More South Carolina

Wow, am I far behind or what!  We've journeyed through several states (some more than once) and I think one or two other countries since my last travel post.  At least I've still been writing a little, including the FKT reports here plus one post about our new solar system on our All Electric Project site.

I should be able to pick out just a few of the more interesting pictures from the past several weeks and give you a glimpse of the amazing things we've been lucky to see.  From this point forward things are going to get a lot slower as we spend less time in public.  Our balance is currently spending time behind the computer (doing "work") and in nature.  Which... isn't that much of a stretch for us. 

Here's wishing for a healthy, calm, and not-too-crazy time for everyone we know.

OK, back to South Carolina.  Or actually, Georgia for a weekend at the Navigator Cup orienteering meet back in January.  Oops, I really am far behind.  John and I had great fun, he's able to run more and more, and we each "won" one day of the event (in the "Beard Family" category anyway).  We teamed up for the Extreme-O challenge which was super entertaining.  The little puzzles and exercises were entertaining, and they even set up a little ropes course over a ravine:

Back in South Carolina, I did some running at the lovely trails of Paris Mountain near Greenville:

I've never seen a waterway quite like this before:

Several stone structures at Paris Mountain were built by the CCC, including this dam:

Continuing our quest to do a race in every state, we did an 8K in a park on paved and dirt trails.  John almost beat me, so his running is definitely coming along, yay!  High five:

Our "Racing in 50 States" page:
http://www.kipley.com/marcy/race_locations.html

I did a nice run around downtown Greenville and enjoyed seeing some interesting sights (and somehow managed to avoid the temptation of the Chocolate Moose Bakery):

Love a good mural, especially a musical one:

Shoeless Joe Jackson's museum is closed for renovation, but it was interesting to read a bit about his history on the plaque:

I really do like this pedestrian bridge:

This car made me do a double take.  Kip, this is for you:

Howie (our travel trailer) was finally on the move again... first to Table Rock for the Foothills Trail out-and-back FKT.  That was such a good experience, I think about that adventure quite fondly.

Next up = Columbia and Congaree National Park.  We didn't know anything about this park, but it's quite a special gem.  Lots of tall trees and floodplain/swamp and an important place to protect.

And Pogo in the visitor center:

Heading for the boardwalk and armed with a trail-clearing stick:

Flashbacks to a particular SWEAR adventure race...

Happily we didn't need to get our legs wet and muddy this time:

Pretty fronds:

Per the visitor center, this old growth forest is among the tallest broad-leaved forests in the world.  Many of the trees are over 130 feet tall.  Glad we got to see it!

Most of the park trails were underwater...

That's OK, we had a nice walk on the boardwalk.  It would be super interesting to come back during the dry season and compare.

Thank you, Pogo:

My IT band was still in recovery mode from the long FKT run, but walking seemed OK so we stopped in downtown Columbia for a quick tour of the state capitol building:

Oh, some bloomings!  Spring might be starting soon:

The capitol building was notable for how small it is compared to others we have been in, the ornate decoration, and the statue of Calhoun in the center of everything:

Checking out the upper level:

Enjoying a local coffee shop and a pretty cup of warm-me-up:

One more South Carolina location - Charleston.  We'd heard good things, and I can confirm that we did enjoy spending a day there.  First a bit of Civil War history with an early submarine, and no one ever should have been asked to ride in that thing:

Switching to modern history, with one of South Carolina's native sons:

Wonderful fountain!  And a great place to practice photography; I think there are a lot of creative things you could do here:

Another nice one:

A picture of picturesque houses:

Our favorite part of the day was a boat tour to Fort Sumter.  The gulls following us out there seemed to appreciate it too (plus, that's a lovely bridge in the background):

This is back when it was still winter and we were plenty bundled up, waiting to disembark at the fort:

What an interesting place.  The Confederates took control of the fort early in the war, while the Union side tried hard to take it back.  There was a long siege and lots of bombardment, with shells still visible in what remains of one of the walls:

The ship channel into Charleston, and I believe Fort Moultrie is on the land across the way:

Hard to imagine what it was like being holed up in the fort while all this was going on:

Much of Fort Sumter was destroyed, but if I remember right, the Confederacy maintained control over it during the war.

Quite a unique place to visit and ponder.

As were the other spots in South Carolina that we explored.  There's more to see, but that will have to wait for another time.

Skyway Loop

We've been crisscrossing Alabama in the past couple weeks, and I had my eye on an FKT loop near the highpoint of the state.  Seems like highpoints and FKTs go hand-in-hand around here.  We had just enough time to stop for a long run, and 17 miles (with moderate climbing) seemed like an excellent goal.  Except, it was rainy.  Well, you can't always have great weather for FKT's.  Even with a fairly flexible lifestyle.  Sometimes you just gotta run in the rain!

