Opossum Creek Falls, South Carolina

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
2/15/2023	5 miles	2 hours 33 minutes	826'	2.0 mph	82.6

Parking: 

• Turkey Ridge Road (FS 755, which is gravel), parking just past the trailhead

Map:

• Gaia Gps

Directions:

• There is a sign for the trail near the parking area. Follow the trail to the Chattooga River, and then turn left to continue on the trail to the waterfall. Return the same way.

Carolina Mountain Club Challenges:

• Waterfall Challenge, Opossum Falls

Note: Normally we would have combined this hike with Long Creek Falls, which is on a different trail off of the same gravel road.

I'm supposed to be taking it easy. But I want to hike! My podiatrist gave me some anti-inflammatory meds, so my foot is feeling reasonable. I mean not great, but I'm not limping. I originally wanted to do 2 waterfall hikes in Franklin. They'd add up to around 2.2 miles, which is around the max I should be hiking. But both were on Forest Service Roads which are closed for the winter. So, I chose Opossum Creek Falls. A longer drive. The CMC advertises the hike as 3 miles. Okay, not too bad. I saw other places which advertised it as 4 or 4.6 miles. Hmm. Well, we went anyways. 

It ended up raining, but the drive was so long, we didn't want to go home. By the time we started hiking, it was only a light rain. Turkey Ridge Road is a gravel road. Normally I'd say it's a good condition easy gravel road. No ruts. But with the rain it was quite muddy and a bit slippery. So preferable to drive on a dry day. The hike itself was the same way. In general, an easier hike. But there was some blowdown and steepish muddy sections - so I just had to be careful not to fall. The hike goes down to the Chattooga River, which is the same river the Foothills Trail follows. The spot by the river was really pretty with the mist. We saw our first spring wildflowers of the year by the river! Lots of trout lilies and one yellow violet. From there we turned left to follow the trail to the waterfall. The waterfall had a few tiers and was pretty tall. We let Krumm wade, but not swim. He was really happy to be out, as we haven't been hiking as much in the last month, while I try to speed up my foot healing. 

On the way home, we stopped in Franklin to scope out a new car charger that I want to use for a future trip out this way. It's a charger that requires us to use an adapter, which we hadn't tried yet. We had problems with it! Ack! So, we went to a slower charger that we've used before when we spent a week in Franklin hiking. We used the time to walk to a grocery store and pick up some food for dinner. 

Puffballs!

Krumm found a hole

Another waterfall off the trail on the way back