Hiking in December can be a challenge but Karen requested a three-day waterfalls expedition for her birthday. We stayed in a little town called Easley, just east of Greenville and explored the Blue Ridge escarpment of Upstate South Carolina which is blessed with dozens of awesome waterfalls.
It rained hard for several days before we left home and our first hike to Twin Falls was a wet one. The short hike in light rain was welcome after a three-hour drive.
The heavy rains transformed Twin Falls into “triple falls” and kept other hikers away from this magnificent sight.
The rain was fading on our way to the day’s second set of falls. Lower Wildcat Falls could be seen from the road.
Upper Wild Cat Falls was midway on a one-mile trail that looped through a dense forest. It too was flush with rushing rainwater.
With three waterfalls in our logbook we returned to Easley to celebrate Karen’s birthday at Capri’s Italian Restaurant. While we waited forty minutes for a table, a friendly local told me the eatery was the first of a chain that once thrived in the area and the last survivor. He recommended the baked lasagna. It was superb.
We were up early the next morning and pasta fortified for our first hike to Cove Falls. The sun was out, but the soggy ground caused lots of impressive deadfalls. The trail maintenance was excellent and the prostrate trees were no problem.
Cove Falls was sixty-feet tall and situated at the end of a lush ravine.
It was an excellent eye-opener and the 1.5-mile hike the perfect distance to warm us up for the day.
Legend has it that 200-foot Issaqueena Falls is named for an Indian maiden that eluded a war party chasing her for warning a nearby fort they were going to attack. She faked a dive off the top of the cascade then hid beneath the upper falls.
A short walk from Issaqueena Falls is a 1,617-foot railroad tunnel to nowhere dug into the southeast face of Stumphouse Mountain by 1,500 Irish miners. It was chiseled out just before the Civil War and never finished.
Yellow Branch Falls is a stone’s throw from the Stumphouse Tunnel. These landmarks are impossible to find using GPS or directions online. We had to ask a forest ranger to point the way. We crossed the creek four times on the 1.7-mile trek to Yellow Branch falls. This slippery log was the most daunting.
Yellow Branch Falls normally flows lightly and its wispy rivulets look like branches on a willow tree. It was raging the day we arrived and beautiful to behold.
This deadfall just missed the bridge over a gulch on the hike back from Yellow Falls. A step was cut through it to keep from disturbing the wooden span. We had more falls on our list, but this taxing march finished our day.
The next morning broke bright and cool for our drive back to Charlotte. We stopped in Greenville, SC to view our seventh falls for the journey. Reedy River Falls was neglected beneath a highway overpass over forty years before the road was rerouted to reveal a jewel inside the city. Now an arching, suspension bridge, park areas and walkways on both sides of the river accentuate nature’s splendor. Happy birthday, Ms. Karen. I’m glad you shared your wish with me.