GREAT
FALLS
Last
weekend Christy and I took the kayaks out to soak up some sunshine. We live very close to Lake Wylie, which is
one of the huge reservoirs along the Catawba River near Charlotte. It is close to home, but it isn’t a
particularly enjoyable place to kayak.
There are way too many power boats, most of the lakeshore is developed,
and the scenery is modest at best. Lake
Normal is also nearby, but it is even worse.
Mountain Island Lake is more appealing, but it is a good 30-minute drive. We like going up to the mountain lakes for
our kayaking trips, but those destinations are a long way from home. We’ve been looking for a quiet, pretty place
to kayak without having to endure a long drive.
Some
time back my friend Spencer suggested I check out Great Falls in South
Carolina. Great Falls isn’t a waterfall,
but it is – or was – a series of rapids on the
Catawba where the river leaves the Piedmont and enters the coastal plain. There are several man-made lakes in the
area. At the Great Falls itself, the
original river flowed through several channels separated by islands. There is now a dam and lake just
upstream. Most of the flow of the river
is confined to a single channel. A
longer passage is now a rocky stream bed with only occasional pools water. Spencer suggested hiking that channel, either
from the dam down or from the lake up.
It sounded like a fun hike, with lots of rock hopping, scrambling, and
wading.
I
also did some research on the lake downstream, Cedar Creek Reservoir. It is a fairly small lake that isn’t
conducive to power boating. It is also
mostly undeveloped, with several hilly, wooded islands. Best of all, it takes less than an hour to drive
there from our house. We decided to
check it out last weekend.
We
arrived at the Debutary Creek Access around noon on
Sunday. There was one other vehicle in
the parking area. There are two other
access points. We passed one while
kayaking, and it also had one other vehicle.
It was a hot, sunny day, and we had the whole lake mostly to
ourselves. During our five hour visit we
saw two fishing boats and one other couple in a canoe. Either it was an off day, or this lake is a
well-kept secret.
We
paddled up the lake from Debutary Creek, passing near
the top of the dam that creates Cedar Creek Reservoir. We passed through a fairly narrow channel
between two steep islands, Pickett and Bowden.
Along the way we saw lots of birds, including a bunch of Buzzards,
several Great Blue Herons, and lots of Egrets.
After 3 ½ miles and an hour of paddling we reached the mouth of the
eastern river channel, which runs east of Mountain Island. This is the longest channel, and the one
without flowing water. We paddled up
into it, weaving through a rock garden.
We pulled up at a large, flat rock, which looked ideal for lunch. We did a bit of sunbathing there and spotted
a neon green butterfly, a neon green lizard, and a snake.
After
lunch I decided to attempt the hike.
Christy hung back, while I paddled as far upstream as possible. Before long I got out and began rock hopping
upstream. The hiking wasn’t particularly
difficult, but it was slow going. The
rocks near water level were covered in slippery algae. Most of the rest were sharply angled and
irregular. There was a pattern to the
rocks, too. The smoothest walking meant
going with the grain of the rock.
Unfortunately, that was perpendicular to the river channel. So, I had to choose between easy walking in
the wrong direction, or fighting the terrain.
I did some of both.
After
a while it was really getting hot. The
temperature was over 90, there was no shade, and I was on black and grey
rock. I stopped for water and checked my
location on the GPS. I had a long way to
go to reach the dam. The scenery ahead
looked similar to what I’d already seen.
Lots of rocks and bushes in a channel between two modest hills. Doing the full round trip would probably take
several hours. I only had a quart of
water, and I was already wilting in the heat.
I turned back.
I
rejoined Christy and we paddled around the top of Hill Island. Across from it we found a sandy beach on a
point separating two of the river channels.
There was a nice campsite here, too.
There was a sign at the parking area that said that camping was
prohibited on the islands, but I wasn’t sure if this constituted an island or
not. Technically it is probably part of
Mountain Island, but the dam has altered the landscape to the extent that it
could almost be considered a peninsula.
We stopped there for a swim just to cool off. Against all odds, we managed to avoid all of
the brain-eating amoebas. Afterwards I
paddled up the mouth of the channel separating Mountain Island and Big
Island. There were lots of rocks and
some water flowing out of this channel, so I didn’t make it very far. Then we paddled back, taking a slightly
different route on the west side of Hill Island and Pickett Island and the east
side of Big Island. This lake was pretty
clean, but Christy picked up a few floating soda bottles while she was waiting
for me to catch up. The drive home was
uneventful, though unloading the kayaks and attempting to get them into the
racks in the garage was the biggest workout of the day. We managed to get Christy’s up, but couldn’t
seem to make mine fit. The physics of
that operation were eluding us, and we eventually conceded and returned it to
the floor of the garage.
I
would like to do more kayaking around Great Falls. The lake upstream from Great Falls and the
river channel downstream may be worth checking out. I might attempt that hike again, too, but
only in cooler weather!
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