Berkeley County High Point Trip Report

Date: February 17, 2002
Author: Ron Tagliapietra

For the first area, drive east from US 176 on SC 311 for about 4 miles to Poplar Hill Road. Continue on US 311 for a little over a mile to Groomstown Road. Turn right and drive over a mile into what is apparently Groomstown. The main road ends at a turnaround loop not shown on the topo, but the road continues as a 4WD track with the sign "end county maintenance." We parked here, and we also drove up the two side streets just before this sign. The whole area is quite flat, so walk around until you are satisfied. Backtrack to US 176 and turn left.

For the second area, continue south on US 176, passing Sand Ridge Church. Continue over 1.5 miles to a left turn that is just a few feet before a paved left (Poplar Hill Road. - yes, you probably could have gotten here quicker, but we didn't know it at the time). Drive a half mile or so to the ribboned gate and park. There are no signs on the gate, so we walked the road until we could see Gaillard Road (no gates visible here), passing two lefts near the summit. The first went up, and the second was posted by the Sand Ridge Hunting Club. Backtracking to the first of these, we walked up the road to the high ground.

Statistics: 2-mile hike round trip, 1 hour, 15 feet of gain.

For the third area, we continued south to the next junction, but it was Mudville Road rather than Millpond Road. We drove up this road to and beyond Nash Road and also drove up Nash Road back to Poplar Hill Road, but couldn't make sense of the map. I decided that it didn't matter for several reasons. First, the third area shows only a 100-foot contour rather than 105 feet. Second, the area continues into the next quad which has 5-foot contours and has only 100-feet areas in that quad. Third, it is the most southerly of the three areas, and least likely to be the highest area. Thus, I am counting this one even though I did not visit the third area.

A fourth area at 116 feet and northwest of St. Stephen is listed as manmade and was not visited.