Aiken State Park

Change of plans! Bear Branch Heritage Preserve, our planned destination, is closed for the time being because the gate has been damaged and is now jammed shut. Instead on Saturday December 15, 10:30 AM, we’ll visit Aiken State Park on the South Fork Edisto River. Aiken State Park, encompassing 1,067 acres, features pine uplands, sandhill pocosin-type wetlands, creeks, and blackwater river floodplain.

Enter the park and stop at the fee station (marked by the dollar sign on the map) to pay $2.00 cash per person – $1.25 if over age 65 – into a fee box. Continue a short distance and turn right at the sign for “Picnic Area / Jungle Trail / Day-use Shelter.” Park in this parking area. Restrooms are here, and the Main Pond and Jungle Nature Trail are directly ahead. The Jungle Nature Trail is a level, easy-to-follow, three-mile boardwalk and dirt turf loop through tropical-looking wetlands, and mixed pine and hardwood forest. We will walk through dense green rhododendron, and fern that provide habitat for iridescent dragonflies, and a variety of birds, snakes, and other wildlife. At the far end of the main loop, you will see two clearly marked spur trails. Follow the short canoe launch spur trail across the park road, through a sandy oval parking area, to the dock on the South Fork of the Edisto River. Near the dock, an artesian well bubbles up through a fountain. When you return to the main loop trail, you can also walk the other, slightly longer, spur trail to the Fishing Pond. Continuing on the main trail, avoid any unmarked spur trails, and you will return to the parking area.

Prefer a little less walking? The one-way loop road, shown on the map as a line with arrows, is a good way to see the park by car. When scouting last week we took this road and made stops at the Children’s Pond and the Fishing Lake. At the Children’s Pond we noticed a plant that looked like Isoetes (not quite visible in the photo above). Who will take a closer look?? At the Fishing Lake, a larger body of water, a stand of dead trees appears to be a result of beaver activity. A variety of birds seemed to be attracted here as well, so birders may want to spend some time at this site.