The Golden Corner Never Disappoints

Man! Did it ever feel good to get back out on the trails. It seems like it's been forever. The last post had me thinking surely I wouldn't get to head back out for another 2, probably 3 months. I bumped into Dennis at work and he was chomping at the bit, ready to go. I, of course, had to oblige him. We made plans for a night hike into Burrell's Ford campground. It's a super short walk into a semi developed primitive camp site along the South Carolina side of the Chattooga River. Laura decided to give this one last go. The hike to the campsite was a short one and the next day she would spend most of the time acting as our taxi, rather than hiking with us. We'll call her the Prego Trail Warrior. Things went off pretty much without a hitch. Dennis brought along his brother, Robert. They decided to drive up separately and meet us at the trailhead. We walked down with headlamps blazing and got to the campsite without a hiccup. The weather was a little chillier than anticipated, but other than that all was well. We set up and got ready for bed. That night the trip appeared to be taking a turn for the worst. We already knew that Laura was pretty much done with the hiking part of our weekend adventures, but the sleepless night in the cold and on a very thin ground pad proved to be the end of her camping part of our weekend adventures as well. (That is, of course, until after our bundle of joy arrives.)



The next morning I was up bright and early and wanted to get at least a little fire going so Laura could get some sort of warmth when she rolled out of her bag. Dennis joined me shortly there after, and along with his brother we decided to make the short hike over to King Creek Falls (above). This was one I visited back in the fall of '07 and it certainly made an impression then. The trail from Burrell's Ford is only about a half mile, but is very pleasant. The rhododendron makes a tight canopy overhead for the first portion of the trail. Then you meet a junction with the Foothills Trail, cross a short bridge over King Creek, then follow the tumbling creek up to the falls. We hung out there for about a half hour. I got busy snapping photos. Notice that the north (left) side of the falls has icicles clinging to the granite. Geez... last night was colder than we thought!



I snapped a few more pictures of the remnants of the winter storm that had blown through only about 48 hours earlier. We then headed back to camp to be sure Laura hadn't been eaten by any bears. To our surprise she was up and at 'em, and doing a better job of gathering fire wood than I had. At that point we decided to head on over to another short hike, this one to Spoonauger Falls. On my trip to the area in the winter of '07 this waterfall eluded me. At the time I had no GPS. Without a GPS, you have to be a little more careful on searching for unknown trails. After a short search, I called the search off, only to find out after looking at a map I had turned around about a quarter mile short. SO! Off we headed, GPS in hand, to find Spoonauger Falls.



I tried climbing the battered south (left) side of the creek bank to get a better angle on the falls. The angle from down low makes this one seem much shorter than what it is. Compared to the above picture of King Creek Falls, you would think Spoonauger was much short, but actually it measures about 5 feet higher. Some waterfalls are more photogenic than others. The creek valley formed by this unnamed stream appears to be pretty hard hit by downed trees and erosion. The hike over to the falls parallels the unpaved Burrell's Ford road. At this point the trail overlaps the Chattooga River Trail (a multi-day trail on my short list). After the trail crosses the road it's only a short distance, and a hop over a small stream, where the Spoonauger Falls trail climbs slightly up and to the right. An interesting piece I read about this waterfall, the name of the falls comes from a family that used to live at the top of the waterfall. That came as a shock to us who saw the relief of the mountains in that area. We're still not sure where they would have put a house. We played around a little, then headed back to the campsite to pack up and head out.



Our original plan to do an 8 mile point-to-point hike was quickly thwarted when we saw that the forest service was doing a controlled burn on one of the mountains we were planning to hike on. So we headed in to town and decided to make new plans over Arby's. First up, we were going to hike down the Winding Stairs Trail. This trail is named for its short series of steep switchbacks. The little secret it holds is in the form of the Miuka Falls Series. It really isn't a secret. The secret is actually getting down to a place where you can view the waterfalls, rather than just hear them.



It wasn't easy getting this shot. The well hidden side trail comes in from the north (left). The interesting thing about this creek is that there is no creek bed. Because of there being an abundance of granite in these mountains, sometimes the water can't cut into the rock to form a bed. That's part of the reason you see so many granite faces behind the waterfalls in my pictures. Well, where this water is trying to escape the mountain happens to be a long running vein of granite. So instead of the stream flowing down the mountain in a creek bed, its sliding down the mountain almost like water would flow down your windshield. Getting across to the other side of that slippery slope was a scary prospect. If you slip, the angle isn't dangerous, but who knows when you would actually find a stopping point.


(This is a shot of Austin trying to manueuver the aforementioned slippery granite.)

