Photo Journaling along the Way--

I am behind on blog reading please forgive me for not getting around in "real" time.  Im running about 2 weeks behind with my own photojournal of my little life-work has been disrupting my free time...lol Imagine that!!


So to catch up last time I told you I was headed upstate to fetch Mom home and do some dog sitting and cut and fold Fat Quarters--used in quilting. (long story) The weather forecast was rain with Friday, March 4th, being the best day to go exploring so in spite of the damp weather  I forced  took Mom with me to see some of the waterfalls on my list from the Waterfall Hikes of SC by Thomas E King.  (the other 2 days were complete washouts...the sun came out as we packed the car to leave--grrr)

                                                                          Lower

Middle photo missing. 


Wildcat Falls Middle (Ive seen the lower and yet to see the upper sections of this series of falls--this one Mom cant go to see but I dragged sprinted up the hill to see the middle section and next time I pass by I plan to hike to the upper section) This is a short drop with a LONG slide down to the lower section. (p 278 of the guidebook) then we headed to Table Rock to see the Carrick Creek.



                
short Video 

 Carrick Creek Falls is perfect for Mom because its only 100 feet away from the parking lot!! (the reason I chose this one for this trip) This small waterfall is in Table Rock State Park one of 15 in this park..I have a long way to go to see them all...but as part of my ongoing goal of seeing as many as possible listed in the Waterfall Hikes of SC by Thomas E King--this visit to Carrick Creek falls means I can check off page 156 of the book. This is a 15 ft plunge falls.  It was drizzling rain so we had to deal with light showers..later it stopped raining , Carrick Creek is not a big fall but it sure is pretty!  Had some raindrops on my lens--

Mom Bundled up

the small falls is in a beautiful heavy forest setting with a nice wading pool for a hot day!



Then we took a drive west to Devils Fork State Park.  The main thing there is Lake Jocassee--its a boaters paradise and a birders paradise also..




Only today it was gloomy and raining and we had no boat so in between showers I grabbed some photos..of the beautiful mountain lake shoreline...

the clay was so red after the rain, when its dry its more of a bricky red or pink

thats a horned grebe swimming away from me--

kinda grainy as he didnt want to get close to me--wish they stayed for breeding plumage which is fantastic and I ve never seen!

I did see Common loons....they also kept their distance but I got a couple of fuzzy "I did see it" photos..not a new bird for me, but a surprise as I didnt realize they were here! They too wont breed here so I wont get to see that beautiful black head and white dots of the male in breeding plumage--

          

common loon-F the water is disturbed by the rain ---

I saw all these gulls out on a sand bar, too far away for ID's I just like the way they looked...



If I had to guess I'd say RingBill Gulls--So that was it for that weekend I just returned from another trip up there and I saw another great waterfall, saving that for my next post...

                                                       Peace



The Raven Cliff Falls Hike

This was a memorable day for me, because Ive been wanting to hike this trail for a long time.  I actually went to hike it a couple years ago and -DUH- got on the wrong trail, I hiked nearly to Jones Gap before I realized I was going the wrong way-- right trail, wrong direction--so finally I got my wish to see the Raven Cliff Falls!  Somewhere along the trail  I got this view of Lake Jocassee

It is located at Caesars Head State Park in Upstate SC   There are over 50 miles of hiking trails from easy to strenuous in this park.  The elevation of the park is around 3,200 ft.  The trail starts at 3,000 ft and drops to 2,000 so the way back was hard in spots...

view of Caesar's rock

Once I got to the park I had to go check out the view of the area..and the color was almost at peek one more week it will be awesome. 

Ceasars Head over 7,000 acres

Here's where I messed up last time...the trail head for Raven Cliff Falls starts across the road, somehow that completely escaped me last time & I got on the Foothills trail behind where my car is parked in this shot, but this time I DID cross the road--

There is 3 trailheads that you can access from this lot...
You have to register yourself in this little box, write who you are where you are hiking to and when you expect to be back and a number to contact if you dont show up! AND it cost $2 to hike.

