Mark's Photo Travels

Last Sunday was a perfect day to explore waterfalls after the heavy rains of the previous day. For this adventure I chose Wildcat Wayside, located off of U.S. 276 and S.C. 11 near Cleveland, SC. I've been there before several times through the years, the last time in December 2012 . Every time I've visited in the past, I haven't seen much water flowing over the waterfalls. This time I knew I wouldn't be disappointed. The first thing I noticed was the boiled peanut vendor taking up too much space in the parking area. The second thing I noticed was a prominently placed sign naming the park, the first of several changes I would notice this visit. Lower Wildcat Falls is right at the roadside, and the rains of the previous day helped with the water flow. This is a photo from December 2012 showing how little water normally flows: Sstone steps head up to the middle falls. At the top are two memorials to people who died from slipping and falling from the upper ...

Swamp Rabbit remnants in Cleveland For some time now, I've been sporadically researching and documenting the path of the Swamp Rabbit Railroad from Greenville to Cleveland to River Falls, all in Greenville County, South Carolina. The result of this research is Abandoned Railroad: Greenville and Northern Railway (Swamp Rabbit) , a map drawn with Google Maps Engine Lite. Recently, I came upon two plats recorded at Greenville County Register of Deeds that resulted in a revision of the path around River Falls. The path from Greenville to Travelers Rest was abandoned in 2005 to become the Swamp Rabbit Trail and is easily traced. The path from Travelers Rest to Cleveland was abandoned in the 1960s and is traceable from historic maps and from a satellite map view such as Google's or Bing's. This part I investigated in Tracing the Swamp Rabbit . The path north from Cleveland to River Falls was abandoned much earlier (later than 1920 but before 1940) and is much harder to tr...