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Paddling on Cedar Creek is one of the best ways to experience Congaree National Park, a 27,000-acre swath of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest—the largest and one of the last such forests in the country.
Photo by Thomas Hammond
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National parks YouTuber Cameron Sabin says many people who don’t appreciate Congaree National Park are “just not looking hard enough.”
Photo by Thomas Hammond
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Congaree National Park is one of only three known publicly accessible places to witness rare synchronous fireflies in North America. They put on their mating show in the park for about two weeks in late spring.
Photo by Thomas Hammond
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Congaree Park Ranger Shelby Bentley educates visitors about the park’s rare synchronous fireflies.
Photo by Thomas Hammond
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Congaree’s synchronous fireflies—or, lightning bugs, if you prefer—are so iconic that Columbia named its minor league baseball team the Fireflies. The team’s mascot, Mason (named for the jars often used for catching backyard fireflies), visits the park with some players.
Photo by Thomas Hammond
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A “mosquito meter” at the Congaree visitor center warns hikers of what to expect when they venture into the muggy, buggy environment.
Photo by Thomas Hammond
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Knobby-kneed cypress trees stand tall throughout the swampy forest of Congaree National Park.
Photo by Thomas Hammond
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Yes, there are bugs—lots of them, including “daddy-longlegs” spiders—in Congaree National Park. But what did you expect from a swamp in South Carolina?
Photo by Thomas Hammond
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Congaree National Park has the largest concentration of “champion” trees in the country—25 of the tallest trees of their species—in a canopy that rivals the rainforests.
Photo by Thomas Hammond
Cameron Sabin slips his canoe down Cedar Creek, leading a group of intrepid paddlers on an early morning trip through Congaree National Park. They float past towering oaks, majestic tupelos and ancient water cypresses with their distinctive knobby knees.
A barred owl looks down curiously from its perch. A blue heron hunts silently in the shallows. And a brown spider, as big as your hand, works diligently on its web.
Sabin has seen all the postings from would-be travel influencers on YouTube, shutterbugs on Instagram and disgruntled reviewers on Yelp—Congaree National Park is one of the nation’s worst. He shakes his head and says, “They’re just not looking hard enough.”
The park’s reputation bubbled up from the depths of the internet and spread like a flood across social media. The complaints are many: There’s nowhere to park an RV. The park is dang hot in the summertime. It’s easy to get lost on often-flooded trails. It’s filled with spiders and snakes. And sometimes it’s so thick with bugs that the “mosquito meter” at the visitor center springs from “all clear” to “war zone.”
“A hellscape,” wrote one traumatized visitor. “There were literally spiders everywhere! One of the most terrifying experiences of my life.”
The complaints are justified, Sabin says. But what did you expect from a swamp in South Carolina?
Sabin makes his living online and considers himself an expert on such matters. He holds a degree in biology from Clemson, lives in Columbia and has produced more than 200 videos on YouTube for his National Park Diaries channel, which has more than 82,500 subscribers. Although a local boy, raised in Charleston, he addresses issues facing national parks from Hawaii to Maine. And he’s well aware of the online haters of his hometown park, which sits only about a half-hour southeast of the state capital city.
Congaree is “a victim of people’s expectations,” Sabin says. “They don’t know what they are looking at.”
Those expectations spring from what many people think a national park should be—“monumental” like Yellowstone and Yosemite, filled with mountains, waterfalls, geysers or canyons. They should have breathtaking vistas and be teeming with animals like buffalo, black bears and elk.
But Congaree’s appeal is more subtle and serves a different purpose, preserving an endangered ecosystem that has remained largely untouched since the first humans wandered in 10,000 years ago. At 27,000 acres, it is the largest and one of the last remaining old-growth bottomland hardwood forests in the country, a landscape that once covered millions of acres on the East Coast before loggers moved in to harvest the giant pines, oaks and bald cypress trees.
Its beauty is dark, sometimes hard to see, hidden in sloughs, creeks and oxbow lakes. It’s best experienced by boat, particularly when flooded, or late at night on darkened trails when owls call from the towering trees. It is a mysterious place, a wilderness so remote that runaway enslaved people would hide there and bootleggers found it ideal for stashing stills. And some even claim the cypress knees turn into gnomes at midnight and roam their watery kingdom.
Unlike many national parks, admission is free, the gates are always open, and if you want to take a hike at 2 a.m., you’re welcome to do it. Just make sure you’re with a friend or group and have plenty of food and water. It’s easy to get lost and might get a little dicey, with the alligators, wild boar and all. It’s not for the faint of heart.
“It’s one of the last great wild places in the Southeast,” says Fran Rametta, who first came to the park in 1980 when it was still known as “Congaree Swamp.” Rametta helped cut trails through the forest and build the boardwalk with volunteer labor. He started the nighttime owl walks that are still held today and watched the visitor center being built years later. Despite the improvements, 90% of visitors still experience less than 1% of the park’s deep wilderness.
“Once you’re immersed in it, it fuels your primitive instincts,” Rametta says. “The beauty is in the little details. The dragonfly that lands on your finger. The reflection of the pools in flood. The lizard that changes color before your eyes. You get to see miracles.”
Home to rare beauty
Efforts to preserve Congaree began in the 1950s, when Harry Hampton, a conservationist and writer for The State newspaper, and others began campaigning to save the land from the imminent threat of logging. It and other vast tracts of bottomland were owned by forestry mogul Francis Beidler, and Congaree survived in part because it was just too hard to get to.
