PARIS MTN HIKE & CAMPING AT HAMILTON BRANCH STATE PARK
I find adventure filled weekends to be the absolute best when I’ve been cooped up with work for a while. This weekend I was able to detach and really enjoy the outdoors. The weekend started with a chill 6 mile hike at Paris Mountain State Park in Greenville, SC. Paris Mountain is an excellent resource for us, great trails for hiking & biking, campgrounds, waterfalls, lakes, etc. while only being 15 minutes from our house! I hiked with a couple of our friends and their dog Max who is very photogenic. On our hike we experienced some great views supported by our nice clear day. At one point I came across a tree stump with a toad hiding inside, it was quite the treat. We hiked down to the lower lake at the park, it is always so peaceful and serine there. We eventually made our way back up the Kanuga trail, cautious and weary of any speedy mountain bikers that may be descending down upon us. Once we wrapped up we made our way to White Duck Taco at Hampton Station, sitting outside I gorged myself with the deliciousness that had been prepared for me. Then I went and took a nap.
The next day was CAMPING DAY! We had a weekend planned full of camping adventure at Hamilton Branch State Park located in McCormick, SC. I cannot recommend a better place to go check out, this State Park is a hidden gem that people need to explore! We had a nice spot right on the lake, cove side, with a great view looking out to the greater part of the lake. We set up our camp to be quite luxuriously, I typically try not to bring too much stuff along, but on this trip we pretty much went all out. We had set up a full on kitchen with a 2 burner stove, dual jet boils, multiple coolers, a picnic table, and all the chairs. We had a nice little fire pit in the left corner of our spot and set our tents up to create privacy from the other sites around us. We rented kayaks from the park and paddled around at will. We ended up exploring a nearby island and let the dogs run around at will, they were a muddy wreck…but we were on a lake so all we had to do was dunk them in for a bath (Finn wasn’t excited about this).
The trip was great aside from the pop up storm that we experienced, we fared better than many other sites we saw though. All in all our site was fine, but we were mostly on a bed of red clay dirt that got stirred up like a witches pot on Hallow’s Eve. Some sites had tents that were flipped on their sides or instances where the wind had scattered all sorts of items from a camp in different directions. We had our rain flies on our tents and hatched everything down once the wind came rolling in, we hid in our cars in the AC and listened to the radio, ate beef jerky and drank adult beverages while weathering everything out.
The weekend was great fun all in all, if you’ve never been, be sure to check out Hamilton Branch State Park, it’s a spot worth visiting!
