In mid-September, my wife and I took a trip out to Portland, Oregon for a week, for a vacation. Besides getting the wonderful opportunity to spend some time with family up there, we took the opportunity to do a little hiking around the Portland area. The three hikes we took during that week are the Lower Maple Trail Loop in Forest Park, the Oak Island Trail on Sauvie Island, and Horsetail Falls along the Columbia River Gorge.
In early September, I took this trip to view Hidden Falls, in Oconee State Park in upstate SC. The trail starts from the Foothills trailhead. Round trip, this hike is about 5.5 miles, but it's a relatively easy hike. It's only as one approaches the falls that the elevation changes significantly. Approaching the falls, the trail dips downward into a small valley, and of course, that means one has to climb back up later.
I had tried to find the Long Creek Falls trail some weeks before, and failed. I ended up on the Oconee Trail, instead. But, I decided to try again to locate this trail. The directions say to take Hwy. 76 up towards Clayton from Westminster, SC. You turn left at Damascus Church Road and then turn right on Battle Creek Road. So far so good. This is where it gets difficult. According to the directions I'd found on the web and in my waterfall hikes manual, the next step is to turn right on Turkey Ridge Road, also known as FS755.
The Lower Whitewater Falls Trail starts just short of the North Carolina - South Carolina border on Hwy. 130 from a parking lot of Duke Power's Bad Creek Hydroelectric Station. This 2-mile hike in to an overlook for the falls is moderately strenuous, and provides a series of great views through extremely varied terrain.
The Sourwood Trail is part of the Lake Russell Recreation Area in Habersham County, Georgia, near Mt. Airy. This trail is in my old stomping grounds, as I spent my teenage years in Habersham County. It's a lovely trail, with a nice little waterfall around the midway point.
About 20 miles north of Walhalla, SC is the Yellow Branch Recreation Area, which contains the trailhead for the Yellow Branch Falls trail. This trail winds its way across streams may times before reaching the Yellow Branch waterfall. This trail is about 1.5 miles to the falls, and it is an easy-to-moderate hike.
The Raven Rock trail is part of a small network of hiking trails in the Keowee Toxaway State Park in upstate South Carolina. This trail is a loop trail that branches off from the Natural Bridge loop trail, in the same area. Together, the Natural Bridge and Raven Rock trails form a 4.1-mile loop. The trailhead for these two trails is just off the visitor's center for the park, just off of Hwy. 11, between Hwy. 130 and U.S. 178.
