Just past this is a wooden platform overlooking the falls.
As the name implies, there are two falls – Reedy Cove splits into a tall 75-foot freefall to the left and a smaller drop and slide down a 45° rock face to the right, with the two streams meeting back up at the bottom. The views from the platform were nice, but the cascades to the right were somewhat obscured by foliage so we climbed down to the rocks below the platform for a better view.
Between the recent rains and spray from the waterfall, the rocks were quite slippery, but we managed to get out and get some shots from various angles.
The spray from the waterfall was pretty strong, which did make it difficult to get good pictures, though. I also ended up slipping on the wet rocks once, but didn't hurt myself too much. After that, I was a bit more cautious and didn't venture too much further out on the rocks.
After enjoying this waterfall, we headed back to the cars. From here, we hopped on SC-11 to US-178 and drove north to Horse Pasture Road into Jocassee Gorge Management Area and the entrance to Eastatoe Creek Heritage Preserve. We parked here, which is also a trailhead for accessing the Foothills Trail, and hiked into the preserve following an easy-to-follow old logging road.
Along the way, we saw several critters, including some toads, a garter snake sunning himself on the trail, and more mushrooms.
I'm not sure if it was the time of year or the recent rains or just the location, but we saw a tremendous number of really neat mushrooms on this entire trip.
The trail follows the old logging road along Narrow Ridge running parallel to Eastatoe Creek along the ridgelinefor about 2 miles.
Towards the end of the trail, it departs from the ridge and heads down into the gorge. Although it was quite steep, a series of switchbacks and wooden stairs made it seem a little less steep. Due to the humidity, I was sweating a lot going down, meaning going back up would be worse. When we got to the bottom, there was a split and we initially went left passing a primitive campsite as we headed upstream. Soon we realized we had gone the wrong way and turned around to take the right fork to a wooden platform overlooking The Narrows. Eastatoe Creek drops 600 feet through the preserve, culminating at The Narrows, where it flows through narrow channels.
There was no climbing down from this overlook, so after a few pictures of the falls, we started back. Heading back up, we stopped to put some marking tape on a tree indicating that the falls are to the right, and then made the hike back up to the ridge. It wasn’t as bad as I had expected and soon we were back on the old logging road. This was the second and last waterfall in Pickens County, so back at the cars, we continued making our way east. We got back on SC-11 going past Table Rock and turning onto US-276 towards Caesars Head State Park. Our last waterfall for the day was Moonshine Falls, which can be accessed through Caesars Head State Park (although I believe the waterfall itself is on private property). However, there is a somewhat easier way to visit this waterfall by heading through Asbury Hills Methodist Camp. Justine had emailed the camp and got permission to hike through their property and the gate code to enter the camp. Past the gate, we drove through the camp and parked near the basketball hoops. As we were getting ready, a girl who worked there greeted us and gave us a couple of maps. We thanked her and set out on the red-blazed Asbury Trail. We passed a lake before heading through the woods. A couple of side trails led to “waterfalls”, but these were barely cascades and not worth leaving the trail for. I think these were marked more as challenges for young campers to find while staying at the camp. Towards the end of this trail, we approached Matthews Creek and crossed the creek on a cable bridge. The cable bridge consisted of two cables running between trees on opposite sides of the creek. One was for the feet and the other was to hold on to while crossing. I had never used one of these before and was a little nervous at first, but it was kind of fun once I got on. Across the bridge, we followed the pink-blazed Naturaland Trust Trail. We hiked for a ways on this trail, turning right at two rock cairns and then heading down a short side trail to the waterfall.
Moonshine Falls is named for an illicit moonshine still that used the cover and remoteness of the waterfall to hide the evidence of this illegal operation. There are still several rusty old drums behind the waterfall from those days.
It is possible to get behind the waterfall near the drums and view it from different angles.
But to see the entire thing, we had to climb down to the base.
We had some fun playing around at the falls, but since we were parked on private property, we headed back so we would be off their land well before dark. On the way back, we started to hear thunder suggesting another storm was rolling in. Luckily, it didn’t start to rain until right after we had gotten back across the cable bridge. I really didn't want to try and cross that in the rain, so I felt relieved when the rain held out until right after we had all crossed. And we were more prepared this time with our rain gear. It rained most of the rest of the way back through Asbury Camp, but never too hard and had tapered off by the time we got back to our cars. We were supposed to camp at Caesars Head State Park so heading out of Asbury Camp, we turned left on US-276. Just past the camp, we made a quick stop at Bald Rock Heritage Preserve. Bald Rock is a huge granite outcrop with great views of the surrounding foothills.
Unfortunately, the rock itself has been heavily vandalized by graffiti painted on nearly every available surface. Although most of it is kind of trashy, there were a couple of spots of graffiti that were actually artistic in a sense.
Well, maybe if it wasn't defacing such a nice natural overlook, anyway. We walked around here, enjoying the views from the rock and checking out the graffiti, mostly "so-and-so was here" or "I love so-and-so".
We found one that was an outline of a human body and all took turns getting our pictures taken playing dead in a "chalk outline". Then we headed back to the cars and headed to the park to set up camp. When we got to Caesars Head, the ranger told us that we were actually camping at Jones Gap State Park. The two parks are connected as the Mountain Bridge Wilderness Area. But it would be a bit of a drive and just as we were leaving, the rain started up again. Although we were in the car to stay dry, it made driving on the windy and steep US-276 a little bit treacherous. We had Subway for dinner in Marietta before heading to Jones Gap. It was almost dark when we arrived, so we quickly backpacked our stuff to site 1 and set up. The state park had warm-water showers so we took advantage of these before getting to bed.
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