Lower Thompson River (via Lake Jocassee)
Jun. 1st, 2021 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flyminion
Today, I kayaked up Lake Jocassee to explore some more swimming holes on the Thompson River. I was sort of intent on reaching a swimming hole by unconventional means, and my first idea was to bike (well, partway) to Wintergreen Falls on the Toxaway River, but renting a bike seemed like too much trouble, so I decided kayaking might be fun. Plus, my lower body got a workout yesterday, so I figured I would give my upper body a workout today. Yesterday’s hike at the upper Thompson River had nice waterfalls and a couple of swimming holes, but none that were really primo (plus the air and water were both too chilly for a swim to be pleasant). I was hoping the lower section of the river might be an improvement on both counts, since it looks less shaded on Google Earth and is at a lower elevation. I had noted a couple of significant-looking sliding waterfalls with pools on Google Earth, and it looked like the river had continuous cascades and pools from the lower slide down to where the river flows into the lake. When researching Lake Jocassee, I had also come across Wrights Creek Falls, one of several waterfalls that spill directly into the lake (that was actually how I got the idea to go kayaking in the first place; I didn’t actually decide to do the lower Thompson River until after finding out it fed into the lake near Wrights Creek Falls).I got up (okay, started hitting the snooze button) at the ungodly hour of 7:30 AM. I was still kind of worn out from yesterday, and my left knee was still angry, so it was good I wasn’t going to be using my legs as much today. I picked up a sub from Subway and made the drive to Devil’s Fork State Park. Just as I crossed the border into South Carolina on a winding mountain road, I saw a bear trying to climb a power pole and not doing a very good job of it. There was an empty car parked a few yards away, so I surmised that perhaps it was a person in a bear suit trying to punk passersby. I’m pretty sure it was a real bear, though. Maybe the person was at the top of the pole? Heh Heh.
I arrived at the park just after 10 AM to pick up my kayak rental at Eclectic Sun. I didn’t get on the water until about 10:30 AM because one of the footrests on my kayak was broken, so I had to swap it for another one. At first I was thinking today was going to be cool and cloudy like yesterday, but when I felt the morning sun beaming down, I could tell that wasn’t going to be the case today. It was nearly six miles to the mouth of the Thompson River, and I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to get there. It felt like I was paddling against the wind, but it may have just been air resistance, as I was paddling pretty aggressively. I made it to the end of the lake arm that the park was on, and could see that the most direct way to get to the Thompson River arm would be to paddle straight across the lake. I figured I probably wasn’t supposed to do that, as there are larger motorized boats on the lake, but I thought it wouldn’t be a problem if I did it "quickly". Ha! It’s hard to judge distance on water. I thought I was going to book it across the lake in five minutes. I finally made it across about 25 minutes later. As I paddled up the Thompson arm, I was on the lookout for potential jumping spots. It was hard to see the shoreline, though, because I was closer to the east bank of the lake, which was backlit by the sun at this time of day.
I finally reached the area of Wrights Creek Falls around 11:50 AM. Just before I got there, I noticed a potential jump of about 10 feet and parked my kayak to check it out.
As I got into the water, I felt like I was forgetting something important, and then I realized my phone was still in my swimsuit pocket. I had never tested its waterproof capability before, but now I know it can survive being submerged. The speakers sounded weird for the rest of the day, though. The water temperature felt to be in the lower 70s. I checked the depth with my diving mask. The water was about 15 feet deep below the jump with no obstacles to avoid, and it was clear enough to see all the way to the bottom. I struggled for about five minutes to bushwhack my way up to the jump, and then I noticed an easier path once I was on top of it. As with any jump, it looked higher when I was up there. I kept my life jacket on since there was no one with me, and I was hoping that wasn’t going to make for an unpleasant impact. My feet felt like they hit the water really hard, almost as hard as when I did the high jump at Blue Streak. I guess flat lake water is more dense than aerated swimming hole water. The life jacket didn’t cause any problems, although I did shoot back up to the surface pretty fast.
I got back into my boat and paddled around the corner. I noticed another rock ledge, but as I got closer, I could see the water beneath it was too shallow for jumping.
