OCHOPEE, Fla. — Swamp guide Scott Randolph has done nearly 4,000 guided hikes in Big Cypress National Preserve next to Everglades National Park.

It’s all thanks to a photographer devoted to saving the precious ecosystem.

“People will save something if they fall in love with it. And so, I try to get people to fall in love with nature and preserving it,” Randolph said.

Clyde Butcher rose to fame for his large-scale, black and white landscape photography, as well as his environmental activism.

And behind Butcher’s Big Cypress Gallery in Big Cypress National Preserve, they invite people to take a walk on the wild side — a swamp walk.

“So people go in thinking of this scary adventure and when they come out, absolutely in love — absolutely in love with the Everglades and in love with every single part of it,” said Butcher’s daughter Jackie Butcher Obendorf. “And they understand it needs to be saved.”

Randolph leads people from a dry road into a watery wilderness.

“We are walking into what is known as a Cypress Swamp — or into what’s known as a strand, which is the deepest part of the swamp out here,” said Randolph.

A former professional baseball player from Oregon, Randolph spent a dozen years immersing people in the rain-fed swamp, walking on the limestone bedrock.

It’s about 90 minutes long and about a half-mile walk, with some patrons more enthusiastic than others.

“Courage to me is someone that has a fear of something, and they do it anyway,” said Randolph. “And this is one of those cool experiences.”

Randolph says it takes about five minutes for the fear to wash away into wonder.

“It’s so much more than water or a tree — I mean there’s this unique symbiotic relationship between flora and fauna out here, and when people come out here, they literally notice it.”

Notice it and come out differently — from this Everglades filtering system.

“It cleans things. I can’t help but think that, that’s what happening to people when they come out here. Stand still, let the Everglades filter you.”

For patrons, it’s ditching the asphalt and gaining serenity.

“One of the greatest things a person can say, one of many, I suppose — ‘It’s over already?’” Randolph said, laughing as he led his group out of the swamp and back on dry land.