Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Aiken State Natural Area, South Carolina. Part IV. Park Features.

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mon campground Up again early this morning for the normal routine and some writing. Then off to see more of what Aiken State Natural Area has to offer. As usual, it’ll be impossible to cover everything in these posts. But I’ll try try to give you at least a glimpse of what’s available.

This morning, let’s just wander around for a while, and hit some of the highlights. Beginning just a half-mile or so up the loop road to the Fish Lake Picnic Area.

Years ago, I’m told, the Park maintained cabins here for visitors to rent. Now, in addition to the lake, there’s a fairly large picnic shelter, an artesian well with the first a good dipping pool I’ve seen, a beautiful spillway for the lake, and some incredible scenery. Here are a few photos:

loop road We’re back out on the one-way loop road now. In just two-tenths of a mile we’ve reached the Riverside canoe/kayak put-in spot for the Park’s celebrated 1.5-mile river canoe trail. This is a real opportunity.

riverside 03 Those of you who have yet to try canoeing or kayaking could hardly do better than here for your first attempt. As you’ll see below, the Park maintains a nice fleet of quite new canoes and kayaks. They even provide paddles and personal flotation devices, or life jackets. All for quite a reasonable price.

Check the float times and they’ll even wait to pick you up at the take-out point down the river! Click the photo above for details.

Next, we’ll drive out onto Old Tory Trail, and over across the road to the Cabin Lake Area of the Park. So stay tuned!

cabin lake 01

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