From here, I continued a short distance to Wrights Creek Falls. It was a two-tiered waterfall of about 30-40 feet spilling directly into a glowing blue cove in the lake.
It looked inviting, but I was now pretty chilly since I was wet, and the air temperature was a little cooler here because of the waterfall. I got out of my boat and did some leg stretches to hopefully prepare my knee for action when I reached the Thompson River. The stretches didn’t make it completely better, but they did reduce the pain enough to make my knee serviceable for a short creek walk. I was going to eat my sub here at Wrights Creek Falls, but I was feeling chilly since the shoreline was mostly shaded, so I decided to continue on to the Thompson River. It took me about 25 minutes to paddle there from Wrights Creek Falls.
On the approach, I was checking the river-right side of the lake for scramble trails, since I knew from Google Earth that there was some kind of trail or jeep road that paralleled the river from high above. I thought I might be able to creek walk upstream, climb up to the trail, and find a scramble trail back down to the lake. However, the terrain looked too densely vegetated and cliffy for that to be possible.
I was so glad to finally see the river feeding into the lake up ahead.
I pulled my boat ashore and secured it to a tree with a bike lock, since pontoons and tour boats were constantly coming up to this point. To my surprise, there was actually a trail following the river upstream, which meant I might not have to creek walk. The trail was only about 100 feet or so, and it came out on a rock slab in the middle of a cascade on the river, and a multi tiered waterfall from a tributary stream spilled over the cliffs from the side (there’s more to it than what you can see in the picture).
I decided this would be a fine lunch spot, so I ate my sub and a package of cookie dough pop tarts. The water didn’t feel as cold as yesterday. My thermometer said it was 61 °F, which wasn’t a huge difference, but it was barely above where I draw the line for acceptable water tempatures. I noticed another possible scramble path that went beneath a massive seeping ledge and seemed to continue upstream.
The path was faint but followable. It bypassed the upper portion of the lunch spot cascade as well as what looked like a significant sliding waterfall before coming out at a large swimming hole just above it. The banks of the river along the downstream end of this pool were so densely vegetated that I had to walk across the brink of the bypassed waterfall (which looked to be a slide that ended with a steep drop, with an overall height of around 15 feet).
Around the middle of the river, I was able to get to a series of boulders that allowed me to rockhop back to the rock slabs that bordered the big swimming hole on the river-right. The pool was fed by a two-tiered cascade about ten feet high.
The video also includes footage of the bypassed swimming hole just below this one, which I checked out on the way back:
There were cliffs up to about 30 feet on the river-left side of the pool from which jumping looked possible (provided the water was deep enough and there was a way to get up).
It also looked like the log above the cascade might be a viable jumping option, but you would have to jump out to clear the waterfall. I was barely able to bypass this pool without getting my backpack wet, as there was a waist-deep wade along the edge, with the apparent threat of the bottom dropping off if I didn’t get out of the water soon enough. I had to leave my poles at this point, because they were hindering more than helping. After some sketchy rock scaling, I reached a point where I had to use a tree to pull myself up a dripping wet rock, with a fall of about six feet into a rock crevice if I messed up. It wouldn’t be deadly, but it would definitely cause problems in an area this remote.
I managed to make it up, and a faint path bypassed the cascade.
Just past this was the first slide.
I didn’t try to slide down it since I was alone, and there were some undercut rocks jutting into the edge of the slide. I figured this was probably a good stopping point. As the crow flies, the second slide is only about 2000 feet upstream of the lake, and I had already gone about 1000 feet, but this area of the river was not hospitable for creek walking without side-trails to bypass the waterfalls. I decided to walk to the top of the slide and see what the river looked like going forward. I left my backpack here because I didn't think I would be going very far. There was another cascade of about 8-10 feet just above the slide.
I was able to bypass most of this cascade on the dry part of the sloped rock slab on the river-left. I noticed a faint scramble path through the woods, so I used it to bypass the rest of the cascade and climb back down to the river. The river above this cascade was relatively easy to walk. I thought I would go just a little further, and then I caught an obstructed glimpse of the second slide just ahead. The sun was now perpetually out from behind the clouds, making the river look more inviting. I couldn’t turn back now. I think there was one more brief scramble path that I actually had to crawl through, and then there was a deep pool just before the slide.
