Weather: Saturday - clear skies, high 60 low 38; Sunday - clear skies high 44
After a quick equipment check at the Scout Hut at 8AM, we departed the church, bound for adventure on a beautiful weekend at the Chatooga River. The drive up was pleasant, and uneventful until we reached a police blockade on SC 107 about 5 miles down from our original ending trailhead, where we had planned to drop the shuttle vehicle and continue to the starting trailhead with everyone in the church minibus. Apparently, a generator was being moved up the road a piece, and the road wouldn't be open for another 2 1/2 hours. Disappointed, we turned around and headed back down the mountain to a mom and pop grocery/gas station and the bottom of the mountain (junction of SC 28 and 107). After a short conversation with the store owners, we discovered that a gravel road, Burrel's Ford Rd, ran from 28 to 107, possibly coming out above the road blocks. Spirits uplifted, we headed off in search of Burrel's Ford Road. A short time later, we arrived at the upper trailhead, and decided upon observing that the upper roadblock was at Burrel's Ford Road, we would hike in and back out (total trip distance of ~9 miles) instead of the original plan to hike from Fish Hatchery Road to Cherry Hill Recreation area (~12 miles).
After a short lunch at the trailhead, we departed. Although the trail was initially thought to be mostly downhill, we started the trip with a slight uphill (and with some mild complaints). The trail eventually flattened out and we fell into a good pace of around 2 mph.
We arrived at camp right next to the Chatooga River around 3:30 PM and quickly set up camp so that we could make a short trip to beautiful King's Cross Falls before dinner.
King's Cross Creek plummets 70 feet over the falls to form one of the more spectacular views in the vicinity of Burrel's Ford.
After spending some time at the falls for a few photos, we hiked back to camp to gather firewood at eat dinner as night was rapidly approaching. After dinner most everyone wandered off to their tents to sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night (between 9 PM and 2 AM), another group of campers showed up, set up camp at the adjacent campsite (about 15-20 yards away from ours), and proceeded to talk LOUDLY until around 3AM (best guess). We retaliated by singing the good morning song LOUDLY this morning to wake our group up at 7:15 AM.
We hiked back up the logging road to the Burrel's Ford parking lot, where we left our backpacks to hike up to Spoonauger Falls.
On the way back, Sara saw this mossy rock, tricklefall and wanted me to get a picture of it, so I did...
The return trip from Burrel's Ford Road to Fish Hatchery Road was pleasant and uneventful. Upon arrival at Fish Hatchery road, there were smiles and high-fives all around. Congratulations to all the first-timers and thank you to everyone for a wonderful trip.
AWARDS:
The trooper award goes to Sara for keeping up with Shaun for the entire trip
The toastmaster award goes to Wes for being a toasting machine
First injury was Shaun, ripping the nail off his left middle finger while closing the back door of the minibus in the parking lot of the Church right before our departure on Saturday.
