Carolina Thread Trail: Andrew Jackson State Park

Carolina Thread Trail: Andrew Jackson State Park – 8/24/19 - 2.5 Miles

Five days home from my Pembrokeshire Coast Path thru-hike in Wales and I felt a little antsy to walk somewhere. Late August in the Carolinas means hot and oppressive humidity, but big storms blew through overnight, a cold front moved in, and today was 70 degrees and misty/drizzling – the P’shire! Jim was busy volunteering as a marshal for the Tour de Turns bike ride, so I took a short drive to a Carolina Thread Trail walk.  

Andrew Jackson State Park is in Lancaster, SC, a quick 35 minutes from my home. I was a little surprised to be the only car in the parking lot on a Saturday morning, but I was here for hiking and the trails were open. [FYI if you’re going, look at the website. Different components have different hours of operation. The park office is open from 11 am to noon (!) and the museum is open 1 pm to 5 pm on Saturday and Sunday. Budget cuts? Short staffing?]

The story goes that Jackson’s father died several weeks before Jackson’s birth, and his widow moved with her children to this area of the Waxhaws to live with her brother, James Crawford, and his family.

I took a quick stroll around the main grounds, checked out the bathrooms, the impressive amphitheater, the schoolhouse and the closed museum. (No structures remain from Jackson's time.)

Replica schoolhouse

“Boy of the Waxhaws,” a sculpture featuring young Jackson by Anna Hyatt Huntington, whose work I've enjoyed on the extensive grounds of Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet, SC. 

A stone monument to Jackson’s statement that he was born here (to affirm naysayers, I guess)

Replica of a “meeting house” of the Scots-Irish Presbyterian tradition
in which Jackson was raised

The Crawford Trail loop begins beside the meeting house. It’s a one-mile leg stretcher walk, sandy soil with gold flecks, otherwise nondescript, no water feature or views. The trail crosses a paved road, takes a 90-degree left turn at a group campsite (looks like for horses) and crosses the paved road again to return to the trailhead. This early bird caught all the spiderwebs.

Have I seen everything there is to see in just 45 minutes? Of course not. I cruised through the 25-unit campground, happy to see it full on this overcast misty morning, kids’ bikes already riding the circuit as parents coaxed campfires back to life.

The park includes an 18-acre lake with a small fishing pier and a 1.3-mile trail all the way around called “Garden of the Waxhaws Trail.” A counterclockwise ramble around the lake was the best part of my visit. Tree identification signs punctuate the trail. It passes through the campground, which has a small beach. A sign says “do not enter, only for campers” which I ignored, otherwise how can a visitor walk on the trail?

Past the campground, a boardwalk extends through an obvious flood area, beautifully crafted with intriguing curves that draw the hiker along to see what’s next.

Always on the lookout for wildlife, I saw three gleaming white egrets. I disturbed them on one shore, they flew to the other side, and when I reached them again, they returned to the first shore in a huff. Beauty in motion.

Campground across the lake

Visiting Andrew Jackson State Park later in the day is worthwhile for exploring the buildings and the history, but the quiet simplicity of the undisturbed lake in the early hours won me over.

“An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.” 

~Henry David Thoreau