From Part I of this series you will remember that upon experiencing a short 5 minute hike on the Boardwalk Trail at Congaree National Park I decided I had to stay after park hours in order to walk the entire 2.5 mile trail. At the end of Part I, I stand at the beginning of this trail ready to get started. Part II of this series takes over from there.
The Boardwalk Trail is a 2.5 mile loop of wooden decking which is raised over the forest floor between one foot and 10 feet depending on the section of trail. I immediately decided to walk the trail in a clockwise direction heading somewhat southeast initially.
If you have never walked in an old growth forest I recommend it highly. I have walked in many young forests but had never experienced anything like what I saw at Congaree National Park. I found myself staring up in awe at the forest canopy that on average had to be at least 100 feet above me. I heard a deep primitive reverberating sound. I had never heard a sound exactly like it before and it took me a few minutes to figure out what in nature could make such a noise. At first it reminded me of someone doing a drum roll on a deep kettle drum or tom-tom. Then I realized that it was a woodpecker. I shook my head in amazement when I came to this conclusion, realizing that the reason I had never heard a woodpecker make this type of noise was because I had never heard a woodpecker peck on a tree that was fifteen feet in diameter. The thickness of the tree accounted for the deeper sound.
The light rain that had fallen earlier had ceased and had left the forest feeling cooler. Some sunlight filtered through the canopy above but because of the density of the forest it still felt about two hours closer to sunset than it actually was because of the filtered lighting. About a mile into my walk I was startled by a short, deep grunt and I turned and looked down to see a stout, gray four-legged creature crashing through the underbrush below in an effort to scurry away from me. I realized quickly that it was a feral pig (the first I had ever seen in the wild) and was immediately glad that this section of the boardwalk was built several feet over the forest floor (despite the fact that the animal was obviously at least as frightened of me as I was of it).
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