Tall Tall Trees

The kids were really excited to begin spring break. That was until they learned that I had taken vacation for the week of their spring break. They knew instantly that we would be doing something, somewhere that would include some form of hiking.

On Monday we headed out to Congaree National Park. The park is located just South of Columbia, SC. This is a park that I initially learned about from reading Tom's blog. He has taken several boat trips through the park. For our trip, we were mostly interested in checking out the visitor center to learn about the area and then heading out to the 2.4 mile boardwalk trail. Yeah, hiking... in the swamp!

Roughly half of the boardwalk trail is low elevation, along the floor of the swamp. During periods of flooding, this portion of the trail will become submerged. It wasn't submerged while we were there, but in some areas the water was oozing between boards as we walked along. The forest was dense and the trees were huge. Bald Cypress trees lined the path with their "knees" poking up all around. Not only were these some of the tallest trees I have walked among, the diameter was impressive as well. Most of the trees, of all species, had a wide bottom and narrowed as it rose into the air. I read that this is found in wet, swampy areas where the tree needs a wider base to support itself in wet soil.

The other half of the boardwalk trail is elevated about five to six feet above the forest floor. This portion of the park is out of the swamp and will lead you to believe you have entered an entirely different park. There are very few Cypress trees in this area. Instead there are many varieties of hard woods and pine trees. Just as we were entering the elevated section, we encountered the largest Pine I have ever seen.

This tree is more than 200 years old. Some of the pines in this forest are the tallest known living trees!

The rest of the elevated section also provided homes to many birds. We had the pleasure of listening to some unique bird songs as we hiked along. Even the children weren't complaining through this. They were pointing out all the different bugs and unique trees that they could find.

Congaree is an awesome national park that almost wasn't. In the 1970's, loggers were clear cutting portions of the land when concerned citizens started fighting to get the forest protected. I am so grateful they did.

This was a great start to our spring break. More hiking and adventure to come!