Mark's Photo Travels

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...

Last Saturday I visited the 24th annual Bluff Mountain Festival in Hot Springs, North Carolina. The Bluff Mountain Festival began as a way to raise funds and awareness to preserve nearby Bluff Mountain from logging. When a compromise with the logging company was reached, the festival has evolved into a fundraiser for the Madison County Arts Council with food vendors, art booths, and, of course, bluegrass and old time music. The festival now takes place on the grounds of the Hot Springs Resort and Spa . The weather would be as good as it gets for June. I arrived a bit later than the 10am start time because I made an unplanned stop near Madison, so a crowd had already set up close to the stage. I decided to check out the red caboose by the road first. A quick search after I got home documented this was once a caboose owned by the  Norfolk and Southern Railway . The Festival Before setting up my chair in front of the stage, I walked around the artist vendor area. I...

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 Foothil...