We've been remiss in documenting our fall line excursions since January. If I can get motivated, I'll write the entries I should have posted in March and April. But maybe not.
Last weekend we traveled down I-95 to Columbia, SC for our niece Courtney's graduation from USC. It was a first visit for both Mary and me. Thanks to the miracle of 3G wireless, I discovered on the drive down that Columbia is located on the East Coast fall line. Like many other cities that developed where a large river or stream crossed the fall ine, Columbia was a key stopover on the colonial Fall Line Road that ran southwest from Fredericksburg, VA to central Georgia.
Two rivers - the Broad and the Saluda - cross the fall line at Columbia. Just below their last rapids, they merge to form the Congaree. Even though our hotel was only about 1/2 mile from the rivers' confluence point, we didn't make it down to the river bank to walk the fall line. Maybe next time.
We did hike the spectacular hardwood forest of the Congareee National Park about 20 miles southeast of Columbia. The park is a swampy floodplain watered by the Congaree River and a variety of lakes. It is an International Biosphere Reserve and contains the largest intact old-growth floodplain forest in North America. On the 2.4 mile swamp trail, we saw many unusual species of birds and plants, with the strangest being the bald cypress knees rising spookily from the water and muck. The park's hardwood trees were the tallest I've ever seen. The loblolly pines and oaks towered to 130 feet or more, supposedly creating the highest tree canopy of any hardwood forest in the world. (The California redwoods and the cedars of Lebanon don't count as hardwoods, I guess.) I would love to go back and take a kayak or canoe tour of the park.
Columbia's fall line bears little resemblance to the DC fall line. Columbia is almost 300 feet above sea level, and the drop from the harder rock of the Piedmont to the softer coastal plain is gentle. Where the Potomac at the DC end of Great Falls is so close to sea level that it is tidal, the Congaree meanders more than 100 miles from Columbia through the SC low country before entering the Atlantic. From space (hint: check Google Maps), Congaree National Park looks much like the lower Mississippi basin, complete with oxbow lakes and vegetation changes that mark decades of multiple river channels.
