A Congaree Adventure

A friend of ours in the YMCA Trailblazers has recently gotten interested in canoeing, backpacking, and the prospect of canoe camping. He has become inspired to try canoeing from South Carolina's mountains to the sea, or at least from the North Carolina border to the sea. But first, it seemed like a good idea to try out the idea on a shorter trip. He asked me for some ideas on an overnighter that we could do over the Memorial Day weekend - we looked at a few including a section of the Santee, the Broad, and the Edisto , but we ended up deciding to try something closer to home and in our only National Park, the Congaree Swamp. The route we settled on was to paddle through the swamp on Cedar Creek, starting at Bannister Bridge, continuing past the normal take out at Cedar Creek Rd, then exiting the swamp into the Congaree River, taking out at the US 601 bridge. This would be between 22 and 27 miles depending on the guide you read which should be a good distance for an overnighter. We hoped to make it out of the swamp to camp on a sandbar the first night.

We didn't get on until 11am. Bannister Bridge to the Cedar Creek landing took 5.5 hours - it was narrow and twisty with lots of blow downs that were pretty easily negotiated, a few were harder. We pressed on thinking there was an outside chance we could make the river by dark, failing that we would camp in the park. The next couple of miles went by quick - the creek widened and we went through two lakes. Then it got hard... We hit several large log jams that required complete portages, many that required climbing up on logs to drag over and a couple of limbo spots. Note that the mud in the swamp is almost as bad as Low Country pluff mud and darned near as stinky. We came to a stop at a decent camp site (high ground, not much poison ivy) and another big log jam. That was just short of 9 hours after we started. Something about being out in the wild (and this sure felt wild) and working hard makes a juicy steak and a cold beer taste like something just short of heaven. We figured out the next day we were within two miles and three more portages of the Congaree - including one big grand finale of a snag...

We got a late start (10:15) after a leisurely breakfast starting off with the portage around the snag that stopped us the night before. By 12:00 we had reached the mighty Congaree River - almost agoraphobia inspiring after the closeness of the swamp. We never did see where Cedar Creek joined Mazyks Gut, so we were never sure when or if we actually got on it, but we must have as that is where we came out (per the GPS and reckoning with map and compass). There is quite a log jam there... We spent an hour at the first sand bar relaxing and rinsing the mud out from between our toes. Per the map and guides, it is just over 11 miles from there to the 601 Bridge and that seems about right - we got there by 3:45 and we had averaged about 4mph. Saw a lot of motor boat traffic and quite a few "encampments" on the sand bars. Someone should alert the Union troops, there appears to be a Rebel force amassing on river right about 5 miles from the bridge.

We had an awesome time - it was just hard enough and it was beautiful. I highly recommend the hand drawn map you can get at the Park visitor center - it is very detailed and helpful. Get it laminated, that really saved it! We saw turtles, snakes, frogs, an owl, a deer, raccoon sign, fish, GBH's, egrets, some bright yellow birds we couldn't name, little spiders, big spiders, and ginormous spiders. The girls (13 and 11) were troopers. We're all glad we did it, but we also agreed we wouldn't do quite that trip again - maybe a day trip from Bannister Bridge to Cedar Creek Rd or an overnighter from Cedar Creek Landing to 601 or maybe just go down the river... I think we're ready to try that "Mountains to the Sea" trip!

total time on the water 14:15

Here are our pictures in Picasaweb :

Here is a google map of our route.

An anecdote from after we got back :

Hannah paddled the whole time, thought the knee deep mud was cool, and was only mildly squeamish about bugs. Last night she came downstairs to tell me that a “big black bug” had climbed down from the ceiling and was behind her bed. I asked her why this bothered her but the spider on her nose the day before had not – she said “There are supposed to be bugs in the swamp, not my bedroom!”