Photographic explorations centered around Upstate South Carolina.
A Visit to Beech Bottom Falls and Sassafras Mountain Overlook Tower
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Soon I'll be leading a hike up to the observation tower on Sassafras Mountain on the Foothills Trail (weather permitting of course!). I haven't hiked this section of the Foothills Trail before, and I wanted to see what it's like on my own before I lead the group hike. I also wanted to see Beech Bottom Falls, formerly known as Pinnacle Falls, while I was there. That waterfall is down a different trail I had visited in 2015. A new trail was opened in the summer of 2018, the waterfall renamed at the same time, and the old trail has been abandoned.
I parked at the Chimneytop Gap parking access area, off U.S. 178 seven miles north of the intersection with S.C. 11. I thought too many cars were parked here to all be individual hikers. I figured it had to be some sort of a meetup.
I also figured they were probably headed up Sassafras Mountain. But for now, I'm more interested in what's down Beech Bottom Falls Trail.
Beech Bottom Falls Trail
The bat roost I saw in 2015 is still there:
During construction of the trail, a wood bridge was installed over Abner Creek.
In 2015, I had to ford the creek. Back then, there was no signage on the old trail. The new trail is well signed though.
A second wood bridge, looking very much like the first, spans a different section of Abner Creek.
A sign a half mile from the observation deck warns hikers to stay on the trail.
The observation deck is down a steep set of stairs overlooking Beech Bottom Falls and Abner Creek.
Down below, I could just make out another but much older observation deck. This one belongs to Camp Hannon.
Until the summer of 2018 when the new trail was opened, Beech Bottom Falls was known as Pinnacle Falls. I have no idea why the name was changed. Whatever your preferred name is for this waterfall, Beech Bottom Falls is quite beautiful. Recent rains have perked up the water flow a good bit.
I took a short video with my cell phone to show the water flow:
Foothills Trail to Sassafras Mountain
I made my way back to the parking area, then walked down a few hundred feet down U.S. 178 to start up Foothills Trail to Sassafras Mountain.
This section is the steepest of the three segments up the mountain.. I met some people coming down the trail. My suspicions of a meetup proved correct. A hiking group had indeed hiked up the mountain and were now coming back down.
What started out as a single track width trail soon widened to road width as the trail joined with an old logging road. Foothills Trail joins and leaves old logging roads at least twice that I noticed. The middle segment follows another old logging road, where this sign is located:
This part of Foothills Trail parts ways with the old logging road as the trail ascends to F. Van Clayton Memorial Highway.
This small parking area is where the third and final segment begins for the final ascent up Sassafras Mountain.
I watched a steady stream of traffic head tower the top of mountain before I could finally cross over the road and up the stairs.
This section was a steep at times, but not as strenuous as the first segment. I didn't see anybody until I got to this sign:
Then I could see all the people that had come up the road the easy way. Some had setup a picnic on a flat rock, but most others will milling around taking photos of each other and taking selfies. The observation tower was quote popular.
I searched for a bricked area for a particular Meetup I'm a member of:
I took photos of the observation tower itself and the compass on top of the tower:
I also took photos of the black stripe that marks the border between North and South Carolina.
And of course I took photos here too. How could one not?
I also took some panoramas from a few different views:
As soon as I got back on Foothills Trail, the crowds quickly disappeared behind me. The downhill hike back to my car went by rather fast. That meetup group had gone home long before I made it back, leaving my car the only one left when I reached the parking area.
This hike had enough strenuous parts to exercise the legs, but not so strenuous that it becomes grueling. I hope my group will like it.
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.
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
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
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