A city dweller walking the trails through Congaree National Park is sure to be overwhelmed and more than a little anxious. What are those stick-spear things coming up from the ground? What good is this stinky, muddy swamp? And what about all those scary animals? My friends Cathy, Dianne and I recently met at Congaree and hiked more than 15 miles through this swamp, reveling in its delights as well as trying to imagine it through the eyes of someone more in tuned with traffic noise than bird song. And so, to alleviate the anxiety and awaken the awe, here’s my take on this national treasure.
First, a little backstory. Congaree National Park, at over 26,000 acres, is the largest old growth bottomland hardwood forest in the Southeast. Let’s break that down. A football field is 1.32 acres; imagine an area of almost 20,000 football fields. That’s big. Really big. “Old growth” means humans haven’t bothered it for a long, long time. TBecause of this, there is a huge variety of life here (biodiversity is the term ecologists use). The plants, animals, and other living things (fungi in particular) have a working relationship that, unlike our Congress, support each other to keep the ecosystem functioning in an efficient manner. And bottomland refers to low-lying land around a river. Think floodplain. Think swamp. When floodwaters from the Congaree and Wateree River sweep through, they bring natural fertilizer to this forest. This along with other factors has made Congaree the home of some of the biggest trees in the U.S.! In return, the swamp acts like a sponge, soaking up the floodwaters and releasing it slowly to the communities downstream. And there’s no need for a Brita water purifier here: these bottomlands actually take the pollutants out of the water and change them into less harmful chemicals.
But enough of all this edification. Let’s get on the trail.
1-29-22 Cathy and I met Dianne at the Visitors’ Center. To our surprise, there was a dusting of snow on the boardwalk. Temperatures today would scarcely reach above 40°. But we were dressed appropriately and this is exactly the kind of weather we preferred. The Mosquito Meter by the restrooms ranges from All Clear to War Zone, and it’s no joke. Although there are many delights in the swamp in warmer weather, I prefer my blood to stay inside my body and not in those blood-thirsty insects. And if snakes send you into spasms of terror, winter is probably your best bet to experience the swamp.
Our plan was to hike the Oakridge Trail and the Weston Lake Trail. Each trail has markers every 10-15 yards with numbers specific to that trail. The Friends of Congaree Swamp web site has detailed descriptions of each trail. It’s best to carry printed maps and information as cell service is spotty.
Because of the snow, the boardwalk was slippery. But at least it wasn’t under water, as it is during more rainy weather. And even if it’s not rainy in the swamp, upstream conditions can still flood the trails. Always a good idea to check the Congaree National Park web site for alerts.
We were still on the boardwalk when we spotted a tan-colored grocery bag hanging from a tree. Nope, it was a bald-faced hornet’s nest. These wasps chew up wood to paper-mâché their nest. We resisted the temptation to treat it like a piñata.
Not too far down the path I stumbled upon a section of a wasp nest on the ground. This is actually what is inside the smooth walls of the piñata-type nest. And what a great use of geometry, using hexagon cribs for their babies where each wall supports another!
We turned off the boardwalk onto the Weston Lake Trail (trail #3) and soon encountered a couple of non-native species: two university students from Ohio who drove overnight for a long weekend of exploring Congaree National Park. We were impressed by their dedication to visit all the National Parks, even if it meant sleeping in their car during below-freezing nights.
Together, we explored some strange plates stuck on a fallen tree. I knew these as shelf fungus, but if you really want to impress people you’d call them polypores. Unlike their cousins the mushrooms, these fruiting bodies have tubes (pores) that connect to the rotten core of a tree. Polypores are an indication of a healthy natural forest and are an important first step in forest food chains as decomposers. Plus they’re just cool. I found a broken-off conk (another impressive term) on the ground and being my usual goofy self, turned it into a hat. [Plea to Reader-Explorers: Please don’t break these off!]
We crossed Cedar Creek, leaving the Weston Lake Trail and continuing on the Oakridge Trail (trail #4). Although you wouldn’t know it by looking at the murky water, Cedar Creek is the only body of water in South Carolina designated as Outstanding Natural Resource Waters, meaning that it is federally protected as a high quality water little impacted by humans. No, I wouldn’t drink it, but it is teeming with life not found in other waters. Another super power of swamps!
Trees provide a lot of WOW moments in Congaree Swamp. The multi-colored lichens on the tree trunks. The holes and weird protuberances on the trees. The sheer enormity of the trees.
Yet nothing compared to standing next to the root system of a large cherrybark oak that had fallen right next to the trail. Even William “Refrigerator” Perry (“Even when I was little, I was big.”) would look like a midget beside this upturned tree. The bigger they are, the harder they fall! And this one fell after the Columbia flood of 2015 saturated the soil and loosened its grip on the soil, a victim of a shallow root system. These roots just can’t survive in soggy soil, so they grow out instead of down.
Speaking of soggy soil, once we left the boardwalk we were slipping and sliding on the muddy trail. I had considered not bringing my trekking poles, but I was glad I did! And I’m also grateful for washing machines, because I think I carried at least a pound of mud home with me on my pants. But no worries, there’s plenty more where that came from.
We came to the intersection of the River Trail. One of the great things about hiking with Cathy and Dianne is they also subscribe to the motto: “In spite of everything, yes, let’s.” Dianne suggested that we add the River Trail to our hike, an addition of some five miles to the ten we had planned. Of course we did. And although my feet were talking to me at the end, I’m so glad we did.
The River Trail (trail #5) took us on a loop that paralleled the Congaree River. We ate our lunch sitting on a platform for a river gage used by the United State Geological Survey to monitor water levels. The nearby ramp, once used both as a boat launch and for ferrying equipment across the river, was now covered with mud, making it a perfect place to observe animal tracks.
