March 12, 2016 - waterfalls on Denton Creek, Tate City, GA

Cindy was heading out of town for a few days, so I called my buddy Harry up to see if he wanted to make a trip down to north Georgia to hike with our pal Bernie. He was definitely in, so I headed up to his house in Lake Toxaway to spend the week end. It's a lot shorter drive from there to Clayton, GA than it is from my house in Hendersonville.

Our destination was Denton Creek which has 3 very nice waterfalls on it. It's accessed off of Tallulah River Rd which is the same road that holds the trail head for High Falls and Bull Cove Falls in NC. I don't have the directions for Denton Creek up on my site yet, but go here for the directions to High and Bull Cove Falls, except once you turn on to Tallulah River Rd, drive 6.5 miles, pass the Tate City Mall on the right and look for the single lane dirt road on the right. Drive down this for a short distance (as long as you don't have a really nice vehicle you don't want to get dirty) and park in one of the small cleared areas. There's only room for 4-5 vehicles in here at the most. If you get to the creek, you've passed all of the parking spots and you can't drive across the creek.

Tate City Mall

Harry and I met Bernie at the Ingles in Clayton, then we piled into Bernie's vehicle and headed towards the trail head. The known waterfall on this creek is called Denton Branch Falls most everywhere online. I'm not sure why as the topo map clearly labels this as Denton Creek. A couple of months ago, some Facebook lady friends found an upper waterfall on a tip from a local. I told Bernie about this and he set out to investigate a couple of days later. He found that waterfall and another nice one not too much farther up the creek.

Once we got parked, it was a short walk to cross Denton Creek. The old road continues for less than 1/4 mile, then turns to the left and heads uphill. At this point, a side trail splits off to the right and heads towards the lower waterfall that people call Denton Branch Falls. We had decided to continue up to see the second waterfall first. To get there, continue left and up the old road which has narrowed down to a more of a trail. Continue away from the creek, then make a right bend back towards the creek. After about 1/3 of a mile and 200' gain in elevation, look down to the right for the waterfall. Part of it was visible with the leaves off, but I'm not sure what the situation will be once the leaves come back out. It's a steep scramble down the bank to get the good view of the falls. Head towards the huge dead hemlock that has come down near the base of the 30-40' falls. I was sitting on that hemlock to get these shots.

middle waterfall on Denton Creek

Once back up on the main trail, continue a short distance and the trail and creek get closer to each other. (There's a nice cascade down there also that I was going to shoot on the way back down the trail, but the sun was on it and I passed until next trip.)  From here it's only about 1/4 mile to the upper waterfall. About half way there, the old road heads right towards the creek, but the trail to the waterfall continues up the left side of the creek and dead ends at the waterfall. This one is maybe 30' high also, but has a totally different character than the middle falls with all of the small ledges. The rhododendron on the right could use some trimming.

Harry, Bernie and me at the upper waterfall

After getting our fill of photos and video, we headed back down towards the lower waterfall. Once at the side trail to the falls, it's not even 0.2 miles to where the trail ends at the waterfall. We first passed a smaller cascade which is the first picture below. Unfortunately, there are a lot of downed trees around the main waterfall, but it's still a nice 25 footer and well worth the hike. I've seen shots of this falls where the water levels were quite puny, so be sure to visit during higher water.

small cascade before Denton Creek Falls

 

Denton Creek Falls

I'm planning on returning to this area when it greens up and camping at one of the campgrounds along Tallulah River Rd. There's still a lot in here that we haven't seen and want to see Denton Creek, High and Bull Cove Falls when the leaves are out. Below is a video of some of the sights we saw today.

March 4 & 8, 2016 - Mountains to Sea Trail, Asheville

There's not been a lot happening lately, so Cindy and I have been back to DuPont and also have been hiking sections of the Mountains to Sea Trail between Asheville and Tanbark Tunnel. These sections have limited interest, so it's been a good time to knock these out for Cindy's upcoming hiking book on the mountains portion of the MST.

