Boxing Day adventures

A photo of a rainbow at Rainbow Falls

With some extra free time this week thanks to the holiday, I went up to northern Greenville County for some adventures.

Tracing the Swamp Rabbit - December 2013 edition

First I stopped by McCarson Road in Riverview to investigate a possible trestle ruin I had spotted sometime back on Google Earth. Turns out it wasn't a trestle ruin at all, but a storage tank of some kind. But below it, I found a cutting heading toward the Middle Saluda River, an area previously explored. This matched up well with my map of the Swamp Rabbit. Nice.
The path of the railroad crossed McCarson Road heading south toward Cleveland.

Rainbow Falls

The bulk of my time this day was hiking to and from Rainbow Falls. Rainbow Falls is located on property of Camp Greenville, but it also accessible from Jones Gap State Park. To get there, follow Jones Gap Trail (blazed blue), then follow Rainbow Falls Trail (blazed red) to the waterfall.

This part of Jones Gap Trail is rocky and wet with a few icy spots, and the temperature wasn't much above freezing.
A few years ago during the cold winter of 2010, this trail was frozen over in many spots.
Rainbow Falls Trail branches off from Jones Gap Trail off to the right. The trail is blazed red.
After crossing over the Middle Saluda River,
Rainbow Falls Trail becomes a steep climb with many switchbacks and stairs that doesn't stop until you reach the waterfall.
 The climb was worth it for me. This waterfall is quite a beauty.
Next time though, I'll bring more water with me. The ascent made me quite thirsty. It was nice on the way back to be going down stairs this time.
I've shared these photos in a set on Flickr and an album on Google Photos.

Echo Valley

For a few years in the late 1960s, Echo Valley was a "wild west" style theme park off of U.S. 276 in the Cleveland community. This land is now occupied by a post office, several other businesses, and private homes. Tom Taylor visited this place as a child and recounted his visits there in Memories of Echo Valley, Echo Valley Photographic Proof, and Even More Echo Valley.

This photo taken by Tom's father, taken at the shore of Echo Lake, struck me as an opportunity to take my own photo from as close to the same spot and view as possible to create a then-now set.
1968 about Echo Valley cable cars
I didn't count on the area between SC 11 and the shoreline being so heavily overgrown with thickets. The best I could do was this photo from higher up and at a different angle.
Then and now - 1968 about Echo Valley cable cars
Those boats and the cable cars are of long gone of course, but the concrete base remains. The area underneath the cable cars is filling in with trees. Nature is taking its course.

I didn't entirely succeed, and perhaps someday I'll try again. And perhaps with a machete this time.

Wrapup

Rainbow Falls was definitely worth visiting. and finding more evidence of the Swamp Rabbit railroad was a nice touch.

I placed on this map the three locations I visited this day:

And this map is the path I took to Rainbow Falls from Jones Gap State Park traced from my GPS.

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