From here we made our way back up to the trail and headed on down. Lower Miuka Falls was a little of a let down, especially after the off-trail bushwhacking we had to do to get to it. The walk down from there was nice and relaxing. It was a pretty steep descent. Lucky for us we had a ride waiting on the bottom, relieving us of the duty of climbing it back to the top. At the bottom we stumbled upon some huge wads of course black animal hair about 2 inches long. Don't worry, no bear encounter. We met back up with Laura (who was trying to recoup some of her lost sleeping time from the night before) waiting in the Jeep. At that point we decided to head on up another trail for a short half mile romp to another waterfall.



Crane Creek Falls isn't overly impressive. Its unusual shape and flow are really what sets this one apart. The hike over is a really short walk up Crane Creek from the parking area. About half way between the falls and the camping area there is a nice clearing in a bend in the creek perfect for setting up camp. We didn't spend too much time here. The sun was heading down and we really wanted to get in one last trail.

We can undoubtedly say we saved the best for this trip, and that's saying a lot. The guide book warned us, "Lee Falls is the Upstate's best kept secret." The trail is apparently very lightly used by locals, and almost unheard of to most people who come to the area as tourists. (The only way I found out about it was by getting a hold of a cheaply made SC waterfall book.) We got to the trailhead knowing time was going to be a crunch. Laura decided to hang back on this one since we would be double-timing it in and out to beat the sunset. Just in case, we stuffed our headlamps into our pockets and pushed off. The trail started by leading us through, of all things, three pastures. I can see why many avid hikers would avoid this trail. You start by walking nearly a mile through a tractor-maintained pasture. Shortly after you join up with Tamasee Creek. The guide book talks about an old gold operation that used to be in the area. On the way back we found the old gold smelter. Neat. Because of its light use, the trail was hard to follow. But after about a mile and a half we were not disappointed.



Lee Falls drops softly in three sections about 100 feet before coming in contact with the base of the cliff. It continues to fall sharply in smaller sections for another 50 feet before leveling out. I could have spent an entire evening shooting this waterfall. Unfortunately time was not on our side. I tried to scamper up the steep banks quickly to get a good shot. Again, it was pretty cool seeing portions of the cliff face frozen from the winter storm. We didn't get to spend much time here, but the time we were here was spent looking up and gawking. Dennis quickly tagged it as the most impressive he had ever seen. It certainly falls into my top five (not exactly sure where). I still leave Virgin Falls, Tennessee, at my number one (see my first blog entry for details). We all but ran back to the parking area, getting back just before the last rays of daylight slipped behind the Blue Ridge.

WHAT A DAY! We had planned to camp that night as well, but with Laura having such a rough go the night before, I didn't wanna put her through that again. Luckily, Dennis' parents live in Greenville. We headed over and got a fresh shower and a nice meal. It was a prefect ending to a great day on the trail. As usual, leaving this area for Augusta made me wish I could spend every day in the Upstate. We'll be back first chance we get!!!!

Not Our Usual "Weekend Adventure"

Wow. It really was just as amazing as I thought it would be. We kinda last minute decided to drive up for the week. My wife's family lives near D.C. and her sister and brother were both visiting from far off lands, so we decided to make it a "two birds with one stone" trip. Once we decided we were going to go, I really started to get excited about the whole thing. The media coverage was unprecedented. The crowd estimates, if they held, were to be larger than anything else that had ever taken place in D.C. And that's quite a history of events. I couldn't wait to be a part of history.

We showed up the weekend before and the weather had been brutal. Wind chills were below zero. Snow was falling. It was cold. VERY cold. I hoped that it would warm up, and it did. It got into the thirties for the first time all week on Inauguration Day. Boy, didn't I feel lucky. We had to wake up at about 2:30 that morning. The plan was to be at the Metro station by 3:30. We would hopefully unload near the Mall around 5:00 a.m. and be in place before 6:00. Everything went pretty smooth. The crowds at the Metro station were brutal and so were the masses moving from the Metro to the Capitol. Luckily, once we actually got out onto the Mall (after security detoured us all the way around the Capitol) things weren't as bad as I expected. We moved to a decent spot with a nice view of the Capitol. Considering it was still well before 6 in the morning, some might have hoped for a closer seat, but it was better than I expected.

Here we were, at 5 something in the morning and the wind chills were in the single digits. There was nothing to do to warm up, yet people from all over the world were moving in tight for, at best, a lousy view of the event. Already I was struck with amazement. Everything to this point had given all these people every reason in the world to be ticked. No sleep. Terrible weather. Huge crowds. A crappy view. But everyone I saw had a smile on there face, and wouldn't have rather been anywhere in the world.



