Summer River Scouting Trips
The heat and drought did in my epic summer paddle to the sea, and I decided to put it off until next May. In spite of low water and 100-degree days I was able to get in three river trips and an overnight before school started.
On the first day out of town Steve Patton and I paddled through Columbia on the Broad and Congaree rivers. The water was low, but I wanted to check out that shallow, rocky passage of the Broad I'd always crossed on I-126 coming into the capital city.
The old saying goes that in the summer the only thing between Hades and Columbia is a screen door. There are also several rivers. Though there were a million Carolinians sweltering in the heat in all directions, I admired how two fishermen beached their aluminum canoe in the shallows and sat belly-deep in fold-out chairs, cooling off.
When we reached the confluence of the Broad with the Saluda the water of the Congaree proved icy cold. College students in inner tubes bobbed past pulling sidecars with coolers. The river looked like a watery city park. We'd forgotten the Saluda River is released off the bottom of the Lake Murray Dam and so the midland current is cold enough for mountain trout. We took one more dip to cool down before exiting at the Gervais Street Bridge in the mid-day Columbia heat.
The next day we drove upstream on the Broad River above Gaffney to an area called 99 Islands. Here there are old two dams, and I wanted to scout passages around each. I'd rest easier until next May if I knew how I could get me, my boat, and my gear around these concrete river plugs.
Access was easy. We found a boat landing on the map above 99 Island Dam, parked the truck, and paddled along the shore of the long, narrow piedmont lake. A little sign across from the landing told us that the portage route below is on river left, so I felt better knowing where to exit the river. This 99 Island Dam can be dangerous. Once, the guidebooks tell you, a fisherman was swept over the 71-foot dam to his death, but the portage route is safely upstream.
After an hour of paddling we'd finally outrun the impoundment. A half-mile below Cherokee Falls Dam, the river current returns and the slack water disappears. With a little zig-zagging behind rocks we pulled up behind the low dam and power house built right on top of a long shoals. The portage at Cherokee Falls is on river right. Along the way we saw ospreys, wood ducks, and egrets. The birds don't seem to mind the heat.
Our third scouting trip was down to the lower Santee below Lake Marion, the stretch of the river above McClellanville called "the French Santee" because it was settled in the 18th century by French Huguenots with names like Huger, Gervais, Poinsett, Mannigalt.
We arrived late in the day and camped deep in Francis Marion National Forest, surrounded by live oaks, slash and loblolly pines. We were the only ones in the wilderness campsite save two men Steve called "national forest gypsies," who'd been camping there for weeks foraging in the forest for edible mushrooms. A smoky campfire kept the mosquitoes at bay, and at dusk a great horned owl hunted around the edges of the campground.
Next morning we paddled several miles from a forest service boat landing down Wambaw Creek to the South Santee. On the way out five or six small alligators slipped down pluff-mud banks into the water as we passed. Night herons roosted in the cypress. By the time we reached the river (where I'd be passing next May) I felt we were alone with the current and the sky. Once rice fields as far as you could see, the lower Santee is now a ragged linear wilderness.
On the way back we had a little unexpected river adventure. We paddled up on the king of alligators in the middle of the creek. Its head was wide as two canoe paddles, and by the distance between snorkeling snout and eyes what we couldn't see looked to be close to 10 feet long. When the regal reptile finally decided to submerge, the surging wake bounced our canoe like a white water flume. I've seen plenty of alligators but I'm always surprised how impressive a big one can be, and even my heart fluttered a little.
Adventure over, we drove back to Spartanburg, the school year approaching like a flood. It takes about four hours to drive from the upstate to the lower Santee. By canoe it's two weeks. Out on the water you can forget the heat, and even in this historic drought there's enough water to float on most rivers. It's good to remember that from the upstate, it's all downstream.