This trail is part of the Foothills trail which is a 76 mile backpacking or section hiking trail with access in various places .The sections I did was the Raven Cliff Falls Trail, the Gum Gap Trail, and the Natureland Trust Trail, which is 6.6 miles round trip. 

from All Trails web site

For the most part the trail was easy...but then the elevation drops and thats ok going out but coming back ohhhh it hurts.  Saw some great color in the forest and Im always on Lookout for odd things..like this tree with a Keyhole-

 I hiked down the Raven Cliff at 1.4 miles it interesects the Gum Gap trail but take the side trail to left for the view platform thats 0.8 mi away.  From there you can view the falls across the Gap as its called here in the east, out west it would be a canyon!  MY photos  were lost due to Flickr, so this is the only one I have left of my Raven Falls full length photos...I had made it into a poster effect for a calendar I had planned to make good thing I had this one. 

The View of the falls is awesome although distant. You need a good zoom to get any kind of a shot..my kodak has a 24 x zoom so it did pretty good...although I like the far off shots best cause it encompasses the Fall display...some trees were already bare of leaves I see.

The falls is a 420 ft drop altogether.  The Dismal Trail which is very strenous takes one down to the lower part of the falls, I did NOT take that trail, I had a quick lunch break here on the platform and visited with other hikers...

the lower falls section

I had not decided at this point whether I would hike to the suspension bridge which is the sturcture you can see in the first 2 shots of the falls, look closely..it looks like a plank going across so I backtracked to the intersection of the Gum Gap trail and decided to go for it...I hiked another 1.1 miles to the suspension bridge...this fellow was on it when I arrived so I gave him his time alone, sort of...

Well after I totally invaded his privacy and took his photo (and a video of him)..lol I ventured up onto the bridge to see for myself...

The view was KILLER..awesome, and the bridge was quite stable since its not that long...Ive been on "swinging" bridges that made me air sick...like the Royal Gorge....whew.

I was told by one of the other hikers to NOT take the trail beyond the bridge...its so steep you have to hang onto a rope to climb down...( i have a feeling that is where the DISMAL trail ends up)..SO I took that advice went over had a look and then came back down.  The bridge is positioned just at the precipice of the top portion of the falls (which is sort of a cascade but not)  behind it is this smaller cascade...

     I enjoyed this part of the falls too it was nice.  I took this short video..

Then it was time to hike back to the car...and I was beat so I stopped to rest on this really interesting log,



I had an awesome day...I got on the trail at 11 am and got back to my car at 4:30 so it was an entire day but well worth it...and now I can mark off page 260 of my Waterfall Hikes of Upstate SC--which is an ongoing project of mine. 

On the way home these great clouds moved in and gave me a nice end to my day...

Upstate Trip...

Today I drove 150 miles north to my sister's for dog sitting again! It was a beautiful day for traveling--and I saw many campers on the road of every size, and kind! This one caught me by surprise when I came up behind it, At fist its hard to see the small car towing it! You can see by the road sign this was about an hr away from my destination, traveling on I-26 West.

On my last trip up here I purchased a book called WaterFall Hikes of Upstate SC by Thomas E. King. I thought it would be fun to try and see as many of these waterfalls as I can when I'm in the vicinity of one..so last time I marked off Twin Falls on page 194, and today I marked off Cedar Shoals on the Reedy River, page 216.

 I tried to find the Pelham Falls in Pelham..but unfortunately, urban sprawl has made the directions in the book, null n void, so Ill try again tomorrow...when its not rush hr and I can stop and make u-turns and all that other annoying stuff that we out of towners do...lol --I have visited many other waterfalls while in the upstate, so I have to go through the book and cross them off...This one was easy it was right off the highway..but it was on PRIVATE property so I didnt go down to the waters edge..BUT I was tempted!!

