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Kayaking to the far end of Pinnacle Lake provides a panoramic view of the mountain at Table Rock State Park.
Photo by Mic Smith
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Using Table Rock State Park’s Cabin 15 as their base camp, the Smith family spent four active summer days exploring S.C. state parks in the Upcountry.
Photo by Mic Smith
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Boaters at Devils Fork State Park can swim beneath the icy water of Mills Creek Falls as it tumbles into Lake Jocassee.
Photo by Mic Smith
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Just 100 yards from the Table Rock State Park nature center, hikers can enjoy the beauty of Carrick Creek Falls.
Photo by Mic Smith
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Governor’s Rock, an outcropping of granite on the trail to the 3,124-foot pinnacle of Table Rock, provides a convenient place to rest and enjoy mountain views.
Photo by Mic Smith
Our family’s minivan wove through Table Rock State Park after 2 a.m. as the moon peeked at us through silhouette trees. We pulled up to Cabin 15, and as we began to unpack belongings, our 14-year-old daughter checked her iPhone.
“No service,” she said with resignation.
I grinned. My husband and I had warned our three not to expect cell service or television on this trip, and our 9-year-old son, who had been binge-watching Treehouse Masters on Animal Planet during the summer, surprised me by saying, “I don’t want to have a TV.” He was ready to be in a real forest. Whether our two teenage girls could live without Instagram remained to be seen.
The kids settled into bed, and I picked up the book The First Family of Outsiders, which I found stashed in the cabin with games like Scrabble and Yahtzee. The author, Spring Slagle, is a Palmetto State mom whose own desire to unplug led her family to visit all of South Carolina’s 47 state parks.
Our goal was far more modest: spend four summer days sampling the adventures that awaited us in several Upstate state parks. Traveling out from our base camp at Table Rock, we planned to climb mountains, investigate waterfalls, jump from the lake high dive, take in a genuine square dance and close our days around the firepit right here at Cabin 15. Before it was all over, we would wonder why we hadn’t made time for a trip like this much sooner.
A cabin and a park with history
We are a family of hikers, not campers. Fortunately, Table Rock State Park has not only plenty of campground space but also furnished cabins. Several, including ours, were built by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps, which created the park, most of its buildings, the two main trails and Pinnacle Lake during the 1930s. Table Rock Lodge, where we would listen to local bluegrass musicians play later in the week, is held up as one of the state’s finest examples of “park-itecture.”
Cabin 15 is set off on a hill with only one other cabin. While renovated with a modern kitchen and bathroom, it has its original wood walls, ceilings and chimney. There’s also a screened porch with rocking chairs and, of course, the large firepit for roasting marshmallows.
We slept comfortably until the sounds of a maintenance crew next door woke us just after 8 a.m. It seemed an unlucky start until we ventured out and met Cliff McLeod, a park staffer.
McLeod, 66, actually lived in Cabin 15 in the mid-1960s, after his father became a park ranger. “We had a good time up here. We’ll just put it like that,” said McLeod, who was fortunate to become a teenager on Table Rock.
He pointed to Cabin 16, which he said used to be the barracks for the young lifeguards who watched over Pinnacle Lake’s beach. The old-fashioned swimming spot continues to be popular today and still has a high dive—a rare find that would delight my husband and son—as well as kayaks and paddleboats.
Growing up, McLeod made $3 a day renting boats and picking up trash. He eventually left for the Navy but returned after 24 years and started work at Table Rock once again.
He told us about a hidden trail behind our cabin that leads to remnants of the park’s now-defunct fish hatchery. When we explained that we would be hiking the main trail to the mountaintop, he advised us to look for snakes and yellow-jacket nests.
“Take plenty of water and be careful,” he advised. “Y’all look like you’re pretty much used to hiking, so it shouldn’t be a problem for you.”
The race to the top
The landscape photo of the park stretched over the stone fireplace of Cabin 15 proved to be all the inspiration our 14-year-old daughter needed for the trek to the 3,124-foot summit of Table Rock. “Remember...,” she said as she traced the challenging, rocky trail we would take to the top of the mountain.
