Fall views of Table Rock Mountain

After my first paddle on Lake Oolenoy in Table Rock State Park off SC 11, I decided I'd come back again to see Table Rock Mountain during the peak of the fall foliage color season. I dd just that last Thursday that turned into a partly cloudy, breezy, warm day.

This time I'd be taking out my new 13 foot Advanced Elements Expedition inflatable kayak I had just received that very morning in place of the Intex Challenger K1 I had bought just a few months ago. My space is just too limited to support a regular, hard shell kayak, so I saved up to buy one of the more premium, more well reviewed inflatable kayaks on the market.

The Expedition is a much more expensive inflatable kayak and is definitely no toy. The important improvements of the Expedition compared to the K1 is the longer length (13 feet vs 9 feet), better tracking, faster speed, and more leg room.  The Expedition is also much more resistant to scrapes and punctures. I bought the optional "backbone" that can be installed during inflation to increase the tracking and speed even more, and prevent flexing in choppy water. The backbone wouldn't really be of use on a lake this small so I didn't bother installing it.

The UPS truck and my package didn't reach "casa de Mark" until shortly after noon, and I didn't make it up to the lake until mid afternoon. While the Expedition has nine chambers, I only inflated the two main ones for this trip. The other chambers, when inflated, help water drain off the kayak and give the kayak a more traditional shape.

My only regret this trip was going barefoot. I came here barefoot my previous two visits with no problems. But this time acorns were spread around the launch ramp and I had to take extra time to dodge them (stepping on them isn't my definition of fun).

During the earlier part of the afternoon, the sun lit up the trees around the lake, but not the south part of the mountain (yet). Here's a sample of my photos from that time of day from different parts of the lake:

I wandered around the lake for a while, including an area I avoided last time, the area around the dam:

While in this area of the lake, I took a photo of Pinnacle Mountain by itself:

At the moment, a fire is burning on Pinnacle Mountain, helped along by the extreme drought. Firefighters, among other tools, are using helicopters to scoop water from Lake Oolenoy to dump on the fire. I could see smoke from that fire drifting through the Greenville area last evening and at times today during my travels.

Here is the current webcam from Lake Oolenoy, although that white truck has been heading south on SC 11 for at least a half hour now:

Now back to last Thursday....

My time and patience was eventually rewarded with this final photo of the mountain from the lake, nicely lit up with the setting sun, and the lake trees now heading into shadow:

With this photo "in the can", I started back home, but I couldn't resist taking a one more set of photos from beside the road:

Photos from the trip have been posted to an album on Flickr and an album on Google Photos. I took photos from all around the lake, and I experimented with different crops and aspect ratios just because I could.