North Charleston Wannamaker County Park (Blog Hike #619)

Trails: Red, Blue, Beige, Purple, Yellow, and Pink Trails

Hike Location: North Charleston Wannamaker County Park

Geographic Location: Goose Creek, SC (32.98103, -80.05115)

Length: 2.5 miles

Difficulty: 2/10 (Easy)

Date Hiked: February 2017

Overview: A nearly flat loop hike through a forested suburban park.

Park Information: https://ccprc.com/1737/North-Charleston-Wannamaker-County-Park

Hike Route Map: http://www.mappedometer.com/?maproute=590106
Photo Highlight:

Directions to the trailhead: West of Charleston, take I-26 to US 78 (exit 205).  Exit and go east on US 78.  Drive busy US 78 east 1.1 miles to the signed park entrance on the left.  Turn left to enter the park, pay the nominal entrance fee at the gatehouse (where you should ask for a trail map), and then turn left at the next intersection to head for the picnic shelters.  Park near Cypress Hall, which is reached on the right just after the road turns to gravel.

The hike: Charleston County, one of the four original counties in South Carolina, operates three parks with developed trail systems: Palmetto Islands, Caw Caw Interpretive Center, and North Charleston Wannamaker.  Located just east of Charleston Southern University, North Charleston Wannamaker County Park is the most urban of the three.  The park protects 1015 acres of woodlands and wetlands, but it also features a water park, a dog park, a playground, and several picnic shelters.

            For hikers, the park features more than 4.5 miles of trails, but some of these trails are paved with asphalt and pass through the park’s developed area.  Although it is hard to form an extended loop using only the park’s natural areas, over half of the park’s trails are unpaved nature trails.  This hike features the natural areas but also uses part of the paved trail system to form a grand loop around the park.

Trailhead near Cypress Hall

            The hike starts at the trailhead just northeast of Cypress Hall.  A sign with a colorful trail map marks this point, and signs like this one are posted throughout the trail system, thus making it very hard to get lost.  The initial segment of this hike follows the Red Trail, a 0.65 mile dirt nature trail that connects this trailhead with the gatehouse area.  Therefore, red plastic diamonds mark the way for now.

            Two other trails exit right, so you need to bear left to stay on the Red Trail.  The trail undulates slightly as it passes near the park’s north boundary.  At 0.2 miles, you pass an interesting cluster of trees and a pair of benches, one of which is a swinging bench.  A sign marks this point as a stop on the park’s cell phone tour.  Dialing the number on the sign tells you about this land’s agricultural history.

Trees and benches along trail

            The trail curves left to head south along the park’s west boundary.  The forest here at Wannamaker County Park consists of some oak and sweet gum trees with a few loblolly pines and magnolias.  When I came here in late February, the yellow flowering forsythia bushes were in full bloom.

South end of Red Trail

            At 0.7 miles, you reach the south end of the Red Trail at its intersection with the asphalt Blue Trail.  Turn left to begin following the Blue Trail as it crosses the park entrance road just inside the gatehouse.  For the next 0.5 miles the hike follows this paved trail through the developed part of the park.  The park’s water park and dog park sit to the right of the trail.

            1.2 miles into the hike, where the paved trail curves left to pass near the park’s playground, turn right to leave the pavement for awhile.  You can either walk through the gravel overflow parking area or take the narrow dirt Beige Trail: the two options come together and continue northeast in a few hundred feet.  After passing the mown-grass play hill on the left, look for an unusual tree growing out of a fallen log just right of the trail.

Tree growing out of log

            At 1.45 miles, the Beige Trail ends at an intersection with the asphalt Purple Trail.  Turn right to begin the Purple Trail and stay in the park’s natural areas.  The asphalt Purple Trail winds east while descending slightly.  Where the dirt Yellow Trail crosses the Purple Trail, turn softly right on the Yellow Trail to leave the pavement for good.  The plastic diamonds that mark the Yellow Trail look more lime-green than yellow to me.

Hiking the Yellow Trail

            Now in the park’s northeastern corner, the trail passes a seasonal wetland area on the right that features some bald cypress trees.  A large number of woodland songbirds flittered around this area on my visit, and some road noise from nearby US 52 filters in from the other side of the wetland.  At 1.9 miles, the trail curves left to pick up a wider treadway in an area that had recently seen the chain saw.

Bald cypresses in wetland

            At the next trail intersection, turn right to leave the Yellow Trail and begin the Pink Trail.  After crossing a wooden footbridge, ignore the Orange Trail, which exits left.  More westward hiking brings you to the Dark Purple Trail, where a left turn gives the shortest route back to the trailhead.  0.2 miles of slightly uphill hiking returns you to the Cypress Hall parking lot to complete the hike.