When I looked closely at this photo I saw the turtle family sunning on the rock in front of the little step fall there...what a neat place to live eh?

Another one visited!

Pickens County WaterFall

Thursday I drove upstate to Greenville to dog sit for my Sis thru Sunday morning...so Friday I enjoyed a day trip up to Pickens County to hike to the Twin Falls- It was a bit too hot to hike but if I wait for the weather to be good I wont be going any time soon..its not as hot here as back at home.'

Keep your eyes on the trail

there is always a bright spot in the woods!

this is what that phrase between a rock and a hard place means

This rock reminds me of Stonehenge...well sort of..

IT was such a thick forest but the stream followed the trail so it was easy to cool off just get close to the water!!

The water was really cool..and shallow so easy to spash in

Then I arrived at the water fall it was super!!! I had the whole place to myself for a while...but soon a few straggled in this waterfall is off the beaten path, but not a hard or long hike.

But I wanted to get closer so I hiked up the rocks to the base of the falls...got that nice cool mist on me, felt great!!

Out on the rock I found all these Yellow Swallowtails sipping water!! Bet it taste nice and Fresh..

I took a ga-zillion photos..and these are my favorites made in slideshow!

Travels Upstate-

Indy and I ran into this goose checking out his reflection in the water...when we went to Paris Mt. State Park for our walk today. Im upstate in Greenville, SC house/dog sitting for my sis again..she is in Sedona getting her batteries recharged for 6 days...so Im in a new location close to the mountains for a week...

Indy is a big mix of Lab and Chow. She is a sweetheart...but she weights in at 106 lbs...I didnt realize that her size makes most people afraid! Nearly everyone we passed I heard them mumble "what a big dog" as we went past...I never thought of Indy as anything but a sweetheart..but I can see how if you are not around dogs one her size could be scary...She never hurt a fly tho...

she likes to take a dip too...here she is checking out the kayaks

The she got a drink of water....

The spillway is pretty cool over the old damn that keeps Lake Placid in its banks,..

There is a beaver at work here too...he has moved his lodge farther up in the stream now and we didnt see him today...

This little girl was having a blast riding on the back of the paddle boat...and let me tell you that water is COLD..but people were swimming today---personally to me the water is not warm enough till labor day!

Indy disagrees with me...she was in and out of the water--and lay down in it, and just had a blast...Tomorrow I hope to drive up into the mountains and visit some waterfalls!!

Home Again!

I returned from my dogsitting/web page design/upholstery trip to sisters house! In explaination--I was asked to dog sit...and I had planned to reupholster an ottoman that one of her dogs chewed up...and I am the "web designer" (feeling my way around HTML) of my B-I-L's web site for his pen business. So to put it lightly I worked my butt off! Its good to be back home! I have not finished all the changes he wants on the web site its a slow process...He makes hand turned pens! These are quite handsome- He wanted to add a few new designs and so I took about 15 photos of the new stock here is one that I really

 like!

   

 So while I was in Greenville it rained, rained, and rained!! What a miserable time it was taking poor ole' Spanky out for his constitutionals---he is a bit thinner, but his mental status is about the same. I didnt take the time to try for a foilage trip...too wet and cloudy..but yesterday we took a short drive to a nearby town and I snapped a few shots of some of the scenery along the way...including the Great Falls Catawba River Dam C-1920. As you can see it was quite a cloudy day.

 

We passed by the old Country Store in Liberty Hill, SC a very small rural community.  We pulled into one of the river access points and I took this shot...there were men fishing in a nearby boat - I decided not to invade their privacy...but I overheard the word "longjohns" as they huddled together in their

 metal john boat. LoL

 Across the way from the boat landing area is this old electric generating building, I dont know if still used...it does look to be kept up to a point... I love the style of it.

  

 We stopped for a fish sandwich & fries that finished off the day! On the way home we got the clouds of the setting sun

   

Hope everyone of you is in high spirits and all is right in your world!