A visit to Congaree National Park has been on my husband’s and my South Carolina to-do list for a while. Each time we visit the state we plan to go, and each time it’s interrupted by bad weather or scheduling issues. During our visit last month, we made it our top priority to visit the park, planning to go the first full day of our trip in case we needed to push it back due to rain. Thankfully, the day of our visit was merely dreary, so we woke up early and made our way to the park with our friend.

The park is about an hour-and-45-minute drive from North Charleston, where our friend lives. We packed sandwiches for lunch and snacks for the road and made the easy drive to the park. There are plenty of trails to explore, with hikes ranging from .6–12 miles. We opted for something in between and took the 7.1-mile Oakridge Trail.

The trail began just past the visitor center and starts with a wooden path known as the “boardwalk.” The trails are fairly well-marked, and we were able to navigate the loop without too much difficulty. On our visit parts of the trail were rather muddy. Thankfully, none of the trail was flooded, and we were able to pass through the entire trail without issues, besides muddy shoes.

I was surprised to see the amount of wildlife we encountered. I’m more familiar with hikes in the Northeast, where squirrels or deer are among the most common wildlife. During our hike in Congaree we saw owls, cranes, wild pigs, an alligator (safely far away in a lake) and crawfish. We were most surprised to see the crawfish, stuck in some muddy sections of the trail. Once back at the visitor center, we asked one of the park rangers, and she said it’s common for crawfish to show up after a heavy rain or flooding.

While Congaree might not be as popular or well-known as some of the nation’s other national parks, it is well worth a visit when in South Carolina!

— Katie Skrzek, vice president/digital director