Do you ever just get that itch that its time to get out and do something?
Well, that’s how I felt after a long week of school two weekends ago.
I wanted to go up into the mountain, but I didn’t want to drive all that far. So I decided on the perfect compromise - Croft State Park.
Located just south of Spartanburg, it manages to offer that mountain feeling just 1 1/2 hours away from Lexington.
I convinced my good friend Noah to go up there with me. It was the first Saturday of the season below 90 degrees and we weren’t gonna let it go to waste. We left Lexington around 10 am  and a couple of short hours and a visit to Bojangles later, we arrived at Croft State Natural Area.
The road leading into the park seemed to go forever as we winded above the lush softwood canopied valleys of the state park. Croft is one of the largest parks in the state, protecting over 7,000 acres of the rolling Appalachian foothills from Spartanburg’s booming suburban development.
After about 10 minutes, we made it to a large grassy parking area right next to the southern trailhead, park office, and some equestrian facilities. After getting our stuff together, we left Noah’s Mini Cooper and trekked on into the woods.
We once again found ourselves on another section of the Palmetto Trail, South Carolina’s work-in-progress mountains to sea trail that will span over 500 miles soon. We just cant go anywhere without hiking on the PT.
Just 5 minutes later, we made it to my favorite spot in the whole park Fairforest Creek. The medium-sized mountain creek reminded me of many other creeks in the Southern Appalachian with its clear water tumbling around large rocks and spilling into shallow pools perfect to cool off.
Several shady picnic areas can be found along the creek and the large Advance America footbridge crosses the creek. The bridge serves as an access point to over 20 miles of hiking and mountain biking trails, the best in the park.
Noah and I continued up the Palmetto Trail for about another half a mile before the Croft passage ended and the Glenn Springs passage continues out of the park. That section would have to wait for another day.
We followed another trail for a little way before running into a trail that would take us back to the bridge. The Idaho Trail, was just over a 1/2 mile long as well and it was a heck of a trail. The mountain biking trail started off easy enough, winding around large trees through a sloped forest but that didn’t last.
The trail dropped straight into and right back up narrow gorge around 10 feet deep carved out by a tiny creek at the bottom. Our trail continued to wind around the forest parallel to the valley until the trail dropped back to the bottom.
After some exploring, we found a spur that would drop a biker down a quarter pipe onto a little ridge. It then goes around a quick berm, and onto a slippery log ride that leading back to the trail. We looked at this in awe wondering how anyone could do it.
The trail followed the stream for another minute or so before we made it back to the big bridge over Fairforest Creek.
Back at the creek, I took a couple of pictures before we headed back to the car. We decided to do a little more. So we drove even further down the road to make it to another part of the Palmetto Trail. This time we didn’t take our packs and we planned on running.
That didn’t last long. We quickly got tired and we just started walking. The trail was not the best for hiking. It was an equestrian trail so naturally, we found ourselves constantly dodging horse….. litter.
After about a mile, we made it to a cool bridge where we decided to turn back.
There is just so much to do at Croft and we didn’t have time to even scratch the surface. Lake Craig offers 165 acres for fishing and paddling and around 50 miles of trail can be found ranging from hiking, biking, and equestrian.
With so much to do and such a unique location, it’s well worth the hour and a half drive to go visit Croft State Park.