There were no women's times posted yet on the FKT website, time to set another "you can beat this" benchmark.  John is doing more running lately, and with the perhaps questionable fords (with the rain that morning), he agreed to come with me for the first several miles and spot my creek crossings.  I love running with John and am very excited that we are getting to do it more and more lately.

It wasn't but a slight drizzle at the start, very helpful for the motivation to get out of the truck.  We parked at the Chinnabee Silent Trail trailhead (the northern of the 2 trailhead options) and I opted for a counterclockwise loop to reach the 3 fords early in the endeavor.

The Chinnabee Trail is great for running, super smooth and fun, and we covered the early miles quickly.  The first ford, at Cheaha Falls, was ankle deep.  Simple!

Such a pretty creek around the Devil's Den area.  We've made a point to see everything we can with the word "devil" in the name and so far none have disappointed.

On the other hand, this trail isn't exactly "Silent":

Stamp of approval:

Quite lovely.

At the turn onto the Skyway Trail (the second of 3 trails in this loop), we found the reason for the blue flags we had been following - the Mount Cheaha 50K race will be running this route on Saturday.  Cool!

The second ford was the deepest, but still not at all challenging.  When this area gets a deluge, I'm sure these creeks get a lot higher, but for us it wasn't a problem.  I was mostly psyched to have a photographer along for once.

Dancing my way to shore:

For his part, John noticed a few blow-downs and bits of trail work that needed doing.  This particular one was too big to work on without tools, but there were a few others that caught his eye.  Trail work makes John happy, so we were both getting a lot out of this adventure.

The last ford (except for several small creeks), and another "no problem".  Thank you once again John, my FKT runs are so much better for your company!

One of the blue flags for the upcoming 50K:

The rest of the Skyway Trail was nice, easy running, just some elevation changes as it went down into several drainages and back up again.

One of many campsites I saw along the way:

Another opportunity to get my feet wet.  Word of the day = wet.

I believe this is the CCC chimney mentioned in the trail notes:

Lots of pretty trail and pretty creeks:

Climbing up to the intersection with the Pinhoti Trail, where the race course merges into the loop:

And IMMEDIATELY there are rocks.  I've seen a bit of the Pinhoti Trail in Georgia, and it's rocky over there too.  Never have I finished a piece of the Pinhoti and said "hey, I'd love to do that again."  In this case, this bit of trail is directly above a not-rocky piece of Skyway Trail I had just come up.  But it's the Pinhoti, so there are rocks.

Crossing the main road at Adams Gap and heading into the Cheaha Wilderness for a few miles:

Thankfully, much of this part of the Pinhoti actually isn't a rock garden.  There were sections of stones but also plenty of runnable trail.  Which was great, because it contoured in and out along a long hillside for quite a ways, and it started raining again.  For real this time.  I paused once to refill my bottle from a creek but otherwise kept moving at a decent clip.

I stopped bringing out the camera, to keep it protected from the rain.  Overall I had way fewer photos than normal, so that probably made me a tad faster.

The switchbacks up the rocks to Rocky Top were marked with blue blazes but I occasionally had to look around to verify whether I needed to traverse, climb, or make a switchback.  I don't know why the trail doesn't just turn and go uphill, but OK, switchbacks it is!

Near the top I found an overhanging boulder and that seemed like a good place for one quick selfie:

And for good measure, a photo of the mist around the mountaintop:

Thank goodness for one particular blue blaze, or I might have wandered around the summit for a few minutes.  The trail led through some rocks and down through some thick vegetation.  I was happy for the rain jacket and thick tights, protecting me from getting too wet and occasionally protecting me from encroaching plants.

The trail along the ridge was interesting, lots of little campsites that seemed like they would be a great place to pitch a tent in better weather, and winding around through a few rock formations.

One last intersection, the turn back onto the Chinnabee for the last couple miles.  It was kind of a long, rocky angled descent, but I was still happy to be going in this direction vs. picking my way down directly off of Rocky Top.

Then a fun last mile through the woods, back to an excellent trail and a nice way to finish.

But wait!  One more creek crossing.  Really?  Yes, well, I'm wet already so whatever!

One slight pause to figure out how to traverse the Turnipseed Campground, and then I was back to the start of the loop.  John jumped out of the truck to take my picture, thanks John!

Everything wet came off, replaced with dry clothes and shoes, and we were soon on our way down the hill and driving toward Georgia.  John reported on his enjoyable trail work, and we were both quite satisfied with our 5+ hours on the trail.  It was great to be out in the woods, even in the rain!