The South Carolina Foothills Trail

"The Foothills Trail is truely a walk through history - geological and cultural."; a quote from the Foothills Conference's "Guide to the Foothills trail". The foothill mountains of upstate South Carolina hold a wealth of history and beauty, and should be experienced by all who live in this area.

Thanks to many individuals over the past 3 decades, a trail has been built that crosses many of the notable mountains of our state, and provides a way for everyone to see much of what these mountains have to offer. Although planning began in the 1970's, the Foothills trail was not completed until the early 80's. Today, the trail begins at Table Rock State Park, and runs along the mountains north of Lake Jocassee until it reaches Oconee State Park; a total of 76 miles.

As interest in the trail grew, a conference was established, initially to gather support for building the trail, but now the focus of the conference is on trail maintenance and protection. If you are interested in additional information or joining the Foothills Trail Conference, you can go to their website here.

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Foothills Trail
Trail Name Length Difficulty Type
Sassafras Mountain Segment 14.1 Moderate to Strenuous Linear
Jocassee Gorges Segment 31 Moderate to Strenuous Linear
Chatooga Valley Segment 33 Moderate Linear
Gum Gap Segment 12 Moderate to Strenuous Linear
Jones Gap Segment 5.3 Moderate Linear

We first found an interest in the Foothills Trail in the summer of 2002 when we began to go on longer hikes and weekend backpacking trips. We have always wondered how we would do on a longer hike, and how we would handle more than 3 days in the woods. In the spring of 2003 we began our plans to take this hike. Click here to read our journal of our Foothills Trail hike.