Wadakoe Mountain's secret coves

Dennis Chastain at the amphibolite rock face he discovered in 2000. Pale yellow trillium (T. discolor) is found only in the Savannah River basin. Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides) is common on Wadakoe and rare elsewhere in the state; Sweet White Trillium (Trillium simile) thrives in the secret coves as does Yellow Mandrake (Disporum lanuginosum).

Charles Henry Sowell photos

The secret coves of Wadakoe Mountain hide in plain sight; in the spring they are home to an explosion of rare plant species that live in a series of ecological hotspots scattered over the north face of the mountain.

These secret coves are anything but easy to get to, but they hold part of one of the greatest concentrations of rare plant species in South Carolina. Their discovery, like so many things in the world of science, was purely a matter of happenstance.

Many of these plants are found nowhere else in the state. Some of them, like the Plantain Sedge, are supremely unimpressive to look upon. Others, like Foam Flower, or Nodding Trillium are gems.

Patrick McMillan, naturalist at Clemson University and host of ETV’s “Expeditions” program, has been cataloging rare species on Wadakoe since shortly after the discovery of the mountain’s uniqueness at the turn of the century. He’s found more than 40 rare or endangered species on the slopes of the mountain.

The roots of this profusion of rarity are sunk into the singular geology of Wadakoe. The discovery of the mountain’s uniqueness happened one day while Dennis Chastain was out hunting.

“I happened across this deer trail that had been worn hip deep into the side of the mountain back in 2000,” he said while leading a recent tour of the secret coves.

“Being a hunter (he is also a talented amateur botanist with books on mountain wildflowers to his credit), I followed the trail to see why so many deer were using it.”

What he found was an exposed rock face made up of amphibolite – a metamorphosed rock rich in calcium and magnesium, a poor man’s marble. The deer had, quite literally, licked the face of the rock smooth and were eating the dirt at the base of the rocks. Later he and friend Wes Cooler started finding plants that were unfamiliar and they sought help identifying them.

On the day Chastain lead the tour of the secret coves, a herd of nine deer were trooping up the trail leading to the rock face.

Wadakoe alone in the region is built on foundation of amphibolite; deer crave the minerals for their nutrient value. So do the plants.

However, for plants there is the additional benefit of calcium and magnesium making the mountain’s dirt basic versus the normally acidic soil of the surrounding mountains.

On Wadakoe there is almost no mountain laurel, or rhododendron – both acid loving species. The soil is “sweet” and many species of plant, like Sweet White Trillium (Trillium Simile) and nine other species of trillium thrive on it. Some species are not common anywhere else along the Blue Ridge Escarpment. On Wadakoe one can stand hip deep in rare Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides), while surrounded by troops of white trillium, under a canopy of titanic hickory and poplar spiced with rare Butternut trees (Juglans cinerea), a variety of walnut.

Butternut trees, by the way, are best known in Southern parlance for their use in dying Confederate uniforms a yellowish-brown in the later days of the war.

The coves on Wadakoe’s north-facing slope are part of an intricate system of “nutrient sinks” that funnel food and water down slope until they hit an obstacle and concentrate there.

Standing on the broad plain of Eastatoe Valley in Pickens, Chastain points out the salient features of a low range of spur mountains that run from near Sassafras Mountain (the state’s highest peak) to Dug Mountain near the shores of Lake Keowee. Wadakoe is the last mountain before Dug.

“If you look closely, you can see the drainage basins,” he said tracing one in the distance with his finger on the north slope of Wadakoe. “Where those basins hit an obstacle they form what is called a cove. Nutrients are concentrated in those coves (which range in size from about an acre to a few square feet on Wadakoe) and form an ecological hotspot.”

Later in the day, climbing up the basin Chastain had distantly traced, the dirt was richly black in color beneath the forest floor litter and colonies of dozens of rare plants battling for a spot in the weak early spring sun.

In one spot, in about a square yard, one could find rare mountain Ginseng rubbing shoulders with Foam Flower, Canada Waterleaf, Blue Cohosh, Sweet White Trillium and Plantain Sedge.

Climb out of the drainage onto the dry slopes of the mountain where nutrients are not concentrated and the forest floor is typical of the region, albeit without laurel or rhododendron.

Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain seen from the Blue Ridge Parkway outside of Brevard, NC; the summit at Cold Mountain seems tantalizingly close from down in the big timber; a massive hemlock blocks the trail between Sorrell Creek and Deep Gap; ferns occupy their own niche in a warm microclimate on the slopes of Shining Rock Ledge; Ryan Holder and his dad, Chris, pick their way back down the trail after spending an icy night on the peak of Cold Mountain.