On a day trip the year before, she and her brother reached the summit with their dad. Their older sister and I had failed to finish the last leg of the rocky trail, which is 3.5 miles one way, much of it on an incline. If we didn’t make it to the top this time, we would be shamed forever. Nothing like a little family competition to make the hike more interesting.
Table Rock enchanted me on our family’s first visit, and as we started up the mountain late that morning, I remembered why. For starters, hikers enjoy immediate gratification 100 yards from the Nature Center with a close-up view of Carrick Creek waterfall. A new observation deck allows you to linger, and for those who want easier hiking, there are several options, including the Carrick Creek Trail, a moderate 2-mile loop with more waterfall views.
In contrast, the rugged Table Rock National Recreation Trail that we followed rates as “very strenuous,” not only because of the steep incline but also because of the stone steps and twisted roots that complicate the path. Like a fairy-tale woods, the trail holds a hint of potential peril. For me, the best part of our hike would be in examining the forest floor, where fallen leaves, tree stumps and other decay give way to new life. My husband, a professional photographer, was more motivated by the panoramic payoff up top.
“Just think, with every step it’s getting cooler,” he pointed out as he encouraged me to speed along in the August heat. While there was some truth in that, the backpack I agreed to carry seemed heavier with each step. We live in the Lowcountry—at sea level. I prepared for this trip at home by bumping up the incline on our treadmill but couldn’t keep pace with the rest of my sporty family.
My 9-year-old grabbed the backpack and ran back up the bend. “C’mon, Mommy!”
I caught up with the kids as they reached a boulder nearly the size of our cabin. The girls wondered about the easiest way to get around it. Our son purposefully picked the trickiest option. “This is the most dangerous,” he said as he zipped over.
We stopped for a snack 1.8 miles up, at the trail’s halfway point, sitting in the sun at a small overlook by the Trailside Shelter. As we munched on baby carrots and melty trail mix, our 16-year-old delighted in a moment of cell service, eventually returning to the family’s discussion to ask if she could come back to Table Rock someday—with her friends.
Eyes wide open
As we made our way up the trail, we shared discoveries with each other. Black butterfly. Baby pinecones. Skunk smell!
In quiet moments, I thought about how little time we had before our girls graduated from high school, and I looked at the world at my feet. I noticed the orange clay mixing with the gray minerals of broken-down rock and traced the burgundy curves of rhododendron plants to the exposed knots of their deep root system, which helps hold the forest together. And I imagined how the mountain would look in the fall and the spring.
We enjoyed a flat stretch of trail before scaling a steep slab to reach Governor’s Rock, a large outcropping of exposed granite with sweeping views of neighboring Pinnacle Mountain.
It was 2:30 p.m. In three hours, we had traveled 2.6 miles and reached an elevation of 2,854 feet, but we had another mile to go. We lay across the stone to rest, but with a crack of thunder, restarted our climb, pressed on by my husband, who worried about losing his mountaintop photo op.
By the time we reached the highest elevation of 3,124 feet, the increasingly dark sky had given way to rain, and as we rushed to the overlook, we found ourselves in a small thunderstorm. It felt a little like National Lampoon’s Vacation as my husband nearly had a Clark Griswold moment, pleading with us to wait it out.
Peak performance
Our oldest quickly stepped out to raise her hands in rainslicked victory. With a lightning flash, she rushed back to me and the other kids as we huddled together under a tree. Our 14-year-old wondered aloud whether her braces would up the risk of a lightning strike, and we decided to turn back. The kids and I started our descent, my husband following reluctantly behind.
Anyone who hikes up Table Rock on a summer afternoon should expect rain. It’s an almost daily occurrence and makes for a slippery trip back down. Even so, our badly timed storm gave us a bonus. With the sunlight streaming into the wet forest, the colors looked even more vibrant. Better than a fairy tale, it felt like walking through a Thomas Kinkade painting.
We finished our hike by 5:30 p.m. after six hours. Tired and still a bit soggy, we collapsed into the patio furniture at Cabin 15, satisfied that we had made it to the top and looking forward to the other adventures we had planned at Table Rock, as well as nearby Devils Fork and Oconee state parks.