I spent maybe ten minutes trying to skirt around this pool because I didn’t want to be wet and cold, but I realized the only practical way forward was to swim it. I then made it to the base of the second slide.
It was probably about 30-40 feet high and ended in a large swimming hole. There was also a side cascade from a tributary stream spilling into the pool on the river right. There weren’t really any jumping opportunities, except for possibly one boulder on the river-left (I didn't see any obvious way to get on top of said boulder, although I didn't investigate it very thoroughly).
Although it was unlikely anyone would be coming up here, I was anxious about leaving my stuff unattended, and also about having to go back down the things I had just come up. Even though I was less than half a mile upstream of the lake, I had already done a couple of things that would cause a sane person to turn back. I got back to the base of the first slide and was relieved to see my backpack was still there. However, I wished I had ditched it at the big swimming hole just below this, because going back down that wet rock while hanging onto the tree was going to be the sketchiest move of the day. It took me a moment to figure out how to reverse-engineer the way I had made it up. The entire time I was skirting around this point, my mind kept repeating this song by Breathe Carolina that is currently stuck in my head, in which the chorus says, “Don’t go play by the water/Don't go looking for answers/They say you won’t come back/Don't go, you won't come back.” I was hoping that wasn’t an omen. Once I got to the downstream end of the big pool where I could put my backpack down on a rock, I decided to try snorkeling the pool below the cliff since the sun was now out. However, I quickly decided it wasn’t worth it after taking a quick look and not being able to see the bottom while simultaneously feeling the cold water giving me brain freeze. After I got back across the sliding cascade that the trail bypassed on the way in, I scooted down to the bottom of it along the rock face to get a base view.
It also had a legit swimming hole, but with no real jumping opportunities.
I climbed back up to the top of this cascade and took the trail back to my boat, which was still secured to the tree where I had left it. I had to return the kayak at 6:00 PM, and it had taken me a solid two hours of aggressive paddling to get here, so I was trying to get back in my boat by 3:30 PM so I could paddle a little more leisurely on the way back. It was now about 3:15 PM. As I was unhooking my boat from the tree, I heard a horn blast and saw a pontoon boat sitting in the cove. I’m not sure why they honked, but it made me jump. As I paddled down the cove, I decided I had a little bit of time to return to my jumping spot and maybe snorkel for a few minutes. I jumped a couple more times, and I left my camera on a rock and recorded one of the jumps, although the shrubbery kind of blocks the view of where I start from.
I also snorkeled for a couple of minutes, but it wasn’t really pleasant. The lake water was 73 °F, and the air was in the upper 70s or low 80s. It was that temperature where a swim was neither regrettable nor refreshing. I carbed up on another pack of cookie dough Pop Tarts, finishing off the pack, and headed back. It was 4:15 PM, so I knew I was going to have to book it. Now that the east shore of the Thompson arm had the sun shining on it, I could see several more possible cliffs, but I didn’t go in for a closer look, as I was trying to maintain as direct a path as possible.
Getting across the wide part of the lake once again took me about 25 minutes, and there were a few more motorized boats out than this morning. It was 5:15 PM when I made it back to the other side of the lake, and I knew I could make it back to the rental place in less than 30 minutes, so I paddled leisurely and checked out a couple of the coves.
The one pictured below (which is apparently accessible by foot from within the park) looked like it might have a jumping rock of about eight feet, but you would probably have to jump out pretty far to make it to deep water.
I made it back to the park at 5:59 PM. Safe!
I took the winding mountain road back to Brevard. I saw the same car parked where the bear had been this morning. Maybe the bear ate them when they stopped and tried to photograph it for Instagram! When I got back to Brevard, I picked up a pizza from Jets and devoured the whole thing. It was okay, but nothing to write home about.
In summary, I found the lower stretch of the Thompson River to be a little more swimming-hole-licious than Big Falls and the other upstream waterfalls. There were at least three legit swimming holes and one potentially slide-able sliding waterfall. I would say the best swimming hole would be the big one with the log over the cascade that spills into it. I didn’t check the depth there, but it was the largest swimming hole and seemed to have the most potential for vertical tomfoolery. The water was also slightly
