We started off our day bright and early, driving to Bad Creek Access near Lake Joccassee. We couldn’t have timed the drive in more perfectly. A couple of miles from the trailhead, we drove around a corner to find this view waiting for us.
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| Good Morning, World |
We took the beauty of the sunrise as a good omen and eagerly continued to the trailhead, ready to start hiking. However, when we arrived, we were greeted by this scene.
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| It’s a little blurry but the side of the truck reads, “Special Rescue.” |
Thankfully it was just a training run for a local search and rescue group! We were even treated to a helicopter landing in a field just beside the trail as we hiked in. Hey, at least if something happened out there to us, we knew these guys were going to be there for us!
Diana and I were both amazed at how far the kids had come with their hiking abilities. When we got to the top of a long uphill section, indicating we had hiked our first two miles, the kids were in disbelief. “No way we’ve gone that far. Mom, are you sure you’re reading that guide right? We did that way too fast.” It was such a great moment as a mother, to see them take pride in their increasing strength and recognize the difference in their abilities from our first trip on the trail.
After a pleasant morning with no one falling apart or “incidents” like we were so used to having, we stopped at the Thompson River for lunch. The day was absolutely beautiful. I couldn’t believe how perfect the weather was and watching them play games on the big boulders made me smile from ear to ear. It was a hard place to leave.
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| Lots of fun was had on the boulders beside the Thompson River |
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| I always love seeing them create games out of things they find in the woods. |
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| Two of our cutie pies, Ella and Paige |
Eventually, we knew we had to keep hiking since we were on a fairly structured schedule with campsites and our departure two days later, so we left the most perfect lunch spot ever and started our trek uphill.
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| Crossing the Thompson River after lunch |
No sooner had we left when I heard Riley, who was leading the pack with Wogene directly behind him, start running while yelling, “Ow, ow, ow!!” swatting at his calf. So much for the cold killing the yellow jackets off. I quickly saw the nest, a few feet to the left of the trail, with wasps darting in and out in their frantic state to defend their home.
Wogene was parallel to it when I started yelling at him to come back down towards me. In his typical sweet and innocent, clueless fashion, he turned around, looked at me and said, with a slightly irritated tone since I was breaking his stride on an uphill stretch, “What? What?” By this time, Diana was yelling at him to come to us too, and finally he sauntered down the trail, still completely oblivious to what was around him. How he wasn’t stung is still nothing short of a small miracle!
Unfortunately, there was no easy way around the nest because the trail was so steep to the right and left. We knew we’d have to walk by it, one by one, as far to the right side of the trail as we could manage, and hope for the best. Diana forged ahead and greeted our minions as they fearfully walked through the danger zone, trying not to slip on the blanket of acorns lining the trail as they hustled, while I gave the remaining kids a pep talk before they took their turn. Unfortunately, Teagan was stung when he passed through. I felt so badly for him. Teagan, as I’ve mentioned, is our “happy guy”–the kid doesn’t do bad moods and so it really pissed me off to see him in pain!
Aidan and I were the last ones to brave it, but after our last trip when he was stung so many times and then seeing Teagan just get stung, he was ready to head back to the car and call it a day. It took a lot of rallying to build up his courage and a lot of extra clothing on his body to convince him he didn’t have much more than a square inch of skin showing. But the worst part? He made me get fully decked out in all my clothing with him, because he was convinced I would be a prime target to a mass attack if his flesh was inaccessible. By now, the day had warmed up and so I was instantly sweltering in all my extra garb. Finally, with tears in his eyes, he raced through the crime scene and miracle of miracles, we made it without getting stung!
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| All decked out in his yellow jacket protection gear. |
Most of the crew had walked a little further ahead before we arrived and encountered yet another nest a short distance from the trail! At least we were getting more adept at spotting them and everyone passed by it safely.
The rest of the day’s hike was uneventful, thankfully. We made a detour to see Hilliard Falls, but there really weren’t any falls to speak of since the weather had been so dry.
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| Hilliard Falls is supposed to end in this pool, but there wasn’t much to see. |
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| The kids didn’t mind. They were content racing leaves down the stretch of water beyond where the falls should have ended. |
When we arrived at our campsite, a group of three guys hiked by shortly after. They were thru hiking their last section of the trail and finishing up the next day. We told them about the two nests we encountered so they would know to watch for them, and they were kind enough to warn us about a section of trail we’d pass tomorrow that had a huge nest right on the trail! They crossed paths with another man who had not seen it and been stung repeatedly. “He was in bad shape,” one of the guys said. Great.
