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 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...

The recent all-too-frequent wet weather relented for a few days last week finally allowing me a chance to visit an old grist mill on my to-visit list for some time now, Raines Mill on Fall Creek in western Oconee County, South Carolina. This one made my list because of the large waterwheel and for a number of small waterfalls located upstream on Fall Creek. I made my way there by turning off U.S. 76 on to Chattooga Ridge Road then on to Fall Creek Road. I parked by a pull off... and walked down the road, passing by the gated road leading to the mill, to turn down an ungated road... I didn't want to take my car down that road in case it couldn't make it through a muddy area, like this one... I passed by the ruins of a concrete block building... then I wandered around exploring the mill and the waterfalls. Raines Mill and Upstream Waterfalls Raines Mill was built around 1914 by Luther Henry Raines (1887-1970 ), a preacher and leader of Long Creek Academy ...