Congaree National Park trail map (click to enlarge)

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Download the Congaree National Park Trail Guide (PDF)

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There are eleven hiking trails within Congaree National Park. The most popular is the Boardwalk Trail, a 2.4-mile loop that passes many of the different types of trees and terrain that can be seen in the park. The large majority of visitors stop at the Harry Hampton Visitor Center, hike the Boardwalk Trail, and leave. The only other trail that gets any significant foot traffic is the Weston Lake Trail. In truth, if you hike these two trails, you’ve seen most of what the park has to offer. The rest of the trails are just longer version of the same terrain.

See the following web pages for complete reviews and plenty of photos of each trail.

Boardwalk Trail

Bluff Trail (#1)

Sims Trail (#2)

Weston Lake Trail (#3)

Oakridge Trail (#4)

River Trail (#5)

Kingsnake Trail (#6)

Bates Ferry Trail (#7)

Longleaf Trail (#8)

Fork Swamp Trail (#9)

Firefly Trail (#10)

Boardwalk Trail at Congaree National Park

The National Park Service rates trails at Congaree National Park as EASY, MODERATE, and DIFFICULT. However, these ratings have nothing to do with how much huffing and puffing you’ll be doing, which is typically how trail difficulty is rated. All of the trails in the park cover flat terrain and are easy to hike, cardovascular-wise. What the National Park Service is referring to is how difficult it is to navigate the trails due to downed trees, mud holes, and other obstacles. EASY means the trail is well maintained while DIFFICULT means there may be a lot of obstacles, and you’ll need more navigational sense to find your way.

When I visited, only the River Trail was DIFFICULT by these standards. It was a mess—CERTIFIED ROTTEN. The Kingsnake Trail had a half-mile stretch that was overgrown, but the rest of its four miles were a pleasure to hike. Of course conditions can change after a storm or flood, or a trail maintenance crew might clean things up. Park Rangers attempt to keep track of trail conditions, but the reports for many of the trails were wrong when I visited. In the photo below, all negative remarks were way off except for the River Trail.

Congaree National Park condition report posted at the Visitor Center

If you read the National Park Service’s trail brochure, you’d think nine out of ten hikers never make it back. I personally can’t imagine anyone getting lost for good on the Congaree trails any more than they’d get lost on trails in other parks. Fallen trees and mudholes are just part of hiking. However, it is easy to over think things and get discombobulated when detouring around a large tree, because when you get to the end, you might be in the middle of unruly vegetation and may lose sight of the trail. There may be another downed tree after the first one, pushing you even farther away from the trail. Just remember one thing: when you get to the end of the tree, follow the trunk back to where you came from and you will most always find the trail.

Furthermore, in this day and age, anyone out hiking should have some sort of GPS unit, whether it be a dedicated GPS or a cell phone with a hiking app or a mapping service such as Google Maps. Do keep in mind that while the GPS on a phone does not rely on cell service, getting the maps on your phone does. Without the maps your route will simply be tracked on a blank screen. Many of the hiking apps allow you to download maps in advance, particularly if you use the paid service and not the free service with ads. Most are just a few bucks a month, so if you hike a lot, just pay the fee. In regards to Congaree National Park, cell service is sufficient enough to get the maps pretty much wherever you go.

If you do not have a GPS unit, be sure to at least carry a trail map with you (free at the Visitor Center) and keep an eye out for the blazes, which are markers on trees or rocks that you follow like Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs. At Congaree National Park, blazes are white placards with numbers on them that correspond to the various trails. If you get lost, look around for a blaze. For the most part, the trails at Congaree are well marked.

#4 blaze marks the route of the Oakridge Trail in Congaree National Park

Because Congaree National Park is in the southern United States and is often swampy, visiting any time between June and September is going to be miserable due to heat and mosquitoes. From late winter through early spring, the park is liable to be flooded. The Congaree River averages ten major floods each year, and when this happens, as much as 90 percent of the park south of the Visitor Center, which includes most of the trails, can end up underwater. Before visiting, be sure to check the United States Geological Survey’s’ water gauges for Cedar Creek and the Congaree River. Anything over 8 feet on the creek or 15 feet on the river is a flood. The website archives data for up to a year, so be sure to check a couple weeks back to see if there was any flooding, for while the water may have receded by the time you visit, the trails could still be extremely muddy.

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