Foothills Trail

Our quest is to complete the Foothills Trail this year from one end to the other, one section at a time.

Note-To embed this Map from RWGPS Click Share and Embed and it give you the Code. Then put Blogger in HTML Mode and Paste the Code in the spot where you want it.

This is the entire Foothills Trail as illustrated in Ride with GPS. I use RWGPS to plan each Route and then Track each Hike as we complete each section. This Blog Post will capture our journey step by step, section by section East to West from Table Rock to Oconee. Chip and I have been hiking together for abut 39 years, the number of years that Tess and I have been married. We often reminisce and talk about those early days and our very first hike together as a group. Chip and Jesse, Hunyade, Girl with a Purse and a Puppy and others that Chip might help me remember. The essence of that journey is that we were all new and woefully unprepared for our adventure. We got lost and then, after much ado, we found our way out and lived to tell about it. At one point we were crossing a stream and Chip offered his hand in assistance to Tess. She promptly swatted it away with the declaration, I can handle this myself, and splashed triumphantly through the creek. Wow!!! What a Woman!!! I have no records of that trip, except for the memories, but it was a great and glorious day!


All of our future journeys were just Chip and I. There was another guy for awhile, Eric. We did some hiking and some repelling, which was fun, but mostly it was Chip and I and my Golden Retriever Keeshe.

Chip and Jesse Baby Carrie

Its hard to move on without taking a quick glance back in time. We have no pictures of that first trip and yet what a monumental trip it turned out to be. The beginnings of a long and happy journey through marriage and friendship all to unfold from that one very innocent day. Hey, do you want to go for a hike?

So this is Table Rock! I named this trip The Dark Side of the Moon! Two reasons; We hiked way beyond the normal tourist boundaries of the Table Rock Trail to the back side of Table Rock. There was not a soul in sight for miles. The wind was howling and it was Freezing Cold! Also Pink Floyd is Chips all time favorite group and Dark Side of the Moon....

Side link on this hike:

Long Cold Winter for Carl Sandburg and Friends

As winter rolled in I put my bike up on blocks and switched over to "hiking season" with it's itinerate gear. My friend Chip and I planned several long hauls to Drawbar Cliffs which is in the center of two starting points, one in Table Rock State Park and one at the peak of Van Clayton Hwy. Drawbar is a nice open rock race that lies just outside of state park grounds so that campfires are not illegal. We make full use of that by cooking up the unbeatable culinary combination of Beer and Brats.

One of our goals this year was to find the elusive Petroglyphs of Pickens, SC near Drawbar Cliffs, a collection of cave drawings told to us by other hikers a few years ago. I researched as much as I could find on the net and couldn't find much and ironically linked me back to my own blog post. I did hunt down another hiker who had documented the site and badgered her into giving her best description of how to get there. Then on one hike, by hook, by crook and by a modecum of bum luck We Found the Petroglyphs.  For anyone wishing to follow in our footsteps here is the map.



We then set about discovering alternative routes to the famed Petroglyphs using logging roads off Hwy 11 as pictured below:


Now, much like many other explorers, I will leave their authenticity up to your discretion. These circles carved into the blackened rock face are Not Cave Drawings at all. There is no cave and these are Not Drawings. They are circular depressions (carvings?) in the rock face and there is one collection which emulates a Tiger Paw. Fun to find but not the handiwork of Clemson Fans.

As I titled this post, Carl Sandburg and Friends, I made a personal commitment to hike that trail to Big Glassy every day. Most of the time I went alone, sometimes with friends and once in a while with my love Tess. I enjoy the 3.8 mile 700 ft elevation one hour round trip because it's finite and fun and keeps the mothballs of winter from setting in. I thought it would be appropriate to familiarize myself with some of Carl Sandburg's writings so I got the Audible version of Abraham Lincoln, The Prairie Years and the War Years. It is a wonderful book that acquainted me with Lincoln and Sandburg and provided an enriching experience for me as I trecked through woods and trails in Flat Rock, North Carolina.


Well the long cold winter is slowly beginning to thaw. Today is cold and rainy giving me a chance to sit and reminisce before this grand season, which also marked the birth of our second grandchild Wesley Aaron Fuller on January 5, 2015, fades in memory giving way to the next.