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Greetings!
Welcome to the Blue Wall Weekly, your source for what's going on outside along the Southern Blue Ridge Escarpment. Feel free to share your own photos, videos, and adventures along the Blue Wall by sending them to the email address at the bottom of the page, and we'll do our best to make you (locally) famous!
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Calm
Today there’s barely a ruffle across an oyster-water bay that extends to horizon and beyond. Barely a ripple as it laps easily against a shoreline edged in broken oyster shell. A few miles around the coastline from this sheltered bay, aqua-colored water pummels glistening white sand, and around the other way, a lagoon pushes through swamp into deep coastal woods. We’ve watched this big water be calm, ruffled, stormy, turbulent, and occasionally mirror smooth. Just like the water of Lake Jocassee. Time now to follow rivers north, to where they divide and narrow and spill forth from mountain rock. Homeward. ~K
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SPECIAL EVENTS
WITH JOCASSEE LAKE TOURS
JOCASSEE WILD CHILD WINTER ADVENTURE!
FISHING ADVENTURES WITH CAPT. ZACH
CALL OR BOOK ONLINE
TO RESERVE SEATS
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WITH JOCASSEE LAKE TOURS
EVERY SUNDAY AFTERNOON TOUR
PRIVATE TOURS ARE ALWAYS AVAILABLE!
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Sunrise along the Forgotten Coast
STATE PARK EVENTS
Oconee Station State Historic Site
January 1-December 31
Thursdays-Sundays: 9:00 AM-6:00 PM
Originally a military compound and later a trading post, this Historic Site offers both recreational opportunities and a unique look at 18th and 19th century South Carolina. Oconee Station, a stone blockhouse used as an outpost by the S.C. State Militia from about 1792 to 1799, and the William Richards House, are the only two structures that remain today.
William Richards House (1805)-foreground, Stone Blockhouse (1792)-background.
Western NC Backpackers
January 30-31: 8:00 AM-3:00 PM
We will be doing a loop style hike incorporating the Auger Hole Trail, Foothills Trail, and the Canebrake Trail. This will be a 16.5 mile trip total, with camping near the Toxaway River suspension bridge in designated camping areas.
Toxaway River campsite, photo by FTC
OTHER OUTDOOR EVENTS
Foothills Trail Conservancy
January 30
FTC Maintenance Coordinator will email the location, time, and project at least a week ahead of the scheduled date. Join the FTC and become one of our many faithful volunteers.
Volunteers like these help keep this trail maintained. If you use the trail, thank a volunteer or become one yourself.
SC Botanical Garden Events
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THIS WEEK ON LAKE JOCASSEE
JANUARY 25, 2021
Heading home. Our other home, our most- of -the -time home. My heart loves both places with equal passion. Both are wild places, dominated by birds in the winter. Both are isolated places, just right for hiding out during times of pandemics. Both are dominated by vast expanses of water. And both have loons! Not so many in the wild place we go in Florida, nothing like the numbers on Jocassee, but they are here none the less. The Jocassee loons are calling now, announcing the beginning of their breeding season molt , and it is my job, my passion to catalog the changes. Plus, did I mention the no-see-ums here? I felt them for the first time yesterday, as clear a sign as any that it is time to depart wild Florida. I will miss the sunrises though. Haven’t missed even one for our entire stay. ~B
COMING SOON!
JANUARY/FEBRUARY
GNHA
February 6: 9:00 AM-4:00 PM
GNHA
February 6: 10:00 AM-2:00 PM
GNHA
February 7: 9:00-11:00 AM
GNHA
February 7: 10:00 AM-12:00 PM
OTHER OUTDOOR EVENTS
Friends of Jocassee (FOJ)
February 8: 12:00-2:00 PM
SCNPS
February 11: 6:00-7:30 PM
Lake Conestee Nature Preserve
February 13: 6:30-10:00 PM
SCNPS
February 16: 6:30-8:00 PM
Greenville County Bird Club
February 20: 8:00-10:30 AM (Shorter Walk)
February 20: 8:00 AM-12:00 PM (Longer Walk)
Foothills Trail Conservancy
February 20: 9:00 AM
SCNPS
February 20: 12:00-3:00 PM
SC Botanical Garden Events
February 4: 4:30-5:30 PM
BORROWED GLIMPSES
Hiking. The perfect exercise for social distancing.
Photo by Andrew Gleason
A fun new swinging bridge takes Palmetto Trail hikers over Eastatoee Creek!
Photo by Brenda Wiley
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DID YOU KNOW?
CORRECTION! Sabal palmetto is in the family of Arecalaeae, order Aracales, class Liliopsida. Yellow Indiangrass is in the family Poaceae (grasses), order Cyperales, and class Liliopsida (monocots). Therefore Cabbage Palm is not a grass any more than you are a wolf or squirrel in the common class of Mammalia. So it is better to say a palm is more related to an orchid or a trillium or a grass than it is to a tree. Trees are is another class, Magnoliopsida (dicotyledons).~Dan Whitten
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ABOUT THE BLUE WALL
Spanning three states (North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia) and encompassing 859,000 acres, the Southern Blue Ridge Escarpment, known as the 'Blue Wall' by Native Americans, contains some of the highest natural diversity of rare plants and animals found anywhere in the world.
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www.JocasseeLakeTours.com
info@jocasseelaketours.com
Phone: 864-280-5501
Jocassee Lake Tours Depart from the Main Dock at Devils Fork State Park
PLEASE CALL 864-280-5501 AT LEAST 24 HOURS IN ADVANCE TO RESERVE YOUR SEATS!
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Enjoy this Lake Jocassee peaceful hideaway.
CAMP GLAMP!
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Love Jocassee? Help protect and preserve the beauty of Lake Jocassee and the Jocassee Gorges by joining FOJ!
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Visit Oconee Convention and Visitors Bureau
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Your Portal to Paradise!
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Lake Jocassee
&
Lake Keowee
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