Mark's Photo Travels

My goodness, another month has come and is almost gone! Time for a report on my hikes during January 2020. I went on five hikes this month. I had more planned, but rain forced some hikes to be canceled or rescheduled. Dupont State Forest - High Falls and Triple Falls The first Saturday of January I went with a great group up to Dupont State Forest. During the visit we visited High Falls and Triple Falls. High Falls was really throwing off some spray this day. High Falls was throwing off so much spray, I had trouble keeping my lens dry! The sun was at a perfect angle to backlight the waterfall. A few clouds would have been nice. Fortunately, I'd find better conditions at Triple Falls. The water here was also up, but the clouds moved in helping to even out the light. I'm not much on black and white photography, but I also liked how the black and white version turned out! We made it as far as High Falls Bridge... ...before turning around to hike back to t...

For whatever reason, I've never been to Stumphouse Tunnel and Issaqueena Falls before now. Considering the site features tunnels from a never completed railroad, and a nearby waterfall with a lovers leap type legend, it's a mystery why it took so long for this site to bubble up to the top of my to-visit list. Both sites are located off Stumphouse Tunnel Road , itself off S.C. 28, a few miles north of Walhalla. Introduction Stumphouse Tunnel was one of three planned tunnels in South Carolina for the Blue Ridge Railroad , a 195 mile railroad to be built from Anderson, South Carolina, to West Union, South Carolina, to near Clayton, Georgia then north up to Knoxville, Tennessee. The motivation for the project was to provide a more direct route for goods to travel between South Carolina and Tennessee, cutting out the much longer, costlier ways required at the time to avoid the mountains. The Blue Ridge Railroad obtained a charter from South Carolina in 1852, but work on the ...