By the end of our mini vacation, we had tuned into the natural world and connected more as a family than we had in a long time, and that was our true mission. We checked out of our cabin at Table Rock with little doubt that we would return to explore more Upstate beauty with our three children, and we hoped to see other South Carolina parks, too. Visiting all 47 state parks might be beyond us, but we can’t wait to check more off our list.
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Get More
Devils Fork State Park
161 Holcombe Circle, Salem | (864) 944-2639 | devilsfork@scprt.com
Oconee State Park
624 State Park Road, Mountain Rest | (864) 638-5353 | oconee@scprt.com
Table Rock State Park
158 E. Ellison Lane, Pickens | (864) 878-9813 | tablerock@scprt.com
To learn more about the family adventures available in all 47 of South Carolina’s state parks, visit southcarolinaparks.com.
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Exploring waterfalls
We launched onto Lake Jocassee from Devils Fork State Park in the comfort of a 22-foot, deluxe pontoon boat, ready to relax and play.
Fed by four mountain streams and enveloped by protected wilderness, the 7,500-acre lake is known as one of the Southeast’s clearest bodies of water and is home to several waterfalls that are accessible only by boat. To explore them, we booked a private boat tour through Eclectic Sun, the official outfitter at Devils Fork State Park Pavilion. Run by Andy Laughridge and his wife, Debbie, Eclectic Sun also rents out pontoon boats, kayaks and paddleboards for people who want to explore the lake on their own.
Our afternoon on the lake took us to four waterfalls, including a low-lying cascade in a hidden cove, where Laughridge waited in the boat as our family hopped onto the gushy banks. We climbed the hill alongside the tumbling water and circled back at the plateau for a different view of the stream as it flowed into the lake. Except for the butterflies, we had the place to ourselves.
Between stops, we had a blast riding the inner tube behind the pontoon boat, looking up from the water to the mountain skyline.
“This rocks,” our son proclaimed over the whir of the water, and I couldn’t help but agree.
On the final stop of our tour, Laughridge took us to the steep rock face of Mills Creek Waterfall, which plunges straight down into the lake. My husband jumped into the water from the boat first, daring us to follow him. One by one, we accepted the challenge, dousing our heads underneath the icy cascade as it tumbled into Lake Jocassee and catching our breath before we triumphantly swam back to the boat together.
For more details on exploring Lake Jocassee, contact Devils Fork State Park at (864) 944-2639 or devilsfork@scprt.com. Contact Eclectic Sun at (864) 944-1191 or eclecticsun.com.
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Grab your partner
The Friday-night square dance was already in full swing when we arrived at Oconee State Park, the banjo and fiddle runs ringing out into the parking lot as people of all ages filed into the barn across from the park office.
Each summer, from Memorial Day to Labor Day, the park hosts weekly square dances, drawing crowds of vacationers and dedicated cloggers from across the Carolinas.
“It’s a tradition that started in 1944,” explained Oconee Park Ranger Jo Anna White, who was greeting guests at the door. In 1975, the park built the barn to better accommodate the dances with more space and gymnasium wood floors. The Dixie Blue Grass Boys have played here ever since.
White introduced me to 82-year-old Bill Anders, the last of four go-to callers the park has relied on for decades. “I live for it,” admitted Anders, who has directed Carolina square dances since he was a young man. And before long, he was back on stage singing for the 70 or so dancers to “Get ya’ part-nuh!”
These Appalachian-style dances are popular throughout the region. Park employee Cullen Finley, who was in charge of summer recreation programs, clogs for a world-class team at Mars Hill University in the western North Carolina mountains. His friends and family are regulars at Oconee State Park, including his mom, who started a clogging team at the elementary school where she teaches.
“It’s hard to find a dancer who’s not smiling,” Sharon Finley said as we sat together on the bleachers and followed the moves of the dancers. Anyone who doesn’t know how to do-si-do is welcome to join in, she assured, and there’s often a lesson for beginners.
For more details on the Friday night square dances, contact Oconee State Park at (864) 638-5353 or oconee@scprt.com.