Hike to Upper Whitewater Falls Lower Viewing Platform

Last Satuday, the meetup group Tri-County Adventure group (Hike, Paddle & More!) hosted a meetup to hike from the Duke Energy Bad Creek Foothills Trail access area to the lower viewing platform for Upper Whitewater Falls, a distance of about 3 and a half miles. I didn't take that many photos on this trip, so I will mix in some photos from my last visit in June 2018. Just mentally erase some of the greenery and pretend they were taken in December.

The day was cloudy cold with freezing rain in the forecast that evening. As we gathered in the parking area, a snow and sleet shower passed by. I've already met some of these people, others were new to me.

This is what the parking area looked like back in June:
Last time I was here I hiked to the Lower Whitewater Falls viewing platform. Part of the way was the same as in last June, just with no leaves:
This time instead of turning down the spur trail to the viewing platform like I did in June, we continued on Foothills Trail:
Parts of the trail were soggy, and I was wearing shoes instead of my usual sandals this time (which got comments!) due to the cold, so I had to hop around like everyone else this time. A wooden sign informed us we were leaving Duke Energy property, but it also happens to be the South Carolina-North Carolina border. As we crossed Corbin Creek, we could see the waterfall further up the ridge:
We could also now see Upper Whitewater Falls from the trail:
We crossed over the Whitewater River on the same bridge I stopped at back in June.
Back then, I started hearing thunder and had to hurry back so I didn't get soaked, making it just in time.This time there was no such need to rush, but a long series of steep wooden steps forced me to stop once to rest a bit.
We arrived at the lower viewing platform. The view was just as good as last time, if not better without the greenery to get in the way this time.
We ate our snacks  until we started getting pelted with sleet from a passing shower. That's when everyone suddently decided it was time to go.

We made our way back the 3.5 miles to the Bad Creek parking area, faster this time since we were heading mostly downhill. We said our goodbyes and I pulled out of the parking area.

Instead of turning right head back out to the highway, I turned left down to an overlook I wanted to visit. I had mentioned my plan to one person during the hike, and so several of us ended up down at the overlook. I took a photo of this monument first:
My meetup friends even accidentally ended up in one shot, though I was able to erase and crop them out.
I put them back for this shot so you can see what I did:
A walkway leads down to a gazebo:
A good view of Lower Whitewater Falls emptying into Lake Jocassee can be seen from the wooden fence:
My remaining meetup friends had other places to be, so we all parted ways and made my way home.

I made a map of my GPS track overlayed on top of OpenStreetmap:

See full screen

My photos from this trip are in the album Hike To Upper Whitewater Falls - Jan 2019 on Google Photos. Photos from my June 2018 trip are in the album Upper and Lower Whitewater Falls - June 2018 also on Google Photos.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First and last visit to Lyman Mill

Image
After reading a goupstate.com story on the destruction of the old Lyman Mill in Lyman, SC that closed in 2005, I quickly decided I wanted photos of the mill before they get too far along tearing down the mill. View Larger Map I thought being a Sunday the crews wouldn't be working, but I was quickly proved wrong. A few people were in their machines busy with their work. The area is surrounded by a construction fence, but a large part of the parking lot is still available to park and walk around. Part of the work is already done, and the company performing the destruction expects to done by the end of May. Most of the mill is still intact at this time. If you want to visit though, you better visit soon. I also found an abandoned railroad right of way I just had to explore. I traced it back to where it headed into someone's property, and not far beyond it presumably would have merged with the mainline. Then I traced the line toward the mill.
Read more

First visit to Andersonville Island

Image
One of my major motivations for buying a kayak was to visit interesting places only reachable by water. Andersonville Island in Lake Hartwell is definitely one of those interesting places for me. Since my friend and fellow explorer Tom Taylor has been here before , and since he was clearly interested in heading back, I asked Tom to come along. After checking his availability, he agreed and offered to bring along a friend of his I hadn't met yet, Bennie Waddell. I took some vacation time off this week giving me plenty of days to choose from. I selected Wednesday, the 7th, for this trip to avoid the early week rain, and the later part of the week when the weather turns sharply colder. My other vacation days are being used to work on various projects inside the house. Before I get to the adventure, first a short-ish history of the area. Andersonville Island is named after the ghost town of Andersonville, once located on the northern and eastern side of the confluence of the T
Read more

December 2019 Hikes

Image
I've been on a number of waterfall hikes since Thanksgiving, mostly with Meetup groups. Since I don't take many photos when hiking with the Meetup groups, these hikes weren't really worth a post on their own. I did post a few photos to my Instagram account, but if you don't happen to Instagram then these hikes will be news to you. I'll summarize the visits below. Wildcat Wayside On December 11th, I led a small group to Wildcat Wayside , a roadside wayside park located by US 276/SC 11 near Cleveland, South Carolina. First we hiked a trail to visit Lower, Middle, and Upper Wildcat Falls on Wildcat Creek. Then we went down to a trail by Slickum Creek to visit Last Falls on Slickum and Sweet Thing on Slickum. As a bonus, I then led them past a parking area where US 276/SC 11 split to a bushwack up to Spider Tunnel Falls , the top of which is visible from US 276 during the winter. My photos from this trip are in the album Wildcat Wayside and More - Dec 20
Read more