Two of the sections we hiked are worth mentioning, though. On the 4th, we did the section from the Folk Art Center north to what's called Lunch Rock. It's about a 5 mile round trip hike and Lunch Rock has the view in the following 3 photos. The snow covered mountains of the Parkway made a nice background. If you go looking for this, there's a side trail marked with only a faint red dot on a tree at about 2.5 miles into the hike. This short side trail comes out on a rock face, so keep a close eye on kids if you bring any.

views from Lunch Rock

 

Then on the 8th, we hiked the section of the MST from Ox Creek Rd off of the Parkway to Rattlesnake Lodge which I think is about a 5 mile round trip also. This is a very popular section of trail during the warmer months. We began the hike right where the MST crosses Ox Creek Rd, but there's more parking farther up the road if you want to shorten the hike.

This section of trail is quite nice with a nice mix of uphill and downhill sections. The lack of leaves on the trees allow for a few views you probably wouldn't have otherwise.

The Rattlesnake Lodge has an interesting history.  The lodge was built in the very early 1900's and served as the summer home for Dr Chase Ambler and his family. The Romantic Asheville web site has a great write up here if you would like to read more. The only thing left of the lodge today are a few stone walls as shown in the photos below.

an interpretive sign gives a little history and location of some of the buildings

the barn foundation

tool shed

swimming pool

The weather is warming and it will soon be time for the wildflowers to begin blooming. We'll be out a lot and the forests green back up, so stay tuned!

February 27, 2016 - Cliff Falls, Firewater Falls & Rockcliff Falls - Caesars Head State Park, South Carolina

I somehow missed these 3 fairly easy to get to waterfalls in Caesars Head State Park. I had seen them referenced online recently and all 3 are listed in Thomas King's South Carolina waterfall guide book, so it was time to pay them a visit. Directions to the trail head and hike info can be found on this page of my site. First, here's some video that includes all 3 waterfalls - Cliff Falls. Firewater Falls, and Rockcliff Falls.

I did a little research online for info about the hike to these 3 waterfalls, but there isn't a lot that has been posted. Firewater Falls is an especially interesting area as you can see from the video. Parking for this hike is at the Caesars Head State Park visitor center. Like a lot of areas in South Carolina, there is a $2 per person fee for using the trails. This is very reasonable and I wouldn't mind if NC did the same for more areas, as long as the money were used for trail maintenance and improvements. 

The hike begins on the Frank Coggins Trail which is on the opposite side of 276 from the visitors center. Before we got packs on, I went across the road to get a money envelope, but they were all wet and were falling apart. I went into the visitor center to see if they had any more and they said I could just pay there, so if you do the hike, keep that in mind.

The hike begins along a gravel drive, but soon narrows down to a footpath through the woods. Not too far into the hike, we noticed some idiot had spray painted FBG on the end of a sawed log and on a tree. The trail leads to the top of the first waterfall on the list - Cliff Falls. That same idiot had spray painter a rock at the very top of the waterfall also! It really takes a special kind of ignorance to carry a can of spray paint - or anything - on a hike just do you could deface a natural area. You can see it in the picture below. They actually spelled out what FBG stands for.

top of Cliff Falls

I knew from pictures that I had seen that there was a way to get to the base of Cliff Falls. The Rim of the Gap Trail turns to the left just after the bridge and the scramble trail down to the base is a short ways down this trail. There was some ice in the spray zone of the falls, so we weren't able to rock hop around for different views of the falls, so a return trip is definitely in order. The map indicates at least 150' more feet of drop below this and that needs investigating also. This part of the falls is about 20' high.

Next waterfall on the hike is Firewater Falls. It's only 0.3 miles up the trail and I really wasn't expecting much here. All the pictures I saw online were just of the waterfall and none showed the big rock area that extended beyond the falls. You can see that in the video. We ended up spending more time here than at the other 2 waterfalls mainly because there was a lot of video I wanted to shoot. I saw one photo online that showed the rock where the waterfall is as bone dry, so be prepared for that of you go during a dry spell. It's still a very interesting area.

The last waterfall on this hike is Rockcliff Falls. It's off of the Naturaland Trust Trail which is a short distance up the trail from Firewater Falls. The trail crosses back over 276, then crosses a private driveway a short distance later, then on to the base of the waterfall. This is another waterfall that might be a trickle in drier weather. It's about 40' high and had a lot of down fall on the right side of the falls when we were there. A couple of the write ups for this hike recommended walking back up 276 for 1/2 mile to the visitors center, but I don't recommend that at all. The safest option is to retrace your path like I mention in the write up on my site.

