Late March into early April is when the endangered Oconee Bell - Shortia galacifolia - displays it's blooms. Most people that know this head to Devil's Fork State Park in SC and hike the Oconee Bell trail there where the plant carpets the stream banks along parts of the trail. Even though the plant is listed as endangered, it grows in profusion in many areas of the Jocassee Gorges and is considered 'locally abundant'. Bernie had discovered one of these areas a few years ago and knew I wanted to shoot some more blooms, so he suggested we do this hike. As a bonus, we would also be searching for new falling water along Howard and Limber Pole Creeks. Harry and Cathy made it a foursome.

Here's Bernie's topo route - be sure you click 'original' above to see the biggest version. We came down NC281 south from Lake Toxaway into SC where the road number changes to SC130. I don't have an exact mileage, but we pulled off at a gated old logging road about 5 to 5 1/4 miles from the NC/SC border. I tried to make this map big enough so you can see the coords if you want to feed them into a GPS. This area is a maze of old logging roads, so you'll have to have some map reading and GPS skills to try and follow where we went. As you can see, the hike was flat for the most part. Out and back was a little over 8 miles - it's about 2 miles in to where the Oconee Bells began in abundance.