With help from the Sierra Club and other conservation groups, Congaree was designated a natural national landmark in 1974, a national monument in 1988, an international biosphere reserve in 1983 and the country’s newest national park in 2003.
The park’s designations are warranted. It has the largest concentration of “champion” trees in the country—25 of the tallest trees of their species—in a canopy that rivals the rainforests. They include a loblolly pine as tall as a 17-story building and bald cypress trees that are more than 500 years old. There may be more champions, because most trees hidden deep in the forest have never been measured. That remoteness, while frustrating for some casual visitors, is beneficial for the trees. It protects their roots from the trampling feet of well-meaning guests and the pocketknives of those who might want to leave their marks on a champion tree.
The park, which is covered by Tri-County Electric Cooperative territory, is also home to a staggering array of birds that feast on the bugs and other critters that thrive there. Woodpeckers and owls are in abundance, drawn by the tall trees. It was one of the last known habitats for the ivory-billed woodpecker, now extinct, and the very much endangered red-cockaded woodpecker, last seen in the park in the 1990s. Predatory eagles and hawks patrol the skies. Wading birds, such as herons, egrets and ibis, ply along its creeks and sloughs. And migratory birds as rare as wood storks have been spotted passing through.
Congaree is one of only three known publicly accessible places in the nation, along with the Great Smoky Mountains and a portion of southwestern Arizona, that are home to large numbers of synchronous fireflies. For about two weeks each spring, the rare lightning bugs flash in unison to attract mates, then, sadly, die shortly after. Since 2021, an annual lottery has been held to limit the number of people who travel from around the country and the world to witness the rare phenomenon. Columbia’s minor league baseball team is even named the Fireflies after the intriguing bugs.
Artist Lindsay Lindhult of New Jersey visited this past May to see the fireflies in action. She holds a doctorate in biology, illustrates arthropods for academic journals and researchers and even has a great black digger wasp tattooed on her left arm. (“Bugs are so misunderstood,” she says.)
Visiting Congaree was “a bucket list thing for me,” Lindhult says. She calls the park “awesome” and says the claims that it is the worse are “nonsense.”
“It’s one of the most unique national parks I’ve ever been to. It’s cozy and human-sized,” Lindhult says.
‘Check your expectations’
But none of that matters to the online haters, who seem surprised that snakes, alligators and spiders—big ones—might thrive in a “swamp.” (Well, it’s not technically a swamp, but who’s to argue?)
One online voice complained that children should be left at home to avoid any interaction with snakes. Another suggested the park should regularly spray for bugs and cut down trees to improve the views of the river. And yet another groused that it was hard to find a convenient spot to take a selfie.
“No amazing Instagram shots,” the post says.
To address the online haters, park rangers have taken to social media as well, posting on Facebook both the most scathing reviews and their responses. “It appears we are not beating the ‘Worst National Park’ allegations anytime soon. So, we're addressing (it) once again,” park officials write.
“Please … check your expectations just before your visit during our hottest, buggiest time of year. Please don't forget that it floods sometimes, that it does get quite hot here in the summer, that you may see snakes, spiders, and alligators, and that you may get a mosquito bite or 12.
“We here at Congaree understand our park just has a little too much nature for some visitors, and that’s okay! We love our real fans and even our haters all the same. See you soon!”
Owning the ‘worst’ and working for better
No publicity is bad publicity, the thought goes, “So we just decided to own it,” says park superintendent Greg Hauburger.
The park even applied to National Park Service higher-ups to begin printing T-shirts that goof on the “worst national park” theme. No word yet on whether the bureaucrats will buy it.
The park also is continuing to make improvements so it is more accessible for tenderfoots. It has embarked on a $4.6 million program to rebuild about three-quarters of the 2.6-mile boardwalk, which is all many visitors experience. Some lower sections that often are covered by floods are being raised to give the casual guest an opportunity to see the park inundated with water—which is the floodplain’s function in nature and which nourishes the champion trees.
Officials also are emphasizing the upper level of the park above the bluffs, a separate ecosystem of Southeastern pine forest that is home to deer, fox squirrels and other wildlife. They conduct frequent controlled burns to replace the wildfires that once occurred naturally and are fighting to control non-native, invasive plants. One goal is to provide a more welcoming environment for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker, which has been spotted, oddly enough, at the nearby Fort Jackson military base in Columbia.
National parks advocate Sabin, who led canoe and kayak trips through Congaree while building his online presence, understands why some people are put off by the park. “We’ve got a lot of things that people don’t like—spiders, snakes and mosquitoes,” he says.
But for those who come at the right time and have an eye for the details, magic can happen.
“There’s a power there,” he says. “You just have to look at it in a different way.”
Get there: The entrance to Congaree National Park is located at 100 National Park Road, Hopkins. Learn more at nps.gov/cong.
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Congaree National Park do’s and don’ts
Here are pro tips to make your trip to Congaree National Park more enjoyable.
Pick your times. The park changes from month to month and day to day. Avoid the summer months unless you’re prepared to battle heat and mosquitoes.
Check before hiking. The park floods often, so check for updates on the park’s condition and trail statuses.
Bring a map. Cellphone service is spotty. Get a map from the visitor center before straying off the boardwalk.
Follow a guide. Book a canoe trip down Cedar Creek or go on one of the park’s nighttime owl walks.
See the fireflies. For two weeks a year in late spring, rare synchronous fireflies put on their mating show. But you’ll need to enter a lottery to get admission.
Wear bug spray. Bugs can be a nuisance, particularly in summer. But only apply bug spray in the parking lot. You don’t want to drive off the fireflies!
Look closely. The beauty of the park is in the details.