Mark's Photo Travels

Last August I visited the Blue Wall Preserve , located just west of Lake Lanier in northeast Greenville County, to explore the preserve and its two waterfalls. The Blue Wall Passage of the Palmetto Trail runs from the Foothills Equestrian Nature Center (FENCE) in Polk County, North Carolina to Vaughns Gap, Greenville County, South Carolina. At Vaughns Gap, the Palmetto Trail transitions to the Poinsett Reservoir Passage that continues on to the Orchard Lake Campground in Henderson County, North Carolina. Last year, my visit to the Blue Wall Preserve inspired me to make another trip here to hike this section of the Palmetto Trail up to Vaughns Gap. I wanted to do that last year, but for whatever reason it didn't happen. Last Friday was cloudy with a few sprinkles and a breezy north to north east wind. Not a perfect day for a hike, but plenty good enough. The parking area for this section of the Palmetto Trail is the same as the one for the Blue Wall Preserve. The distance ...

Last Sunday a few local musicians came together with their instruments to the Glendale Shoals Bridge over Lawson's Fork Creek in Glendale, SC to play at the musical get-together named "Dam Jam". This was a perfect chance for me to listen to some acoustic music and also explore more of Glendale. The jam started at 4pm, but I arrived about an hour early to explore the area where Glendale Park once beckoned mill village residents and visitors. I headed down a path, which very well may have been the same path mill residents used to get to the park. This path provides a good view of the mill pond, the bridge, and even the people setting up for the jam. Glendale Park was built at the same time as the trolley line from Spartanburg to Clifton being built through the area in 1900. The first mentions of the park I can find in newspaper archives are from 1901. Postcards from the era depict the park quite differently than it looks today: from the Spartanburg County Pub...

I had planned to hike on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina last Wednesday, but Hurricane Irma left the parkway strewn with downed limbs and trees forcing the parkway's closure. I then settled on a to visit Jones Gap State Park on Thursday, but Jones Gap was also closed that day because of the aftermath of Irma. I searched the map for a location near Jones Gap that would still likely be open and I settled on  Ashmore Heritage Preserve . Ashmore Heritage Preserve is a 1125 acre preserve off Persimmon Ridge Road in northern Greenville County. The original land for the preserve, a few hundred acres, was acquired from property once owned by Russell Ashmore, Sr. in the mid to late 1980s. Additional acquisitions since then have increased the size of the preserve to its 2017 borders : The main feature of interest for me here is the loop trail around Lake Wattacoo and the view of Ashmore Falls from the dam. Persimmon Ridge Road, when coming from the southern end off US 27...