(click on the links in the text for more photos)
(click on the links in the text for more photos)
Photos and Text by Will Skelton
Over Memorial Day Weekend ten Sierra Club backpackers hiked the heart of the Foothills Trail through the Jocassee Gorges area of North and South Carolina. The trip involved a bit of logistics, with a boat shuttle across Lake Jocassee to the Canebreak trail access for the start, and ending car shuttles at the Bad Creek trail access. Making the trip were Ron Shrieves, Linda Podbielski, Betty Petty (from Chattanooga), Jake Hardison (from Columbia, South Carolina), Roger Jenkins, Susie McDonald, John Roberts, Duane Simmons, and Pat Bolz.
Jocassee Gorges is the name for a large area in North Carolina and South Carolina along the edge of the Southern Appalachian "escarpment" where the mountains drop down to the Piedmont region, producing lots of waterfalls and scenery; much of it is protected in a variety of ownerships, from the Forest Service to a North Carolina State Park and Wildlife Management Area, to Duke Power Company (which built and maintains much of the trail). The 85 plus mile Foothills Trail is about as well built and maintained as any trail we've seen, with wooden steps instead of switchbacks and bridges over even dry ravines (the Cherokee National Forest is probably the other extreme for trail maintenance, with the Foothills Trail having the best and the Cherokee the worst; unless of course you count Gates of the Arctic National Park which has no trails, hence no maintenance at all is required).
We camped at two great spots, Saturday along Bear Creek and Sunday on the Thompson River. In addition to the Thompson, we also crossed the Toxaway, Horsepasture and Whitewater Rivers; unfortunately, we saw only the bridge sections of each river and plan to go back and descend several of the rivers off-trail. Cooking dinner on a huge granite rock right beside the Thompson River was our most scenic camping experience, and later sleeping beside the roaring river was about perfect. Ron cooked some "pancakes" one morning, the identity of which we questioned; instead, they appeared to be some sort of foreign object (check out the photograph).
It seemed like almost everyone except us had a dog or dogs with them, most friendly. An exception was a standard male black poodle which chose my backpack at a rest stop to "mark his spot." The dog's "owner" apologized with "What can I do but say I'm sorry?" (Suggestion: follow that up with "and I'll clean your backpack," which she didn't) and then, as if to excuse the dog's misdeed "He's not really my dog." Actually maybe some bad deeds are followed with a good deed. Later that day in camp Duane was talking to the woman and her friend who were looking for a place to camp. Duane offered our camping area, but she protested that one of our parties probably wouldn't like that because of the unfortunate dog incident. Duane said "Yes, Will told us about that." Then the woman asked if anyone had lost some reading glasses she'd found on the trail, and Duane promised to check. The woman replied "Maybe it'll be that Will guy, and we can make it up to him that way." And of course it was; I had earlier lost my reading glasses on the trail.
If you want to explore the Foothills Trail, check the Foothills Trails Conference web site: www.foothillstrail.org; they also publish a very good guidebook (Guide to the Foothills Trail) and map. The Falcon Books Hiking South Carolina also covers most of the Foothills Trail.
