Congaree

Congaree is one of the newer parks added to the National Parks Service. It's relatively small, but has several nice trails for hiking, lots of boating opportunities, and a plethora of wild life. Hiking through the woods is an experience in bird song. There are always different birds singing and hammering away. While they are easy to hear, and easy to catch glimpses of in the woods as they fly by, but the trees are so thick that it is very difficult to get any photos of them.

While I didn't get out on the water this trip one of the locals I met talked a lot about different canoe trips he has done in the area, and there are lots of different put ins for boats.

As a relatively new park some local guides are still learning about the area, so remember Congaree is the name of the tribe, and doesn't mean scrapes along the bottom, George Washington did visit Columbia, but only as president (1791) and he called the Congaree area "a pine barren of the worst sort" he also complained about how the river wasn't particularly useful and it's only 130 miles from Columbia to Charleston, but it's 400 miles by river. Although apparently the road from Columbia to Camden was even worse.