Congaree National Park – by boot and by boat

On Friday morning, 10/28, we drove the hour from our campground to Congaree National Park. Considering the trail closures at Poinsett State Park, we weren’t sure what to expect. The bad news: Congaree also had extensive wind damage from Hurricane Matthew. The good news: They already had several miles of trail open.

We had to laugh at the Mosquito Meter at the park headquarters – we were at five out of six. It wasn’t so funny once we were out on the trail. Even wearing the high powered Deet repellent we were walking in a cloud of the little blood suckers. If you stopped moving even for a moment the hordes would descend, so we were highly motivated to keep movin’ on. Lol. We weren’t even at DEFCON 6, although I can’t image it being much worse!  

They aren't joking! Ruthless is right, it should have been at war zone! 

The two things we wanted to do at Congaree were both at least partially open: The Boardwalk Loop Trail and the Cedar Creek Canoe Trail. Since Congaree is in a floodplain a lot of the park is often underwater. The 2.4-mile Boardwalk Trail gives you a chance to enjoy the park even when the water is high (typically in the winter and spring). While flooding wasn’t a problem this late in the season, there were still a lot of downed trees and park staff were working on the boardwalk and other trails.

Rog on the Boardwalk. :)

We did get to hike almost five miles – most of the boardwalk and some other short trails. We found both the flora and fauna very interesting. One thing we noticed is that this part of South Carolina isn’t very warm and fuzzy. The wildlife we saw on the trail was limited to lizards, a snake, huge spiders, and one turtle. Nothing snuggly there. Lol.

While some areas looked like a pretty typical pine forest, others were very, very different from anything we’ve seen so far - the bald cypress with their knobby knees, the tea colored water, hanging moss and palmetto bushes. On the drive over we also passed cotton fields – certainly something you don’t see in the northwest!

Swampy goodness.

Bald Cypress "knees".

Pretty fungi.

This guy was hiding in plain sight on a bridge. We walked right by him the first time across!

This guy was huge, easily a couple inches across.

At last, some wildlife that was at least sorta cute! :)

Cotton fields.

We came back on Saturday to kayak the Cedar Creek Trail. We would have liked to do the longer 4-6 hour float but the Ranger said there were too many downed trees and recommended we put in at South Cedar Creek and just paddle up or down stream. We put in at the bridge and went downstream for close to an hour before we hit an impassible snag. Not up to trying to portage around it, we headed back upstream. We saw several locals fishing and a couple of kayak groups. The water was very slow and was pretty low too. It is such a dark brown, you can’t see more than a few inches into it. We passed our takeout spot to see what was upstream but didn’t get very far before we came across another downed tree that spanned the whole creek. By then we’d been on the water about two hours and decided that was good enough.

So cool, unlike anything we've seen so far. :)

Can you see the color of the water? Tobacco juice brown. 

Rog paddles and I photograph. Lol.

Some fall color even here, the bald cypress lose their needles every year (hence, bald). :) 

Cypress swamp.

Downed tree blocking our way.

We turn back downstream...

... to the take-out point. 

We hauled the boat out and got it cleaned up and packed away for the drive back to the campground. We leave tomorrow and have three travel days to get to our next stop in Lake Wales, Florida.