So there we were perched comfortably (relatively) between the Capitol and the Washington Monument. The Capitol was glowing in the night. It was kinda surreal (a theme for this whole experience). The monument stood behind us, and already the crowds stretched past it, on to the reflecting pool.



Finally, after 2+ hours of standing in the dark cold with nothing to do but take in the surroundings, the jumbo-trons came to life. They started playing clips from the concert that was held in front of the Lincoln Memorial two days before. The music was, to me, the greatest part of the day. I wished so bad we had came down for it. There were some of the biggest names in music, traveling across the country and singing (usually just one song) for little to nothing, except for the chance to say that they were there. Garth Brooks absolutely brought the house down. He sang Don McLean's "American Pie". Nearly the whole crowd was singing and dancing along. Then he went to exit the stage, because up to this point all the artists only sang one song. He paused right at the edge of stage and belted, "waaaaiaaaiaaat a miiiiinute...you know you make me wanna SHOUT!" The crowd absolutely came unglued. People everywhere were jumping and singing along. There I was, a guy you will never catch dead dancing in public, throwing my hands in the air singing and hopping around like a high school cheerleader. He had almost everyone there singing and dancing together. It, again, was surreal. The song ended and everyone clapped and laughed with each other, even people they obviously didn't know. From then on the cold weather was only an afterthought. I was witnessing history.

You can imagine what the rest of the event was like. The crowd was on edge waiting for Obama to show up. Every time the live cameras shot him moving through the building the crowd would go crazy, even though were introducing some Congressman no one had ever heard of. When he got his final introduction, the screams went to a higher, louder level. Then finally, for what was a lifetime of waiting for some of the wheelchair-bound people near me, Obama was officially sworn in. When they finally said "Congratulations, Mr. President," I think every foot on the Mall left the ground. He then gave a speech that had 2 million people begging for more. After the fact, I was looking through my pictures and realized that I had snapped a photo of everything that happened that day, but during the swearing in and Obama's speech, I was so caught up in everything I didn't get a single picture of him. I mean really, it was that surreal. I'll remember it for the rest of my life.

*for an interesting international perspective on the event, you can click the title of this blog and it will take you to a website by the BBC with some interesting comments.

Hunting Island, South Carolina

Hunting Island, South Carolina is located on the South Carolina coast just north of Hilton Head Island. It's also about a two hour drive south from Charleston (mainly due to there being no direct road connection). I first visited this island in January of 2008. It was another one of those weekends where, with Laura being in Iraq, I needed to keep myself busy, so I just decided on a whim to hop in the truck with the dogs and drive to the coast. When we got there, being that it was out of season, there was no attendant taking money for parking (I think the usual cost is $3). There wasn't a single car in the parking lot. We got out and started exploring the beach. I didn't do any research before-hand, so I was surprised when, around the corner from where we parked, was a beautiful lighthouse. We snapped some pictures there and read the placards about the island's history. The lighthouse was built in 1859, and then rebuilt in 1875 after it was destroyed during the Civil War. It was deactivated in 1933. Because we were there in the off season, the lighthouse was closed, but you can climb all 167 steps for a small $2.00 fee when it is open during the spring, summer, or fall.

The beach was awesome. The sand was awesome, and being that it was out of season, the dogs got to run up and down beach at free will. One of the placards also talked about the erosion problem. Apparently the island has been washing away at an alarming rate for quite some time. That explained all the downed palm trees. It made for a kind of surreal scene. We headed down the beach for quite a while till we got to the campground. Then we backtracked on one of the trails they have just inland from the beach.

The trail leads you under a canopy of palm branches from the campground, to the lighthouse, and on to the beach parking area. All in all we had a great time. We made it back to the island during the summer. The crowds were pretty overwhelming, but we still found a nice spot on the beach to lay down a towel. Dogs are welcome year round, just be sure you leash them (unless its winter and there is no one there!).

Pine Mountain Sunrise

This sunrise we caught from Pine Mountain in South Carolina, near the town of Westminster. Laura and I drove up early and started up before sun-up. I stumbled upon this place during one of my many solo hikes I took while Laura was deployed. It was really fun to be able to take her back there and experience it with her. It was pretty amazing watching the sun press into the mountains and watch the fog lift from deep in the valley's cracks.

The other significance to this is, it was our first trip since finding out we were pregnant. Wow! What an exciting feeling. I have dreamed for a long time about the day when I would welcome my first child to the world. Its unbelievably exciting to know that it is coming soon. One day I will stand on this mountain with a new addition to the family, and we'll all catch this sunrise together.