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Thankfully, as forecasted, close to 6” of rain fell over the past week in the Jocassee Gorges; replenishing streams, recharging groundwater and slightly improving the drought conditions we’re experiencing. This much needed relief raised lake levels slightly, but Jocassee is still about 10’ below full pond. According to experts, most of SC is still abnormally…

Kids Squeals of laughter ripple across this narrow cove. Carefree children, sandy, sunburnt, hair wild and wind-tangled, chasing each other down the edge of the lake like puppies let loose into a yard of fresh snow. Three centuries back these might have been sons and daughters of Cherokee people, playing their games, slipping like sleek…

Jocassee was 12.8’ low this past Thursday as we finished the last of the spring Jocassee Wild Child Outdoor Learning Experiences. Those low levels didn’t stop us from having a blast, though. Several of the benefits of low water are discovering long stretches of beaches, rock outcrops (that make great new jumping spots) and the…

Trees Sitting on bedrock, hidden in shadows of scrappy little Virginia pines, I watch another cloudless day pass over Lake Jocassee. Once upon a time in this very place, Tulip poplars would have reached toward low-hanging stars–mighty trees–felled by storms, lumber contracts, and man’s idea of progress. The giants are gone. A few miles from…

Oh, how we love our waterfalls at Jocassee, especially bigger waterfalls. We love to get close to them. Maybe you get under a waterfall and feel the ‘massage’ on your head or back. But beyond the waterfall, there are plants that love the spray from the waterfall on the rocks behind the waterfall. In the…

Stumped   Six decades have passed since Duke Power announced plans to build nuclear and hydroelectric facilities to generate electricity for Oconee and Pickens Counties. Two lakes were to be created by containing Keowee River behind dams. Surveyors traversed Jocassee Gorges, marking a clean line through the hills. Timber companies followed, and bulldozers. Soon enough…

  Migration is an exciting time for birders. The number and variety brings enjoyment and fascination to almost everyone. Birding is commonly thought of as an activity of counting birds that have been seen or heard. The total species noted, along with their number, is often thought of as the objective. Recently a walk of…

Hooked Saturday morning, 7am. Trucks and bass boat trailers fill the parking lot at Lake Jocassee. A school of fishermen, lured from pre-dawn beds, have long since disappeared across dark, calm water to hide against the shore in favored fishing grounds. A couple of stragglers try their luck near the boat ramp as morning sun…

Delicate, almost imperceptible fragrances from tulip poplars and climbing hydrangeas catch you by surprise.  Your sun-warmed skin involuntarily shivers as you glide into a shaded, stream-fed cove. Small, yellow and orange, tulip-shaped flowers litter your path as your fingers gently caress  pillow-soft clumps of moss and tiny, feathery ferns.  Quietly following a well-worn path along…

Wake up!  It’s 6:13am. Barely civil-twilight. From the mountain laurel right outside our bedroom window Carolina Wren yells at me with all the subtlety of a seven-year-old with a new whistle. “LA-ZY! LA-ZY! LA-ZY! UP!” “ YEAAAAAHHHH” trills Pine Warbler. Sleep, what I had of that on this full moon night, is over as the…

On the ground, I see a millipede. Our Wild Child group has been keeping track of all the species we see, so we examine this slow mover. It’s sitting on a leaf, so I pick up the leaf and coax it into crawling on my hand. I explain that millipedes eat decaying leaves, that they…

Blacks We may call this a park, we may claim human possession of land and water, but the real lords of this place are black vultures that fly low sweeping patrols over swimmers, clean up fish carcass left behind from Thursday tournaments, and watch the comings and goings of two Canada geese and their four…