Rockcliff Falls

February 20, 2016 - Jones Gap Trail from US276 to Dargans Cascade and Toll Road Falls, South Carolina

Cindy and I have hiked a couple of times in DuPont since my last post, but the hikes were mostly just to get out and knock some more trails off her book list.  There really wasn't much photo-worthy, so I'm not adding them as blog posts.  This outing to Jones Gap State Park was different - it has waterfalls.  Below is some video I shot along the trail, then at three of the 4 waterfalls we saw along the Jones Gap Trail.

The Jones Gap Trail is listed at 5.3 miles and runs between the main entrance of Jones Gap State Park off of River Falls Rd. and US276 around Caesars Head State Park.  Cindy and I had recently hiked the section of the Jones Gap Trail from the visitor center up to Toll Road Falls, so today we wanted to hike from the US276 end down to Toll Road Falls.  This way I could add Dargans Cascade to the list of waterfalls I have been to.  Most of the online sources say the way to do this is to park at the Raven Cliff Falls parking area near Caesars Head and take the Tom Miller Trail down to the Jones Gap Trail and go from there.  However, the map shows the Jones Gap Trail coming all the way to 276 and that's where we wanted to start from.  I knew Brenda Wiley would know where this point was, so I messaged her and she gave me the scoop.  All that info can be found on this page of my web site.

We found the parking spot with no trouble and began the hike there. There was an old broken post with a house number and 'Do Not Block This Drive' sign and we didn't think anything of it until we passed a house on the right a short distance down the trail.  The electricity was on, but it looked like no one had been down this drive (the trail) in a while.  After the house, the trail narrowed to a foot path and continued following the Middle Saluda River down to a point where the trail crossed the river on a foot bridge. Once across, the Tom Miller Trail turns to the right and heads up to the other parking area I mentioned earlier.  Both of these trails are blazed blue which can be confusing if you aren't paying attention.  We continued down river to another crossing of the river - except that this log foot bridge didn't have a hand rail and was right at the top of a sliding cascade. 

Cindy crossing the log on the way back

unnamed cascade

I was using Thomas King's South Carolina waterfall book for reference and he has a picture of this cascade on the Dargans Cascade page.  I figured this was the upper waterfall, but found out later that this isn't Dargans Cascade - and apparently isn't named at all.  What a shame because it's a nice waterfall!

I had seen pictures of what other folks were calling Dargans Cascade and when that waterfall wasn't right below this one, I began to wonder.  We continued down the trail just a little farther and could see that waterfall down below.  The river dropped faster than the trail did, so we were now 75' or so above the waterfall.  A steep scramble trail heads down to the base, but don't take it.  We did, not knowing that if we had kept following the main trail a bit farther, it would cut back and head down to river level near the base of the waterfall - duh.  This is a really nice area with Dargans Cascade (the real one), and a very nice cascade just down river.  After we got back I did some more looking online and found this link where an old document called this waterfall Silver Steps - interesting!

Dargans Cascade

Cindy at the cascade below Dargans

cascade below Dargans

We spent quite a bit of time here, then continued down the trail towards Toll Road Falls. Along this section of trail we could see a big rock dome across the river and later found out that this is called El Lieutenant.  The base of it can be accessed from other trails in the park.  We also crossed several tributaries along the way and a couple of these need further investigating for hidden waterfalls.  We finally reached Toll Road Falls a little more than 3 miles from where we had started.  We took a nice break here, then headed back.  There's a 700' gain in elevation but it's not too bad spread over 3 miles.  With 2 vehicles, the entire Jones Gap Trail would be a very nice shuttle hike!

Toll Road Falls

February 6, 2016 - Jones Gap State Park, South Carolina

I recently purchased Thomas King's Waterfall Hikes of Upstate South Carolina and wanted to check out 2 of the waterfalls in Jones Gap State Park that I haven't been to - Oil Camp Falls and Eastern Stream Falls. Cindy and I figured that this was as good a place as any to go today, so that's where we headed.  Directions and trail descriptions of these 2 waterfalls (and others in SC) can be seen on this section of my web site.  Look under the Greenville County section.

I'm not sure how this parking area has been in the past since it's my first visit to the Oil Camp Creek section of the park, but it's now horrible.  There's maybe enough room for 2-3 cars to park here and a regular passenger car would probably bottom out trying to get turned around to get out.  Luckily, we were the first vehicle here today.
 

parking area for Oil Camp Falls hike

This looks like it would be a great area for spring wildflowers and I hope to make it back some time in April - or at least some time when the leaves are back out.  On the hike to Oil Camp Falls, we came across this smaller waterfall not mentioned in King's book.