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| We survived another day! |
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| Stick fort building |
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| Pudding coma. I made an Oreo pudding concoction for the kids’ dessert, but it wasn’t so great and the kids didn’t eat much….except for Wogene who was happy to eat every bite he could get since he has a huge sweet tooth and a Mama who tries to feed him well (except when we’re camping–if him eating it meant I didn’t have to pack it out–eat up, son!) |
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| It was in the 30s that night, and I kept waking up wondering how our hammock sleepers were faring (Riley and Aidan). |
The next morning, we packed up and headed out, knowing we needed to be cautious when we saw any kind of downed tree on the trail (the guys who told us about the next one explained that it was in front of a fallen tree). Problem was, there are quite a few fallen trees over the trail, so we had to stop and watch frequently. We did encounter one nest just off the trail, so we had to make a detour off the trail which proved quite the challenge as it traversed through thick rhododendron and mountain laurel.
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| Holding back ginormous boulders to pass through is hard work! |
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| Crossing the Horsepasture River after another great lunch spot! |
Finally, we approached what was undoubtedly “the one.” From a distance we could see swarms of bees flying in and out of a sizable hole in the ground. The Graddaddy of all nests. Thankfully, others before us had carved out a path on the mountainside below as a detour, and so the walking was easy to get around it. We knew we probably weren’t in the clear for the rest of the trip, but at least we avoided that nightmare!
The end of the day brought us to what the trail described as “an “excellent campsite.” We were excited to get to this oasis and relax. When we arrived, I kept checking my guidebook to make sure we were in the right spot, because nothing about this campsite was excellent. It was kind of a dump and you could tell it had been used by weekend campers partying it up (there was a forest service road close to it). So we hiked on and found a much nicer spot about a quarter of a mile away. The kids built a fire while we made dinner and we all talked about our favorite books. The Laursen kids are avid readers and I loved hearing about their favorites and relaying ours to them. These kids are so incredibly special to me now. My own kids are so spoiled by their presence backpacking with us that they are hard pressed to want to go without them now!
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| Hanging out in our tent that weighs 50 bajillion pounds. |
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| The hammock campers double decking it. |
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| Demonstrating the dual poop squat. These boys crack me up (and gross me out) every single time we hike. |
The next day, we knew we couldn’t be late for our ride out of the woods, so we packed up and headed out. Diana and I hardly ever have a chance to talk while we’re hiking since we typically bookend the kids, but we decided to throw caution to the wind and let the kids hike in the lead and us in the back. Just as we were on the verge of solving all the world’s problems, Ella came running up the trail towards us with Paige on her heels, both in a state of panic. She had a yellow jacket caught in her hair after walking over a step built into the trail that was housing, you got it, another nest!! One immediately flew into her hair and that’s when the panic stricken state began (can you blame her?!). Diana somehow got it out of her hair and avoided getting stung, but we still had the obstacle of getting around yet another nest!
We made a detour up a steep section of the mountain while the boys waited for us below, alerting us as to when we had made it past the nest (somehow they passed through without seeing them or getting stung). It was almost becoming comical at this point how many nests we had passed on this freaking trail on our various trips! Winter hiking was looking better by the minute!
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| It isn’t as easy as it looks on these detours off trail! |
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| We came to the top of a mountain and walked out into a field that had several Monarch butterflies passing through on their long journey to Mexico–so cool to see! |
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| She sometimes has a flair for the dramatic when she’s tired. 🙂 |
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| Since Aidan could walk he’s had an eagle eye for turtles! |
Around lunchtime, we made it to Canebrake Access which skirts the edge of Lake Jocassee. The kids had a great time exploring the recessed shoreline while we waited on our ride out of the wilderness. That ride came in the form of a boat! Jocassee Lake Tours provides a shuttle service for hikers on the Foothills Trail, and we couldn’t resist a beautiful ride across the lake to end the trip.
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| We made it (and on time for the boat)! |
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| They loved walking on the recessed shoreline exploring. |
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| Our boat shuttle! |
We ended the hike on a fantastic note and visions of yellow jackets became distant memories, overshadowed by yet another exciting and memorable time on our quest to thru hike the Foothills Trail!
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| Sadly, we were missing Kyla on this trip because she was on a trip with her band from school. We missed her terribly though! |