Charles Henry Sowell photos


Sometimes the mountain wins.

North Carolina’s Cold Mountain, of movie and novel fame, did recently which proves that Tinsel Town and fiction writers often miss the real story.

In this case, more than four miles of spectacular climb on the Art Loeb Trail in Shining Rock Wilderness can humble; particularly when you’re north of 50 and the mountain seems made for those 20-somethings that thrive on thin air and float feet above the rocky ground as they climb.

Well, they float going up the mountain; all are footsore and slow when coming down.

Several lessons stand out from the aborted climb up one of North Carolina’s difficult 6,000 footers: Older persons can still make the hard climbs (they just take longer to do it) and stick to your plan.

People don’t get to be more than 50 years old in the outdoor world without picking up a thing or two along the way. Knowing your abilities – in this case with gratifying accuracy – on how long it will take to retrace my steps, saved the cost of a cold night on a big mountain.

If you believe the hiking guides, one ought to be able to climb Cold Mountain on Art Loeb and come back down in about seven hours.

Perhaps that is true, if you are very much in shape and are counting your hiking success by a clock.

Measures of that kind defeat the purpose of visiting a wilderness. Stopping to listen often will give you the joy of (perhaps) catching a glimpse of a Pileated Woodpecker. This increasingly rare bird thrives on the kind of big-wood mature forest found on the slopes of Cold Mountain.

Pileateds are the size of a crow with a scarlet topknot and black bill. They excavate a characteristic rectangular hole in trees to feed and nest in very large mature trees. Their feeding holes can be so big they cause smaller trees to break in half well up the trunk.

In the United States, only the Ivory Billed Woodpecker is larger and that rare creature (it was thought extinct for decades) has not been reported in North Carolina in a long, long time. Part of its historic range touched on the North and South Carolina coast.

Ivory Bills have a characteristically white bill and distinguishing white rump patch when seen from behind. Nesting Ivory Bills were discovered in the deep swamps of eastern Arkansas in recent years.

On Cold Mountain there are the more subtle surprises than raucous woodpeckers. Mountains in this part of the world are well noted for their biodiversity. Typified on this trip by thriving fern colonies perched atop small boulders in the otherwise winter-dead woodland. Microclimates are very much a part of the Appalachian biosphere and are not startlingly evident, except for the plants.

March is a good time to visit Cold Mountain since the worst of winter weather is done (hopefully); trees are not year leafed out and vistas are unobstructed. But be warned, in addition to a 2800-foot elevation gain from the Art Loeb Trailhead at the Daniel Boone Boy Scout Camp there is always the chance of bad weather and evidence of it abounds all along the trail in the form of downed trees.

Some of them are huge (particularly the hemlocks) and block the trail. Hemlocks in have suffered greatly from Wooly Adelgid an invasive insect that has decimated trees all along the Eastern Seaboard.

Downed trees aside, would-be hikers on the Art Loeb at Cold Mountain should be aware this is not a marked trail. The only maker you’ll see is at the trailhead. No blazes of any color are used in wilderness areas and it is easy to make a wrong turn, although not so much on Art Loeb.

Learn to use a compass and a topographical map before you go. Learn your pace on steep trails and leave plenty of time for mishap. Go prepared to spend the night and let someone know where you’ll be and when you’ll be back so that help can be sent if you’re late.

The Art Loeb Trail from Daniel Boone is the shortest trail to Cold Mountain at 10.6 miles, roundtrip. There are three other trials leading to the top. All of them are much longer and will lead you to Deep Gap on Shining Rock Ledge at 5,200 feet. From Deep Gap you’ve less than 1,000 feet to climb to reach the summit of Cold Mountain at 6,030 feet.

I’d been on the trail for six hours and had climbed to between 5,600 and 5,800 feet when I ran out of hours. It’s frustrating to be able to see your goal and know there’s no way to get there short of spending the night on the mountain.

As it was, I reached my truck at Daniel Boone with about 10 minutes of usable light left in the day. Be sure to take a flashlight even if you’re planning on only a day hike at Cold Mountain. Dark comes early in the deep valleys that make up the slopes.

The Daniel Boone Scout Camp is located off NC 215 about 30 miles from Asheville. Topographical maps of Shining Rock Wilderness are available at most local outfitters.

For more information go to http://www.hikewnc.info/trailheads/pisgah/pisgah/shining.html and for views of actual conditions on the mountains see http://webcam.srs.fs.fed.us/. Odds are the weather there is quite different and a little knowledge can make all the difference in a trip.

