closed boardwalk doesn't mean a closed preserve. The Interpretive Center and nature store keep their regular hours, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, straight through both closures. So does the Rock and Stroll Garden, which is open dawn to dusk daily and holds picnic tables and native plantings that draw butterflies even when the main trail is roped off.

Parking doesn't change either. It's still $1 per hour with a $5 daily maximum, and the Lee County Parks and Recreation annual parking pass is valid here too, but it has to be purchased through Premium Parking ahead of time rather than at the on-site kiosk.

None of this is exciting on its own. What makes it worth knowing is what happens when you combine it with the thing most people miss entirely.

The Wet Walk Season Already Started, and It Runs Straight Through Both Closures

Two weeks before any closure notice went out, the Friends of Six Mile Cypress Slough Preserve opened their 2026 Wet Walk season. It started August 15 and runs through October 31.

Wet Walks aren't a consolation prize for a closed boardwalk. They're a completely different experience that the boardwalk never offers. Guides lead small groups off the elevated planks and into sections of the slough that are normally off-limits, wading through standing water among cypress knees and submerged roots. Regular walks run $25 for Friends members and $40 for non-members and cap at 12 participants. Themed walks cost more, $50 for non-members, and cap at 10, so neither version ever feels like a tour group. Tickets go through Eventbrite, and by mid-August almost half the season's slots were already claimed.

The minimum age is 12, water can run over four feet in places, and the preserve is upfront that this isn't for anyone with balance concerns. It's a genuinely different way to see the same 3,500 acres of wetland that the boardwalk keeps you dry above.

Put the two facts side by side and the picture changes. The dry route through the Slough is down for two separate stretches this month. The wet route into the Slough, the one that normally requires a reservation and a waitlist, is running the entire time. If your plan was a boardwalk stroll on September 10, that's off the table. If you've been curious about a Wet Walk, September is arguably the best month all year to book one, because the standard trail traffic that usually shares the preserve with wading groups is temporarily gone.

A Quick Gut Check Before You Go

• Checking today or in the next two weeks? Confirm which side of the closure table you're on before you drive out.
• Want the boardwalk specifically? Labor Day weekend (Sept 5-7) is your only open window until the 15th.
• Curious about a Wet Walk? Season runs through October 31, but nearly half the slots were gone as of mid-August, so don't wait until October to look.
• Just want fresh air with the kids? The Interpretive Center and Rock and Stroll Garden are open on their normal schedule regardless of boardwalk status.

The Rest of Fort Myers Is Having a Similar Moment

The Slough isn't the only outdoor spot in town working through a post-summer reset. The splash pad at Lakes Regional Park on Gladiolus Drive reopened August 5 after a full replacement following storm damage from Hurricane Ian. It's a smaller story than the Slough's rescheduled closures, but it points to the same pattern: a handful of Fort Myers' outdoor amenities are quietly coming back online or shifting their schedules right as the weather starts to turn, and the information tends to live in county press releases and public radio reporting rather than anywhere a quick search will surface it.

That's really the point of tracking a place like this closely. The Slough isn't complicated. It's 3,500 acres of wetland with a boardwalk, a nature center, and a nonprofit that runs the wet walk program. But the schedule underneath it changes more often than people expect, and the version of "closed" that shows up on a map app rarely captures the two-part closure or the ticketed program running in parallel.

If you've lived near Timber Creek or Gateway long enough to treat the Slough as your regular walk, this is the kind of local rhythm worth keeping an eye on. And if you're the kind of person who notices when a preserve's own calendar contradicts itself, you already understand why paying close attention to the small, dated details of a neighborhood tends to pay off in bigger ways too.

If you ever want to talk through what's happening in Fort Myers beyond the parks calendar, from Timber Creek to Gateway and the neighborhoods in between, TimbercreekRealtor is a good place to start. Let's Connect.