Touring the Hell Hole
Hell Hole Bay Wilderness
Francis Marion National Forest
March 29, 2024
11:00 AM, 65° F
Sunny
A primitive and unconfined type of day.
“Wilderness areas are affected mostly by the forces of nature and have outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation. ”
The U.S. Forest Service website states, “Hellhole Bay Wilderness (2,125 ac) may take its name from a large forest opening possibly formed by early wildfire behavior in the area. A shallow canoe trail a little over a mile long and often less than a foot deep crosses the bay and is passable during the wetter times of the year.”
Is this the trail head for the Hell Hole canoe trail?
We went in search of this shallow canoe trail- it’s been pretty wet lately so we reasoned it might just be passable. The lack of any trail reports on the web was a little disconcerting. We drove the length of Hell Hole Road, but only found a very decrepit bridge(?). Was this the ghost of the trail head? Since it was covered in poison ivy, we decided not to explore it further, but it did make a suitable entrance for someplace called ‘Hell Hole’.
Attempting to penetrate into the Hell Hole swamp.
There were a few areas of open water that were accessible from the road, so we decided to explore this promising looking one. It took a little kayak-bush whacking to get into it, but it did initially have a nice open area. We heard cricket frogs and one tentative carpenter frog.
The impenetrable swamp.
But no matter what direction we tried, we didn’t get very far before the ‘impenetrable’ swamp closed in. So we decided to have a nice floating lunch before heading back to the road to explore more. Sitting on a kayak in a swamp eating a PB&J is one of best uses of an afternoon.
Evidence of what may have helped to create this pocket of swamp.
Lilly pads and bladderwort were plentiful.
We weren’t able to make our way very far into the swamp, but the ditches along the sides of the road make great pond habitats to explore.
Swollen Bladderwort, Utricularia inflata, in the ditches along Hell Hole Road in the Francis Marion National Forest.
I have never seen such thick stands of bladderwort. Don’t let its innocent little yellow flowers fool you, this plant is a predator. When swimming prey, like tiny crustaceans, touch trigger hairs surrounding the mouth of one of the bladders, a trapdoor-like flap of tissue swings open and the bladder quickly expands and the poor little animal gets sucked inside to be dissolved by enzymes. There must be a healthy crustacean population in this swamp.
Tad pole of a large frog- possible bull frog or pig frog.
Mermaid weed, Proserpinaca palustris, in a ditch along Hell Hole Road in the Francis Marion National Forest.
Lemon bacopa, Bacopa caroliniana, in the Francis Marion National Forest.
Iris in the ditch along Hell Hole Road in the Francis Marion National Forest.
We did attempt to hike along a trail, but whereas our kayaking attempt was foiled by land, or hiking attempt was foiled by water. If I had had my big boots on, I might have attempted it.
A particularly pretty hell hole.
There were many little open bays that could be seen from the road.
Ribbon snake, Thamnophis saurita, on the road in the Francis Marion National Forest.
And the trip ended with a bonus snake! This pretty little ribbon snake was out sunning on the road. Ribbon snakes look very similar to garter snakes with the yellow stripes down the length of the body, but they don’t have any vertical markings on their lips as garter snakes do. Both species are on the smaller side for snakes being generally less than four feet long and harmless (unless you are an amphibian or a small fish).
