Chau Ram County Park and Riley Moore Falls

My intention was to just go to Riley Moore Falls, but I couldn't find it at first, so we backtracked a couple of miles to Chau Ram County Park, to which we had never been.

It's nice, on the Chauga River, with a couple miles of trails, most of them along the river with interesting climbing rocks.

There are 7 sets of rapids. I was too scared to let the kids do anything but swim on the small beach on a slow moving part of the river, but I would definitely let them wade if we had another responsible adult with us next time. We did half of the blue loop, cut across on the double red trail, and then a quarter of the orange loop.

 There is also a nice suspension bridge that swings noticeably when you walk across it. We watched a couple of tubers going underneath it. We all agreed that it was pretty boring at that point. We saw several other people with inner tubes but couldn't tell where they were getting in and out.

Riley Moore Falls is another of the amazing water falls trails in upstate South Carolina. Evidently there are two Cobb Bridge Roads about 8 miles apart. I accidentally took the first one. The GPS set me straight on our second attempt. Coming up from Westminster, it is the right turn onto the SECOND Cobb Bridge Road. The one NOT next to the Calvary Church...

After 2 miles of gravel road, we saw some other cars parked near a more rugged gravel turn off. We could have gotten about 3/4 of a mile closer to the trail, but it was fine. The weather was great today and it was downhill, so we didn't care (at that point!).

The trail was pretty nicely cleared, 1.2 miles, slightly downhill with patches of steeper downhill. There were lots (10-20) people there, mostly families, swimming and hanging out on the beach. The bottom is sand and gravel, with the occasional rock. The current was present and persistent, but not completely unmanageable. I stayed close to both boys, just in case. The water was pretty cold.

We spent most of the time swimming to and from the big rock. A group of cub scouts came about a half hour before we left, so one or two of them jumped and swam with John. There were the usual knee bruises from bumping into rocks in water, but nothing arm-breaking!
 

The boys were tired on the way back, Christopher especially, but no one melted down. My kids are pretty resilient on the trail. When we got home, my fitbit said we walked 8 miles, but my guess was closer to 5 or 6. I keep forgetting to take my GPS to get a more accurate reading.

We all agreed it was a good day, and we definitely want to go back to Riley Moore Falls, with some friends next time!