Sadlers Creek State Park, located in Anderson,
South Carolina may appear to be small, only covering 395 acres, compared to the 11,000 acres that make up the well known Ceasers Head State Park. After camping for three days at Sadlers Creek, I found so much more than the basic site map showed. It all started on Monday morning, Derek and I loaded up the car, our dog Rocky, and made a quick stop at the local Wal-Mart. What was on our shopping list? Well the answer to that is simple, a two person inflatable raft. For under fifty dollars, we got an amazing deal for something that will make our summer adventures even more magical. We arrived at the campground sometime around 1:00 pm on Monday afternoon, I quickly set the tent up; another affordable and essential purchase we found at Wal-Mart. Derek got the fire started, and after I gathered all of our wood, we finally inflated the raft. After only five minutes of getting it all set up, we were headed for the beautiful waters of Lake Hartwell. Our tent site had easy lake access, and the water was so clear we could see the bottom at least fifteen feet out. We wrestled with our paddle timing at first, but in no time it was smooth sailing. We scoped out some smaller islands that were in view of our site and decided the next days would be spent exploring those islands. What we thought to find, and what we actually found were quite different, and pretty awesome I must add. The first island, which is only accessible by boat or jetski, in our case raft took us about 15-20 minutes to paddle to, and that is with us stopping and going against the current. We finally arrived on a smooth sandy beach and began to explore. We immediately found what I would guess to be a quarter to a half of a mile trail that looped the island. Other than seeing an endangered woodpecker, the view of the lake was simply stunning. Unfortunately, it was apparent we were not the first people to discover this island, because there were a few soda bottles, a trash bag, and a small fire pit where someone potentially camped out at. It is important to always be on guard, you never know who is in the bush with you. After that we paddled around the lake some more, until we ended up back at our camp. The next day we woke up to the sound of rain on falling on the tent, and hiding under the blanket wasn't going to keep me warm, or make the rain stop so we decided to drive the 15 minutes back home to drop Rocky off, resupply our food, and wait the rain out. By 2:00 pm Tuesday we were back at camp, cooking some of the best turkey burgers ever. We have already experienced the half mile hiking trail that Sadlers Creek has to offer. It is a very easy trail, anyone can do it, and the views of the lake, and wildlife are a great way to spend an otherwise mundane afternoon. There is a six mile mountain biking trail that is well maintained, and part of it was just above our camp so we decided to walk a couple of miles down it as well. Slightly more difficult than the hiking trail, it was another great way to enjoy a warm South Carolina day with little cost to our bank account. We woke up Wednesday morning, the birds chirping excitedly, the sun was already shining and we knew it was going to be the perfect day to end our trip. After making a cup of coffee over the fire, I threw together some peanut butter sandwiches, some bottled water, a good playlist, and we were ready to set sail again. We made it the next island in about the same 15 minutes as the first day, it was actually attached by a submerged sandbar to another part of the park. The trail we found was much more remote and it was obvious no one had been there in a while. With parts of the trail hard to locate under the heavy leaves and fallen trees, we were only able to find our way based where our campsite was from where we were standing on the island. After many spider webs and log crossing later we were back on the trail that looped the island as well. After floating around Lake Hartwell for another thirty minutes, getting tanned, and planning our next adventure we headed back to camp and called it a day. Whether you want to spice up a Saturday afternoon, or stay for a whole week, Sadlers Creek State Park has plenty to offer in Anderson, South Carolina.
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