More South Carolina Waterfalls

Sunday morning, we tried to get an early start as we had a bit of a drive. We headed east, passing Whitewater Falls and getting on SC-11 towards Greenville County. We turned onto US-276 and then headed into Asbury Hills Methodist Camp. Although privately property, the people here are nice enough to allow hikers to access their property when camp is not in session. Sandy had called in advance to get permission and the gate code. We parked near the basketball courts and started hiking up the red-blazed Asbury Trail. Initially, it passes a lake, though it was completely dry. The trail then heads upstream along Matthews Creek. It was clear that not a lot of other people had hiked this trail recently as the spider webs across the trail were awful. Clearing them with hiking poles was only marginally effective. We picked up some downed branches along the side of the trail that were more helpful although I imagine we looked strange waving long branches around as we hiked.

In a little over a mile, we came to the cable bridge across Matthews Creek and got on the pink-blazed Naturaland Trust Trail, turning right. We followed this trail until the next split at a cairn and went right on an unofficial trail that looked like an old road. Shortly thereafter, we made another right at a cairn and followed the path to the top of Moonshine Falls.

We stopped for a snack in the cave area behind the falls, where old rusty drums and distillation equipment remain.

It’s no surprise where Moonshine Falls got its name. I then climbed down to the base for some more pictures.

Although the upper part of the falls that flows past the cave was still going well, the lower cascades were almost nonexistent. After some pictures, we climbed back up to the path and continued down the path. There’s not much of a path, but a few pieces of flagging tape helped ensure we were going the right way.

We came to some downed trees and got off the path for a bit, then found it again and continued until we got to another mess of downed trees. We went to the right to get around the trees and headed down to creek level, but came out quite a bit downstream of our target. So we had to make a difficult bushwhack upstream to Confusion Falls.

Not sure where this waterfall got its name – confusion in trying to find the waterfall or confusion from too much moonshine? Either way, it’s a pretty nice waterfall even with the low water flow. A fallen log split the waterfall where the two streams converge. Then we climbed back up to the second mess of downed trees and followed the path back. Fortunately, on the hike back, most of the spider webs were still cleared from our hike in. From Asbury Hills, we headed west back into Pickens County and took US-178 north to Horse Pasture Road and parked at the Foothills Trail parking area here. We hiked a short ways on the gravel road, then turned left onto Eastatoe Gorge Trail, a spur of the Foothills Trail. The yellow-blazed trail follows an old road along a ridgeline high above Eastatoe Creek. At a few points, we could hear the creek far below.

In about 2 miles, the trail makes a descent into the gorge via a number of switchbacks. I was surprised to see several other groups of people here. I thought this place was pretty much unknown. But they were heading up, so when we reached the gorge, we had it all to ourselves. We turned right at the bottom and went to the small platform overlooking the Narrows.

It’s not a huge waterfall, but extremely scenic with the water tumbling down through an extremely narrow gorge. This is another of the few waterfalls that I thought looked better in low water. After a few pictures, we started making our way back. The climb back up was steep, but the switchbacks reduced the slope and we stopped to see some mushrooms growing along the way.

After getting up out of the gorge, the rest of the hike back was pretty easy. Once back at the car, we headed south on US-178 and took Cleo Chapman Highway west as we headed to the parking area for Twin Falls off Water Falls Road. Not surprisingly, there were a lot of cars here. The hike is an easy quarter-mile and Twin Falls is a great waterfall.

Reedy Cove Creek splits into two streams at the top of waterfall, hence the name. To the left, the water plunges off a 75-foot granite cliff while the right stream tumbles and cascades down and around boulders before the two streams meet up at the bottom.

It was dry and the water level was low so we were able to climb around on the rocks and get up close to the waterfall.

I had taken my boots off, but hadn't need to, as there were enough dry surfaces to walk all around with getting wet. The last time I had been here, the water level was way up and there was no way to safely get out on the rocks here.

On the hike back, we stopped to see the cute little water wheel along the trail. There was no water, however, so the wheel wasn't turning.

After some pictures, we headed back to the car and made our way to Pickens for dinner. We had pizza at Tonys and then headed back to camp.

Pickens County Waterfalls

We woke up early again and quickly broke camp, then made our way to Pickens County. From the Cherry Hill Camp, we took SC-107 north almost to NC, then SC-130 down to SC-11 to cross Lake Jocassee/Lake Keowee. Just across the lake, we turned on Cleo Chapman Highway and took this to Eastatoe Community Road and then turned on Waterfalls Road. This road terminates at the trailhead for Twin Falls. The hike to Twin Falls is an easy quarter-mile walk along Reedy Cove Creek, passing a a cute old, but functioning waterwheel on the way.

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.