oh yeah

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Yeah, its backwards,

Last Day

Last day on the trail. Hiked along the Chattooga River, and basically in it at times. The trail passes so close to the river that you are stepping on rocks with riverwater flowing between them, your not crossing the river, just hiking beside it. Isn't the trail in the pict just obvious?

Pulled away from the river and got to see my last few views from the lower ridges. I did take a side trail up to a firetower to get one last good view, but there was some barbed wire fence around the tower, so no tower viewing for me.

And so I reached the end of the trail, and my road salt covered car was still half salt covered (thunderstorm only cleaned on side). The Foothills Trail was great. I only saw a few people camping on the first morning, then had the trail to myself. Fantastic weather, great trail, great scenery-I will be back.

Day 5

I woke to clear skys and a fabulous sunrise, best way I know how to start a day. Did some ridge hiking today, then started heading south along the GA border. I took a side trail to see King Creek falls-do ya get the picture that there are a lot of waterfalls on the trail? Well there are, and they are all different and worth seeing!

I also got to see a lot of pine branches on the ground with what I think is the Wooly Adelgid on it. I don't know for sure, but I took a pict. All the snow look stuff is the evil Fir killing Adelgid (i think). Hiked another 15 or so miles and camped on a hill above the Chattooga River.

Day 4

Today, I got to walk in a cloud all day long. Last night storms left there area warm (60's) and humid, so not much view to see today, but plenty of waterfalls. The first was Hillard falls. The first drop ran down a rock face and spilled in a pool, then the lower portion had a nice cascade, cool little side trip. I hiked on to the Whitewater falls area and took side trails to both the lower and upper falls. Both of the falls huge, there was a lot of water falling a far way.
The pict really doesn't do it justice.

Hiking between the two falls was a nice trail that parallel the river, there's no camping in the whitewater corridor so the land isn't scared at all from people "enjoying" nature. Its nice that some areas are protected, but it also means you have to keep hiking even though you want to stop and make camp. Of course, after leaving the Whitewater area, you are greeted with a climb. Hikes another 15ish miles today, and made camp, by far my favorite camp, up on top of Grassy Knob-a few miles west of the falls. I actually saw the place i wanted to camp, hike a while more to get some water, then retraced my step back to the spot. It was on top of a ridge overlooking two lakes

Day 3

I didn't think today would be that bad, but I soon realized that I didn't look close enough to the topo map. It's not that there was any big elevation changes, but there were a few short very steep hills that could do some hurting.I was now heading north to get around a lake and cross over the Toxaway River. The east side of the river was characterized by stairs. Imagin eith climbing or decending the ones some for a quater mile at a time. It was slow going up and down. Fow all that work, the Duke Engineers rewarded me with a huge suspension bridge crossing the river. I think they say its something like 225 ft long. It was sturdy, but when yo got on it, there was definitly a good amount of movement. Very cool!

On I hiked, with one more river crossing (5 mils away) to conquer today. The Horspasture river had its fair share of steep ascents/decents, it was more of a mind game of "if i trip, I'm gonna fall a long way. To ad to the fun, as you can see in the pict, the staircase to the bridge, decides to get steeper halfway through the journey. Ended up hiking 15-17 miles today and camped at the Bearcamp Camp. Kinda over used, but once again I had it all to myself (havent seen anyone in 2 days now). Got pounded by some thunderstorms overnight, but atleast the lows are only around 40 now.

Day 2

After a very windy night, I woke to ice clinging to my tent walls, that was to be expected considering the single wall tent. Breakfast was fun since as soon as I poured water into my pot, it turned to such instantly, guess I'll have to use a little more stove fuel this morning.
Packed up and headed up to Sassafrass Mtn, the highest Point in SC (3354ft). Even though there wasn't a cloud in the sky, the view wasn't anything as good as yesterdays cliff top view., the summit was kinda wooded. Dropped off the west side of the Mtn, and headed to Laurel Creek. FYI there isn't much water between Hickorynut Mtn and a couple miles west of US 178 (except for Estatoe Creek, which gets a lot of road runnoff, which i don't want to drink). Stopped for lunch at a waterfall along the creek.
I continued on, walking along the creek for a few mile until I came to a suspension bridge leading to my campsite. Duke Powers is responsible for maintaining like 44? miles of trail and the have install numerous suspension bridges over rivers, creeks, and gorges. They're pretty impressive.
Camped at Laurel Creek Falls Campground. Although, the campsite looks very overused (i had it all to myself), it has one very cool feature-it sits atop the waterfall. What a great way to end day, sitting atop a waterfall and watch the water disappear below you.

The adventure begins

Today (Sunday Feb 18) is the day I head off on the backpacking adventure. Why is it an adventure and not a trip? Well, for one thing, it's cold and snowing here in Knoxville, where I live. I think, when I woke today, we had a few inches on the ground and it was in the low 20's. So anyway, I leave the house by 7am and head over the mountains to hopefully sunny and warm SC. The drive was a bit hectic, only one lane each direction was drivable on I40 and either people were driving way too slow, or they were taking way too many risks, I did manage to survive due to my superior old pizza guy driving skills. I arrived at Tablerock SP with temps in the mid 50's and not a cloud in the sky, a perfect day to start the trip.
The first day was spent pretty much going uphill, Tablerock is about 1100ft and the trail pretty much ascends the whole way up to Pinnacle Mtn at about 3000ft and 3 miles later. The climb for the most part wasn't back, except for a few short sections where you actually had to climb with your hands and feet. There were tons of water falls along the way, and the most spectacular thing was when the trail opened up onto the big rock face near the peak of Pinnacle Mtn. It was like standing on the edge of the world, except that the world was below you, so that didn't make sense. Anyway, it was super clear, you could see for miles and miles. I could see the road that I drove in on, lakes way off in the distance and mountains all around. It was definitely worth climb.
I ended up hiking a few more miles up, then descended a little, then hiked up to make camp on Hickorynut Mtn, at about 3200 ft. I hiked only about 7 miles today since I started late.
I set up camp on the side of the trail, at dinner, and was in my tent by 6pm. Weather was forecasted to be a low of 23 at low elevations and be very windy.