Into the swamp
More than 15 miles of hiking biking and kayaking trails await visiting groups at the nature preserve near Andrews.
Photo by Mic Smith
For too long, swamps have gotten a bad name. Think: Great Dismal Swamp, Hellhole Swamp, Bug Swamp. Think: metaphors for corruption, or for being overwhelmed. In popular culture, swamps spawn muck monsters: Creature from the Black Lagoon, Lizard Man, Swamp Thing. Even the very word itself—swamp—seems to be one short vowel drowning in a gurgle of thick consonants.
The Black River Cypress Preserve, outside of Andrews, seeks to change all that. And a visit there shows you swamps for what they truly are—stunningly beautiful wetlands that play an invaluable ecological role, which must be protected.
“The overarching goal is that when people come here, they understand the environment in which they live,” says Jonathan Keyser, the preserve’s executive director, one spring day when we are walking on one of the property’s 18 trails.
To our right, ibises stalk through the swamp, their long beaks probing the mud flats, their white bodies appearing like flashes of light under a dark canopy of cypress and tupelo. To our left, the terrain rises ever so slightly into upland pine savanna, where butterflies flit among an understory of native plants: goldenrod, elderberry and milkwort.
Keyser adds, “An important part of the whole education here is just making people aware of the beautiful botany that's around them. This is pretty representative of coastal South Carolina, just inland, and what you might have found a couple hundred years ago.”
But it was only eight years ago when the New York philanthropist and conservationist Gilbert Butler purchased the property. Once a pine plantation and then a hunt club, the preserve’s 1,000-acre Swampside Tract is now open to groups of six or more that want to take a guided hiking or biking tour, at no cost. A second nearby tract, the Peninsula Tract, offers visitors the chance to kayak with a guide through a famed section of the Black River known for its grand cypress trees and sinuous tannin-dark water.
“His primary purpose is conservation, protecting waterways and floodplains,” says the preserve’s outdoor education and recreation manager, Sarah Wilson. “But the other half of his mission is physical fitness. He wants people to be able to get outdoors—to learn to appreciate land and hopefully to grow into adults who want to protect it.”
Once you contact the preserve to schedule the date and time of your visit, the preserve’s guides will customize a tour based on your group’s needs. School groups, church groups, staff retreats, birdwatchers, leadership teams, environmental programs—the collection of people who visit is nearly as diverse as the 500 species of native plants found throughout the property.
Duane Draper, chair of the Inlet and Bay Stewards—a volunteer group that supports the North Inlet-Winyah Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve—recently took his members to the Black River Cypress Preserve for a retreat. The Winyah Bay watershed is downstream from the preserve, and members were thrilled to see how the dynamics of the Black River affect the health of the estuary.
“For some of these folks, it was the first time they were exposed to it, and they just loved it,” he says.
On the day of my group’s visit, we walked a little over a mile on the Swampside Trail toward the John’s Lake Picnic Pavilion, stopping occasionally to observe little “pods” of identification signage for such unfamiliar species as overcup oak, dwarf pawpaw, and sensitive fern.
At the pavilion, we stood at the water’s edge as one of our guides, the preserve’s visitation coordinator, Shana Barrineau, pointed with a recently found turkey feather toward the river—its cypress trees under a sky punctuated with great egrets and wispy clouds, all of it doubly reflected in the dark water. Then we hopped on beach cruiser bikes and pedaled several more miles, crossing bridges whose wood had been reclaimed from the Coney Island Boardwalk, making our way along trails of crushed gravel that are wheelchair-accessible and past restored stands of longleaf pine.
We had come expecting to take in the natural beauty of the site, but we found ourselves pleasantly surprised at just how physically invigorating the visit turned out to be.
And that, after all, is the mission. As every conservationist knows: You won’t protect what you don’t love, and you won’t love what you don’t experience.
“One might take in an inspired view—that’s our goal,” says Keyser, “but we want people to leave here inspired, too. Appreciative of where they live. We live in such a great place, and we want to take care of it.”
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Get There
The Black River Cypress Preserve is located near Andrews and open for scheduled visits February through June and September through November. Groups of six or more can schedule a visit by going to cypresspreserve.org/visit and filling out the contact fields. There is no cost for visiting Black River Cypress Preserve. However, if you request to kayak, your group will be required to hire certified guides. See the reserve website for more information