South Carolina Waterfalls - Day 1

Whitewater Falls, Lower -7/28/2015

Arriving from Florida, we spent the night in Seneca, South Carolina, which we will use as our central location for the next several days while we visit the area waterfalls. 

For our first full day in South Carolina we traveled to Whitewater Falls, both lower and upper falls.  Whitewater Falls is the highest falls in the Eastern US (or East of the Rockies by one account) with upper falls at 411 feet and the lower around 400 feet.  It was also a 2.4 mile hike to the lower Whitewater falls overlook platform.  Billed as a moderate hike, for us now as Floridian sea level flatlanders it was more like a difficult hike.  However, there were parts of the trail that were interesting, like this section that I caught Carmen in. 

Most of the flowers along the trail, including the numerous wild rhododendrons, were past their blooms.  But, there was one flower that decided to stay in bloom for our benefit.

Once we reached the falls overlook, we had a great view of the falls.  Though we were almost a half mile away, you could get a good look at most of the falls height.

On our return hike to the car, as we reached half-way, it started to thunder then began raining.  By the time we got to the car we were thoroughly wet. 

I don't think we will go on any more 4-hour round trip hikes in the near future.  Although we had a great view of the falls, the weeks forecast calls for more possible thunder showers and we do not want to get caught in another one.

As we were leaving the side road to the falls, the rain stopped.  We then drove up to the parking lot for the upper Whitewater Falls.  After parking and starting our hike, by the time we were leaving the parking lot it was thundering again, so we decided enough rain was enough.  There are plenty of waterfalls around and we will see more tomorrow.