We took some time to relax by the river. Someone had picked up a pile of trash carried down by the river, but it was too much for us to carry away. We did spot Spaulding, the basketball version of Tom Hank’s friend Wilson, but it’s hard to make light of the human detritus littering our natural areas.
Trees are some of my favorite people, and we sure had fun with them on this hike. Back on the Oakridge Trail we found what undoubtedly must be the champion holly tree. Holly berries punctuated the forest floor, and the canopy was alive with a gossip of robins who seemed to be feasting upon them.
Another tree had apparently taken root on a fallen log, which when it decomposed, left the new tree roots raised like stilts. This in turn allowed one of the goofier members of our party to stick her hand under and through the tree for a crazy photo op.
And yet, with all the goodness of trees and all the fun we can have with them, I just can’t see why people have to turn them into walls of graffiti. This ain’t cool, folks. If you want your name to be known, donate to a good cause, such as supporting research through the Friends of Congaree Swamp.
Walking through Congaree Swamp often feels like being in a jungle. Numerous vines hang from the trees, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Tarzan swinging from vine to vine. Scientists, who always seem to try to make things harder than they really are, call them lianas. Lianas is the Spanish word for vine. See what I mean? I tried to convince Cathy and Dianne that the thick hairy vines attached to tree trunks were part of a sensory trail and they should touch them. Alas, they knew better than to trust me: these were poison ivy vines. Do. Not. Touch. The muscadine grape vine, on the other hand, is perfectly harmless to touch and grows to an impressive size. Their aerial rootlets hanging down could double as witch’s hair. Which is a perfect segue to the Legend of Boggy Gut.
I must say that I walked past Boggy Gut, and even across it, without knowing the legend or even what a gut was. And although Goggle helped me with both, I’m still not quite sure the difference between a gut and a slough, which we also walked by cluelessly. (Slough is one of those words whose pronunciation defies logic. It looks like it should rhyme with dough, but actually rhymes with dew: think slew.) As far as I can tell, a gut is one level down from a creek. It is a stream channel in a wetland that dries out but fills during floods, much like an arroyo or wash in the Southwest. A slough, on the other hand, is a depression in the floodplain that mostly stays wet. Sloughs are often the endgame for oxbow lakes that fill in with sediments over time. More on that later.
But back to the legend: Boggy Gut is said to be haunted by the spirit of Ole Man Rogan. Folklore has it that Rogan was an evil slave trader who took pleasure in separating slave families to different owners. As Boggy Gut was Rogan’s favorite fishing spot, after his death he was doomed to wander endlessly here. We heard no rattle of chains, cries, or cruel laughter, but then again, I’m not sure I’d want to hike through here in the dark of the night! Shivers!
How is it that I’ve gotten this far into my Congaree primer and haven’t yet discussed those stick-spear things? Those strange knobs sticking up from the swampy ground are actually cypress knees. Scientists still aren’t exactly certain what their function is, but it could be that these extensions of the bald cypress roots help the tree “breathe” and probably also serve as anchors or counterweights to allow these trees to stand tall in the wet soil. Bald cypress are one of the few conifer (cone-bearing) trees that actually shed their needles in the fall, making them “bald.” It is easily distinguished from the other common tree found here, the swamp tupelo. The bald cypress has a fluted, or buttressed base, unlike the swollen base of the tupelo. Cypress wood is rot-resistant, making it a valuable tree for lumber. But since Congaree National Park is a protected area, we don’t have to worry about them being cut down, so there is (wait for it) a slew of cypress knees in the slough.
I caught a bit of movement on the other side of the slough (or maybe it was a gut) and stopped for a closer look. Sure enough, a family of feral hogs was trotting off through the brush, with one cute little piglet left far behind but scampering wildly to catch up. As cute as this little guy was, however, wild pigs are invasive and highly destructive to an ecosystem. We had hiked past numerous spots where they had rooted around in the dirt, eating anything and everything they could get in their snouts. We had seen their tracks (more rounded than deer tracks) and had even found a skull of a pig with its impressive tusks, but this was the first time any of us had seen them in the wild. Like any wild animal, I wouldn’t want to threaten one by getting too close or coming between a sow and her piglets, but given the chance, those hogs will opt to skedaddle from us dangerous humans.
We were now well down the Weston Lake Trail and finally at the boardwalk overlook of Weston Lake itself. This is actually an oxbow lake, so named because its U-shape looks like the part of the yoke that fits over an ox’s neck. It was formed years ago, maybe even thousands of years ago, when a meandering loop of the Congaree River got cut off from the main channel. As I mentioned before, oxbows typically fill up with sediments and end their lives as sloughs, but Weston Lake seems to have thus far escaped that fate.
From here it was a fast hike on the boardwalk back to the Visitor Center. The sun was getting low on the horizon, temperatures were dropping, and our tired feet were ready to take it easy on the ride home. It had been a lovely day of exploring this treasure of a natural resource, and I can’t wait to return.
Drop me in the middle of New York City and I would no doubt cower in fear. The noise, the chaos, the threat of violence and personal danger: this has all the making of a nightmare for me. Yet these jitters are also aspects of Congaree National Park, albeit in a natural setting. Yes, there are feral hogs, and snakes, and poison ivy, and mosquitoes. But being aware of the dangers while experiencing the awe is what it’s all about. And just as New Yorkers relish in the atmosphere of their busy city, so too do I in this swamp, this wetland called Congaree. And now that you know what those stick-spear things are poking up from the ground, I hope you too say, “Awe, Congaree!”
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