There's a rusty 55 gallon drum hidden behind the bush at the bottom of the upper section of the falls indicating there may have been a moonshine operation here at some point.  This waterfall is maybe 20' high including the last sliding section at Oil Camp Creek.  Oil Camp Falls is just ahead on the trail and was more impressive than I was expecting.  The one negative is that there are a lot of branches blocking the view, so I'm thinking the view with leaves on will be even more obscured.

Oil Camp Falls

upper section of Oil Camp Falls

It's still a nice little spot and a fairly easy hike up to this point.  To get to Eastern Stream Falls, we had to backtrack a short distance and get on the Pinnacle Pass Trail heading up the mountain.  Both of these waterfalls are on the same stream, but I'm not sure where the name Eastern Stream is coming from.  The stream isn't on the topo map.

Eastern Stream Falls is a really interesting area of exposed bedrock with water flowing over it, creating a soggy environment for plants.  There is supposed to be a cataract bog nearby, so we'll definitely be back to see what plants grow here.  We know there are Trout Lily because there were several in bloom.

Trout Lily

I also spotted some type of Monarda  foliage that had already come up and Yucca plants scattered about on the steep banks.  The Pinnacle Pass Trail continues on from here and it looks like it will be well worth coming back this way for more exploring.  Below is a video of  both waterfalls.

  

February 1, 2016 - Birding in Florida, Day 4

We had already planned to spend our last day back at St Marks and today we actually got up early enough to catch the sunrise at the lighthouse.  We set up on the observation deck next to the lighthouse just before 7AM and shot dozens of shots until about 7:45.

The sunrise wasn't spectacular, but still a very nice way to start the day.  Since we were already down here, we started our quest for more new birds by walking down the trail to the point.  There was a large group of ducks all in a line in the Lighthouse Pool - mostly Redheads with a few American Wigeons mixed in.  We saw nothing of real interest at the point except a crab boat, so I shot it so I wouldn't come away empty handed.  On the way back to the vehicle, we scanned the group of ducks again just to make sure we hadn't missed anything - and we hadn't.

Just up the road from the lighthouse is an eagle nest.  Both eagles were at the nest, so we hung around  hoping for some action.  I gave up too early and one of the eagles took off, snapped a huge limb off of a nearby tree and tried carrying it back to the nest.  It ended up dropping it, but Cindy got some excellent shots with it grasping the limb.

We tried our luck again at Headquarters Pond, but didn't see anything new.  I got an OK shot of a Black-crowned Night Heron, but got a better one later in the day when we stopped back by.  There were several juveniles and adults scattered around the perimeter of the pond that stayed there all day.

Black-crowned Night Heron

We still weren't seeing the number of birds we thought we would - and no new ones - so we decided to hike one of the dikes.  We picked the one that runs next to the East River Pool and is part of the Florida National Scenic Trail.  There weren't that many birds up here either, but it was nice to get away from the people.  It seems like most of the people that visit the refuge don't venture very far from their cars if they even bother getting out of them.

After the hike, the rest of the day was spent going back and forth from the visitor center down to the lighthouse.  At one point, the shore bird action really picked up in the mud flats of the Stoney Bayou Pool.  I have a really had time IDing these birds, so I spend a lot of time shooting everything that looks different and then try to ID them later.  One group of birds really looked different than anything I had, and Holy Cow - they were Short-billed Dowitchers and #203 on my life list.

Short-billed Dowitcher

After shooting, I realized I had Least Sandpipers in the pictures.  I've probably seen these before without knowing it, but I didn't have them on my list or ID'd in pictures, so they are #204!

Least Sandpiper

The other birds in the area turned out to be ones I already had, but I did get better pictures than what I had of some of them.  They included Dunlins, Spotted Sandpipers, Willets, Killdeer, and Semipalmated Plovers.

Dunlin

Spotted Sandpiper

Killdeer

Semipalmated Plover

By now it was late afternoon and the light was fading.  It didn't look like there was going to be a good sunset, so we headed back to the campground and our.  We had a great time and I was quite excited to add 7 new birds to my list.   We didn't get the Red-cockaded Woodpecker, but there's always next time.