Submitted by John Davis on Thu, 2011-04-28 16:45
http://wildlandsnetwork.org/trekeast/bl ... e-swamp-sc
Congaree Swamp National Park, April 9-10, 2011
.For seekers of big old trees, central South Carolina’s Congaree Swamp has almost mythical stature. To visit its 11,000 acres of old-growth sweetgum, bald cypress, tupelo, and loblolly pine forest with “Dean of Conservation Biology” John Terborgh (as another great conservation biologist, Michael Soulé, has called him), along with other leading naturalists, was surely a high point in TrekEast and an honor I’ll never forget.
Click on image to see its original size
We spent two days paddling and walking along Cedar Creek, the Congaree River and the boardwalk out from the National Park visitors’ center. Those two days were richer than I can describe, but for starters: Champion snake-spotter Ron Sutherland found nearly 50 snakes, including dozens of water snakes, five cottonmouths, a rough green snake, and a black rat snake. Keith Bowers, President of the Wildlands Network and founder of the leading ecological restoration company, Biohabitats, taught us some hydrology and told us of restoration work on various streams in the East, and confirmed that many waterways in the Southeast are still relatively intact and can serve as the first strands in a restored Eastern Wildway.
