Bald Rock Heritage Preserve

I stumbled upon Bald Rock Heritage Preserve unwittingly while traveling between Table Rock State Park & Caesar’s Head State Park in South Carolina.  One moment I’m driving up a mountain and the next I notice a parking area on the side of the road packed with cars and a preserve sign.  So I explore!  It looks like this site is managed by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, and Bald Rock is a giant “bald” rock face that gives you a glorious mountain side view across many miles of nearby landscape.   After I was done taking in the view I was completely mesmerized by the sign near the parking area protesting graffiti, and then finding that almost every part of the surface of Bald Rock is covered in of course, graffiti.

At this point after my adventure there I’ve happily found that there’s a Friends Of Bald Rock group that make efforts to clean it up.  Seems like wherever there’s something really cool in nature that people try to trash, there’s always a positive force of people working to undo the damage not far behind.  Good for them.  This place is super popular too, because I spent a few days running around the area and kept having to drive by Bald Rock Heritage Preserve and found visitors there packing the parking each time, and for two days straight there was a guy set up with a table in the parking area selling honey, misc food goods and ammunition.  If someone thinks it is worthwhile to do a pop up business there, then the place must always attract a crowd.  I’ve never seen a roadside vendor selling ammo before, but there’s a first time for everything.

Since I was running around doing my usual thing of hunting waterfalls I also managed to get a little off the main area of Bald Rock.  People go for the view and the rock, but there’s water running through it in a creek where you exit the parking lot, so I followed it.  On the south side of Bald Rock it doesn’t exactly turn into a traditional waterfall, but it does start rushing into a well carved stone channel in sort of a natural waterslide.  I found some old building pylons where the water was hitting maybe a 45 degree angle, and then carried on our of side.  I suspect if I’d had the ambition to pick my way down the mountain there there may be more to see in that realm.  But there are no real hiking trails there, so I just took off toward my actual destination.  Here’s what I found though if you’re curious.  We’ll call it an “almost waterfall.”