Contact me at csowell4@gmail.com for more information on the Art Loeb trail to Cold Mountain.

DuPont Forest's high plateau

Triple Falls as seen from the overlook on the Triple Falls Trail; Mountain Laurel blooms in June along the Trails at DuPont State Forest located just outside of Brevard, NC; Mountain bikers whiz over the Covered Bridge at the head of High Falls; Cathy, front, Stephanie, in red, and Jerry Stark of Shelby, NC on the Covered Bridge Trail; The Little River plunges 120-feet over the waterfalls at High Falls.

Charles Sowell Photos

The newest public access wilderness access in North Carolina, DuPont State Forest is only a few degrees different than the rolling Piedmont of South Carolina and Georgia; only slightly higher than the valley of the French Broad River and Asheville, or the Tennessee River in Knoxville. But what a difference those few degrees and feet can make.

It's the kind of difference that seems to fill your lungs with vitality and your legs with energy – or maybe it is just your mind that’s changed.

No matter. When it feels like you’re breathing through a steaming-hot wool blanket on Peachtree Street in Atlanta; when the sun beats hard enough on your head hard enough to actually feel the vibrations on Lakeshore Dive in Chicago then is the time to go high.

DuPont State Forest, straddles the state line between North and South Carolina, fills that bill in regards to altitude and, more importantly, as it relates to attitude.

DuPont is a land of many waters. Lakes and ponds abound as do high-mountain trout streams and waterfalls of all stripes. You can ride horses on many of the trails at DuPont. Mountain bikers are always welcome. And, if you’re of the plodding stripe, you can hike until your heart is content and your knees quivering.

You’ve got 10,400 acres to do it on, too.

A good introduction to the DuPont Forest is an improvised 4.5-mile loop trail that takes in the major waterfalls (Hooker, Triple and High falls) as well as one minor fall on Grassy Creek
Start at the Hooker Falls parking lot on Stanton Road, near the old DuPont Plant site. It is the only parking area located on the Little River. Take the quick (.36-mile) trip downstream to Hooker Falls – a wide plunge over a 12-foot tall ledge into the headwaters of Cascade Lake.

If you visit on the first day of the trout harvest (the Little River is a delayed harvest stream) you’ll have lots of company all along the river. You might even get to witness a tussle between a fisherman and goodly-sized rainbow, or brown trout.

The Little River is a fairly large stream through this section and caution should be used when taking pictures, or wrestling with a trout – especially near any of the waterfalls.

Back at the Hooker Falls parking lot find the stairway leading up to Staunton Road and cross the bridge over Little River and take the Triple Falls Trail, on the left-hand side of the highway.

Stick with Triple Falls until you cover the half-mile, or so, to the falls overlook. The Little River drops 150 feet in three cascades here. This is one of the rarities in the Southern Appalachians, multiple falls that are actually in sight of one another. The upper and lower falls of the Whitewater River, for instance, are about 2 miles apart.

Follow the Triple Falls Trail uphill (it is ALL uphill in this stretch) until you hit the High Falls Trail. Take a left here and follow until you reach the viewing area (about another half-mile).

High Falls, a 120-foot plunge from the Covered Bridge to a substantial pool at the base, is worth the hike. This is big water doing a big drop all in one place.

If your curiosity is pricked enough by your glimpse of the Covered Bridge at the High Falls overlook, keep climbing. You won’t be disappointed.

The Covered Bridge Trail cuts off of the Triple Falls Trail and parallels Buck Forest Road to the bridge. The bridge was to be the entrance to a gated community at one point and the roads beyond it reflect the developer’s skill. As it stands the bridge offers a good view of the High Falls overlook and the valley beyond.

Bear to the left beyond the bridge on Buck Forest Road and follow the gently rolling roadbed to Grassy Creek. Cross the wooden bridge here and look to your left for the Grassy Creek Falls side trail.

It’s a short hop down to Grassy Creek Falls, a gently sloping cascade covered by sheeting water.

Back on Buck Forest Road; follow it to the junction with Lake Imaging Road for a stead downhill to Lake Imaging, a warm water pond near Staunton Road.

It is a quick half to three-quarter mile hop down to the Hooker Falls Parking Area from the parking lot at Lake Imaging Trailhead.

How to get there: Take I-26 to Exit 53 (Upward Rd.). Turn left on Upward Rd. to US-176. Upward Rd. now becomes N. Highland Lake Rd. Continue to traffic light at US-225S (Greenville Hwy.). Turn left to first traffic light (Little River Rd./sign for Carl Sandburg Home). Turn right on Little River Rd. and go to end. Turn left at flashing traffic light on Crab Creek Rd. and continue for 7.1 miles to DuPont Rd. Turn left for 3.1 miles.

