Our mission for the day was to explore this rugged and beautiful corner of the Carolinas via a looped road trip on SC Scenic Highway 11, and NC Scenic Highway 64. Along the way we visited plunging waterfalls, rugged river gorges, sheer rock walls, some breathtaking vistas, and several state and federal parks.
One of our first stops was a G0rges State Park in North Carolina.
The park was officially dedicated in 1999, but is still in the early stages of development.
The 7,100 square foot visitor's center was officially dedicated in Fall of 2012. This is a beautiful environmentally freindly facility, and I would encourage you to stop in and check it out.
Gorges State Park boasts more waterfalls than any of the other NC state parks. However, very few of the waterfalls have official trails to them at the present time.
Rather than taking our chances on an unmarked trail, we opted to take a shorter walk from the visitor center to a observation deck where we could see all the way back to Sassafras Mountain , SC (See yesterday's post), and then continue on to a picnic area for lunch.
The trail itself started out well graded,
but soon deteriorated into a mass of tree roots and moss which were quite slippery.
The trail was maked with guide signs up to the point of the observation deck, but some seemed a little suspect, as we never did find any of the picnic areas on the trail.
Fortunately, the trail was marked with red triangles so we were sure we would not get lost.
The park is also home to nearly 125 rare plant and animal species, with 12 of those being endangered or threatened, so we had no problem with having our lunch on the trail while we looked at the interesting plant life..
Shelf Mushrooms
Some wildflowers near the Gorges Visitor Center
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