Icy Morning Hike
I spent a frigid, icy morning on the Tamassee Knob trail in Oconee State Park in upstate South Carolina and the view from the top is amazing.
On the last weekend in January, I headed out to Oconee State Park to try out the Tamassee Knob trail, a moderate 2.1-mile hike (one-way) to the top of a 1,620-foot peak in upstate South Carolina. A beautiful hike, made a little more interesting by lingering ice from the previous cold night and some fantastic low-lying clouds.
The Tamassee Knob Trail trailhead is in the same place as the Hidden Falls trail, an entryway to the Foothills Trail. Having been there before, I headed over to the parking area, taking care to avoid the icy spots on the roads. This is the fourth trail I’ve done in this park, and I was struck by the difference in how many people were around. The place was practically deserted; not too surprising it being the dead of winter, but it was still pretty odd, as this park is normally very well populated. But, that wasn’t the last surprise I got, as I neared the parking area.
The parking area was covered with a thin veneer of ice and there were logs laying around. Not as if they had fallen, but like they were cut and laid out to some purpose. I could still have parked there, but I just wasn’t sure what was happening, the hiking kiosk was not there anymore, and it just looked suspicious. So, I decided to park over nearer the camping areas and walk over to the trailhead.
Parking was no problem, since it was deserted, and then I walked over to the trailhead. This I extended my hike somewhat, as the trailhead was down the road from where I parked, but hey, more distance never hurts. I must say that the walk over was a bit of an adventure, because there were patches of ice all over the place, so I chose my steps rather carefully. I had one or two nervous slides over the ice, but I kept my feet.
As I got just on to the trail, I saw where the hiking kiosk had been moved, and there was a note attached saying that the parking area was closed. Not really the best way to warn folks, because you can’t see the warning until you park, and by that time it might have been too late. Regardless, I started off on the trail, which was quite familiar, from previous hikes, but eventually, I came to the junction where the Tamassee Knob Trail heads off to the right. As I headed up to the top, I started seeing how the clouds were flowing around the hills to either side. I could see it through the trees, hoping I could get a good shot of it, but even with the trees stripped bare in winter, I couldn’t get a clear line of sight.
As expected, the trail mostly headed upward at varying levels of difficulty, never getting very strenuous. But, there was at least one spot where there was a short steep climb down, made slightly precarious due to the melting ice, which turned the slope into mud. I slid, but made it down without incident (getting back up was fun as well). Not far from there, I started seeing some scat on the trail that looked pretty fresh. I am not a particularly skilled tracker, so I have no idea what made the scat, but I made sure to make some noise to let whatever might be out there know that I was there. Nothing came of it, but one never knows. For all I know, it was a stray dog.
As I neared the top, off to the right, the trees along the trail thinned out enough to provide a fantastic view of the low lying clouds over the hills, and I got some nice images. Then, I kept going to the top where I got a view of the other side from a flat rock outcropping. The valley spreads out, sporadically interrupted by hills, with the Carolina Blue Ridge mountains visible just beyond. The cloud cover was starting to lift at that point, so you could see the entire scene clearly.
Coming back down, I met a crew of other dedicated hikers going up the trail. They looked familiar, and I thought later that they might have been the same hikers I had met when I did the Hidden Falls Trail. Probably not, but it would have been an interesting bit of serendipity. By the time I got back to the road, the ice had thinned out, and I was able to make it back to the car at more speed than on the way to the trailhead.
