Earlier this year, my son Andrew and I went to have a Spring adventure at Congaree National Park, SC’s only National Park, on the Congaree River about 15 miles south of Columbia, SC, just off Hwy. 48. I had been there before many, many years ago, and I wanted to show Andrew some of the big trees found in the park. He had been thinking about become a National Park Ranger.
As it turned out, most of the park’s boardwalk was under water and we couldn’t get to see the really big trees, although we did see some pretty big ones. We did this first trip in early February on a day when it was about 65 degrees. A few weeks later on Feb. 13, 2010, we received 8 inches of snow. It was a very strange, but wet winter.
You can read about that last trip at this link.
When I heard on the radio that the Columbia area hadn’t had any rain in over 50 days, I figured it might be a good time to return, hoping the pathways to the big trees would be high and dry.
This time instead of traveling back roads to get to the park we drove to I-26 and went to Columbia where we picked up I-77 and then got off at the Bluff Road exit onto Hwy. 48 to travel the 15 miles south to the park.
When we got to the park there were a lot more cars in the parking lot than there were last February and there were already a good number of folks on the elevated boardwalks. We headed to the low boardwalk where we could not get to when it was under water. For some reason we were headed toward the River Trail which would go across Cedar Creek to Wise Lake and then on to the bank of the Congaree River – a five mile hike there and five miles back.
The park was dry as a bone, which was unusual since about ten times a year floodwaters from the Congaree River cover nearly 80 percent of the park. Everywhere we walked you could see low areas that normally would have been wet. Cedar Creek was still flowing, but not by much. So water wasn’t going to prevent us from going anywhere this time.
You might say our timing was perfect since within the few days after our trip the rain has come down like there will be no tomorrow and I bet the park is filling up with water again.
I think we were suffering from what former Reserve Board Chairman, Alan Greenspan called “irrational exuberance” in our ability to knock out 10 miles as if it was just a morning stroll. But we were both in much better shape than we were in February due to exercise and a change in diet, but by the time we reached within a mile of the river we knew it might have been a foolish goal. The sun was high in the sky and the tree canopy was thinning out, but we were determined to reach the river.
Andrew checking out Wise Lake
Another view of Wise Lake
Along the way we ran into a couple of wild pigs who ran when they heard us coming. We also heard some grunts off the trail which gave us thoughts of wild boars with huge tusks, but we never saw any – all we saw were places where the pigs or hogs had been rooting around, but those areas were pretty dry, so I figured it was some time ago when they were doing that. I’m sure they were looking for wetter areas – closer to Wise Lake and Cedar Creek.
A scene along the trail
The trouble when to get to the end of a trail or a hike is that you usually have just as far to go back to where you started and at the edge of the river it seemed a long way back. The only highlight was that we were seeing some pretty interesting sights along the way. We had discovered some seeds along the trail that looked like brown lima beans and then later found the dried pod from which they came, but with the diversity of trees it was hard determining which tree they came from. So we had to get back to the Visitors Center to find out exactly what they were and what tree they came from. It was good to have a mission to complete to drive us back on our return march.
This is proof that we did reach the river
About half way back on that return march I was beginning to have thoughts about the Batan Death March during WWII. Not that I’m comparing this little march to that horrible event, but I felt like I was lifting one foot after another just in the hopes that someday I was going to get to someplace I could rest. But I was being forced to march on just to show my 23 year-old son I could. I’m enjoying the last of my 50′s as my wife Linda put it, but still dumb enough to want to show the kid the old man can still do stuff. Maybe when you get to be 60 you stop all that stuff?
One of the regular sized trees along the River Trail
In fact, the vision I was having was of one of the benches placed along the main boardwalk. There was really no good place to sit along the trail after you left the main boardwalk, and somehow along the way I had picked up a small stone in one of my boots. How that happens I never know, but it always seems to happen.
