Saturday, September 21, 2024

Keowee-Toxaway Natural Bridge Loop (Pickens County, South Carolina)

 

I'm making my up to North Carolina this morning for some hiking and along the way, I'm hitting a few spots. The first is the natural bridge at Keowee-Toxaway State Park in South Carolina. I picked this spot and most of the others simply because they are on or very near my planned route. After parking my car and using the visitor's center restroom, I headed out on the trail. There are a couple of options here, but I'm always a fan of seeing interesting geological formations such as arches and natural bridges.

The trail is wide and well maintained. There are a few people here, including a group of four twenty-something men hiking the trail barefoot . . . interesting. The southern section of the loop descends slowly until it reaches the small trickle of Poe Creek. The trail passes over the top of a large rock, which I believe has fallen here in eons past. It's a large semi-flat rock under which the creek flows. This is the natural bridge. After crossing, I find a spot on the lower side to rock hop a bit and get a good shot of the cave created underneath the bridge. It's an interesting site to behold. 

From there, I continue along the loop trail and pass a couple of small waterfalls. Nothing spectacular, but nice additions to the landscape. It's very humid this morning and even though I've only hiked about 1.3 miles on this short diversion, I'm sweating pretty good. I head back to the car and toward my next stop.

No comments:

Post a Comment