February 22, 2012 Congaree National Park

From Downtown Columbia, take Assembly past the Williams Bryce Stadium and continue down Bluff Rd for approximately eleven miles past Coble Dairy, a detention center, several bail bonding businesses, small homes, a pizza restaurant and a bar and lounge.  Soon , you will see an unassuming brown sign stating "Congaree National Park" pointing to the right down Old Bluff Rd.
Slowly it becomes evident that you are entering another world by the completely flat land, the dense forrest of great trees and a side road named "Lost John".  You will come to parking lots and picnic shelters and through the tall trees a barely discernable visitor's center made of dark wood and housing a movie theater, books, hats and Tshirts, National Park Passports, restrooms, soft drink machines and a desk staffed by rangers.  They give me a map and tell me that I can take the dog on any trails except for the board walks.  I ask if it is safe for me and my dog to hike alone and a volunteer says "Yes, as long as the dog is too big for a hawk to dive down and nab him".  "He is." I say.

We take the Sims Trail until we come to Weston Lake Loop.  There we take the left branch and circle the lake, following a still stream, seeing noone except a great blue heron and hearing the sounds of birds and water.   There are said to be wild boars in the woods, brought from Germany years ago for hunting.  We do not see them, but we see what looks like rooted up spots in the path.  There are huge bald cypress trees with their minions of knees that look for all the world like little hooded figures. We startle some ducks who have hidden behind a great fallen tree in a pond and who fly up shrieking through the air. We meet the upper Sims Trail again and return to the Visitor's Center and meet a woman from Edmondton, Ontario who is starting out on the trails.  It has taken us about two hours and I am "in the zone".  The sun is shining.  It is 64 degrees.

The Park used to be called "The Congaree Swamp National Monument" but the rangers say, it is not really a swamp; rather, it is a flood plain.  It is one of the tallest temperate hardwood forests in the world.