For more information, go to http://www.dupontforest.com/, which is the unofficial web site of the forest.

Or email me at csowell4@gmail.com.

Nine Times

From top, locally known as Mountain Honeysuckle (actually a wild azalea) these showy blossoms can be found on the Nine Times tract in April; Dennis Chastain looks toward Lake Jocassee from the top of Big Rock Mountain; Trailing Arbutus, a small white flower; Dennis Chastain holds a Luna Moth; and Birdfoot violets in bloom on Big Rock Mountain.

Hi, and welcome to Southern Biosphere. This blog will look at the highs and lows of living in, and loving, the outdoors of the Southeastern United States.

Perhaps no region of the country offers more people more chances to hike, fish, hunt, or just explore than the sliver of mountains tucked away in a four-state area defined by Georgia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina. More than half of the country's population lives within driving distance of this area.

And the area itself is growing like kudzu on steroids.

In my native Palmetto State people call the mountains the "Blue Wall." In everyday parlance, it is known as the Blue Ridge Escarpment -- a sinuous, winding, system of mountains that stretches from the the Little Tennessee River's headwaters in Northeast Georgia to Hogback Mountain on the border of Greenville and Spartanburg counties in South Carolina.

This is a land of heart-busting climbs; of rock walls that put cricks in your neck; of nesting peregrine falcons; and hundreds of rare and endangered plants and animals scattered in ecological micro climates that mimic everything from boreal Canadian forests to semi-tropical rainforest.

"The Wall," arguably, is home to one of the greatest diversities of flora and fauna on the entire Eastern Seaboard. Much of that biological diversity is threatened by forces far beyond human control. Some of it is not.

Right now, one of the biggest issues facing conservationists are efforts to preserve an ecologically significant chuck of land know locally as the Nine Times tract.

Nine Times is exceptional for two reasons. One, it is the largest parcel of undeveloped land left along the Blue Ridge Escarpment; and, two, the tract holds a significant number of rare and endangered plants and animals within its 2,000 acres.

Dana Leavitt, land trust director for Upstate Forever (the region's premiere preservation organization) says plans to preserve the tract have hit a speed bump.

Funding sources have dried, leaving Upstate Forever w-a-y "out on a limb.” In 2007, the organization mortgaged its soul to buy 560 acres of the tract from Duke Energy and set up a two-year option to buy the remaining 1,648 acres for $4800 an acre.

Since then, Upstate Forever has managed to offload the 560 acre tract to The Nature Conservancy, recouping part of their cost and ensuring the most ecologically significant portion of the tract is preserved. The conservancy plans to open that section of the tract to the public this spring.

A November deadline looms large for the option to purchase the rest.

Upstate Forever plans to ask Duke for an extension on their purchase option and, perhaps, for a reduction in price. “Economic realities being what they are, we don’t think that’s unreasonable,” Leavitt said.

New rounds of meetings with public and private groups are set for the near future as Upstate Forever tries to set up a similar coalition of groups to the one that came up with the purchase price of Stumphouse Mountain in Oconee County.

“We’ve gotten the most ecologically important section of the tract (the 560 acres on the southwest side of E. Preston McDaniel Highway) protected,” Leavitt said.

After Wadakoe Mountain, Nine Times has been called the most environmentally sensitive area in the region. Wadakoe enjoys special protected status as a state Heritage Trust site, a designation Nine Times does not have.

Dennis Chastain, author and outdoor writer, has spent a lifetime chasing game and classifying plants on the slopes of the mountains that make up Nine Times. Every spring he leads groups into the area to view some of the rarest plants in the East.

He took me onto Big Rock Mountain last April and showed off some of the tract's best (pictures are attached). This spring promises to be even more spectacular as a decade-long drought that has gripped the region has eased.

Flowers seem to do better when they get a little water.

Nine Times would do a lot better if it were to come under the protective arm of a conservation-minded group, or coalition of groups.

As it stands, no one is lining up to contest Upstate Forever's plans for the area. But Duke Power holds all the face cards in this high-stakes game of poker and their consent to an extension of the agreement is essential, Leavitt said.

Otherwise, there just might not be a wildflower tour at Nine Times for Dennis to lead next spring.

For tours contact Chastain at DChas878@aol.com

For more information on The Nature Conservancy's slice of Nine Times contact Kristen Austin mailto:kaustin@tnc.org

Upstate Forever's Dana Leavitt may be contacted at dleavitt@upstateforever.org.