As we started to see signs that we were getting closer to the main boardwalk our death march changed back to a hike again. But we still had more ground and boardwalk to cover as we wanted to still see the big Loblolly Pine, which meant traveling another trail, something we should have done first, but…
On this trip we didn’t hear many birds, a few woodpeckers knocking in the distance, but overall it was pretty quiet. Other than the pigs, we didn’t see much wildlife and it wasn’t until we were back within 20 feet from the Visitor Center when we saw our first snake – down under the elevated boardwalk. And, we wouldn’t have seen it if some other hikers hadn’t pointed it out to us. Go figure. Back on the trail toward the river the trail was getting overgrown and there was a lot of clutter on the trail – just where you would expect to see snakes or wild boars charging down the path. But I can tell you on the way back, I didn’t think of anything other than that next step and the one after that. I wasn’t doing much sight seeing anymore, I was in survival mode.
When we finally reached the main boardwalk and found that bench I was dreaming about and after I removed the boulder from my boot, we headed toward that big Loblolly Pine.
When we got there we found out that we were probably 50 yards away from it on our last trip, but the ground was covered by three feet of water, but it was one big tree – or so we thought. After we took a few photos we headed back to the Visitor Center.
Here I am next to this very big Loblolly Pine
Boy, walking into the air-conditioned Visitor Center was quite a climate change. The day had started out OK, but by mid-day it was 90 + degrees and the humidity was high.
We stumped the first two park attendants with our find on the trail, but we were in luck since a biologist had just finished doing a lecture and he identified what we had found as dried up fruit of the Paw Paw tree, which happens to be the largest edible fruit indigenous to our continent. I bet you didn’t know that. And, it turns out that Andrew had guessed which tree it was coming from by which trees were always near where we found the seeds on the trail.
What the Paw Paw fruit looks like normally
I later learned the answer to another question we developed while walking the trails while reading a handout I picked up at the Visitor Center as we were leaving about the purpose of the Bald Cypress knees – as to what function they serve and it turns out scientists don’t really know for sure. There are a lot of theories but no final answers. Mother Nature is a clever one.
Unfortunately while we were talking with these folks about the Paw Paw trees we also learned that the Loblolly Pine we saw was no longer the National Champion. It was replaced by a tree a mile and a half away down a different trail. Something to shoot for on the next trip.
The Congaree National Park’s National Champion is a Loblolly Pine, Pinus taeda, which has a circumference of 176 inches (that’s almost 15 ft.), a height of 167 feet, and a spread of 71 feet,
To search the list of the 2010 National Register of Big Trees check this link (http://www.americanforest.org/resources/bigtrees/).
But these are the National Champion trees in the Carolinas:
NC – European Buckthorn, Cinnamon Clethra, Devils-walkingstick, Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir, Clammy Locust, Paper-mulberry, Longleaf Pine, Table mountain Pine, Catawba Rhododendron, Rosebay Rhododendron (seems NC & SC are fighting over this one), and Red Spruce.
SC – Hercules-club, Sand Hickory, Florida Maple, Laurel Oak, Scarlet Oak, Loblolly Pine, Sand Pine, Possumhaw, Japanese Privet, Rosebay Rhododendron (I’m sure ours is bigger), Sweetgum, Florida Torreya, and Swamp Tupelo.
The Congaree National Park is open 24/7 and it’s free admission, no charge for parking and they have very nice rest rooms.
You can learn a lot more about the Park at (www.nps.gov/cong/). You can also become a member of the Friends of the Congaree Swamp by visiting (www.friendsofcongaree.org), and if you want to plan a trip there, you can call the Harry Hampton Visitor Center at 803/776-4396 to check on water levels or temporary closures and other visitor and safety info. They can also tell you what number the bug meter is set on.
There were very few bugs when we were there, probably due to the lack of rain, but we ran into plenty of spiders and spider webs on the trails off the main boardwalk.
The Congaree National Park is a good day trip opportunity. It took us four hours of travel there and back and we spent six hours in the park. We got gas and a late lunch in Columbia off I-77.
Check it out for yourself.
