A Summer of Waterfalls

This summer I am lucky enough to be living in an area where driving an +/- hour north, east, or west takes one to a plethora of waterfalls. So that is how me and my SO began this summer of 2014, visiting as many waterfalls as we had time and the gusto for. We we led by this amazing guide book which my SO received as a Christmas present in 2013. It is by Thomas E. King who lived in this area for most of his life and visited all the falls in the book. It is called Waterfall Hikes of the Upstate South Carolina.

 

      There are black and white pictures of each fall, along with it's location, description, hike difficulty, and hike length. The pictures never do capture the magic that waterfalls emanate. A few of the hikes alone blew us away and having a waterfall at the end was phenomenal. We would start the hike in the morning and pack our lunches and hike in with them and usually managed to have lunch at the fall. Having a good guide really makes all the difference. Waterfall Hikes of the Upstate turned us on to hikes that Google isn't even privy to; and we brought it with us on our hikes as some of the trails were not well marked. There's pretty much a waterfall per page and I marked all the ones we were interested in with sticky tabs, removing them as we saw them or tucking them inside with notes for next time.

      As you can see, we have still some left unvisited to start us off at the beginning of next spring. I thought I'd share some of my favorites with you here:


























     The waterfall that started it all, Falls Creek Falls. They have a bit of a redundant name, but these are definitely in my top 5 favorite falls we visited. The hike was beautiful and the falls have an upper and lower viewing option, so we were able to hike right up alongside the falls to the top. We did another fall hike to Jones Gap Falls in Ceasers Head State Park, which I won't upload, but these two trips lead to my partner getting Waterfalls of the Upstate for a present that year.

     These are Station Cove Falls. The falls are on a site that served as an old bunker house, which militiamen utilized during the  period of "colonizing" the area. It was a trading post later on and is kept up by the state of South Carolina. The grounds are lovely, with lots of old hickory and walnut trees along the trails, and it's in the name, but the falls are down in a type of cove which made them feel very tucked away.

     This is Yellow Branch Falls. This one is my favorite out of all that we've seen for the beauty of the falls themselves. I love seeing how plants have staked out homes in the enclaves beneath the rock shelves. They look very happy to have been so clever. Yellow Branch Park also had beautiful cement picnic tables which were placed in an almost maze setting but were surrounded by the native trees and vegetation. It created a private setting for catching our breathe after hiking back out and for finishing of our picnic lunch.

     Well, sad news: I just realized that our remaining pictures are no more. I had began uploading them onto my boyfriend's laptop because it was easier, and his laptop's hard drive crashed a couple of weeks ago and he's since replaced it. So those falls are only in our memory now until we get out there next Summer.
     I'll end the waterfall adventure demo with my favorite hike and falls: The Virginia Hawkins Trail and Falls. This was a five hour round hike with the falls four hours in going one way and 1 hour starting from the other way. We crossed four bridges and went through very vegetatively diverse areas as we started from a higher elevation, snaking through rhododendron thickets and went down to a lower one, consisting of species that looked almost tropical. I encourage anyone who can to visit waterfalls or natural sites like these in your area so that they remain something for the public to enjoy.

     In our travels, I found that I could not get enough of crocheting the Octi the Octopus pattern by Maggie Menzel. It is easy to size up and down and I can use up yarn ball scraps easily. In a couple of cases I was too ambitious when it came to playing yarn chicken, but I found that I could have a Mr. Octi body and just attach several curly single crochet chains -and voila- Mr. Octi the Jellyfish was born. I have since given away a couple of Mr. Octi's to friends' little ones but I managed to take a family photo of the ones remaining the other day.

     Here they are, in all their grinning glory. I have never embroidered anything before doing these faces, and I would like to say that it gets easier every time, but I think my first one was the best, which was this one that now lives with my SO's nephew.

     His eyes just really worked out.

     The other thing I managed to work on and finally wrap up during car trips was my Butterfly Hat by Sofiya Cremin. The pattern is written for using only one yarn and I think this hat would be much more fun to knit with just one color. The yarn was a going away present from a friend and is very soft and warm on my dome. 

     Those are my finished objects that I've managed since my last post. I finished another Full of Hearts Scarf but I haven't managed to get a picture of it after blocking it. I am working on a couple more designs and so those will be coming to Stash Eliminator soon.

    That is all I have for you now! See you next time!