SUMTER, SC (AP) – The foundation that oversees the South Carolina Palmetto Trail is looking for money to link one part of the trail in Richland County to another, mainly in Sumter County.
The new 42-kilometer trail will be called the Cook’s Mountain Passage and will connect a current trail near Fort Jackson in Columbia to the Wateree Passage in southeastern Richland County, reported the Sumter Item.
When built, Cook’s Mountain Passage will provide a critical link in the goal of completing 500 miles (805 kilometers) of hiking trails from the mountains to the sea in South Carolina, officials at the Palmetto Conservation Foundation said.
“What we are focusing on with this Cook Mountain Pass is the continuation of our goal, which is to complete the trail and connect it from the coast to the mountains,” said Furman Miller, trail coordinator for the Midlands region.
The foundation has applied for a grant to pay for the trail through the federal Recreational Trails Program and must find out if it will receive the money in the spring.
If the concession is granted, construction will begin shortly thereafter and at least part of the new section of the trail could be opened by the end of 2021, officials said.
The trail will use old service roads to access the River Wateree Heritage Reserve and includes land that the Department of Natural Resources obtained in a 2015 deal that allowed Romarco Minerals Inc. to open a gold mine near Camden, officials said. .
The foundation wants to include Cook Mountain as part of the trail. The 120-meter-high hill was formed when the nearby Congaree and Wateree rivers eroded the Aiken Plateau over millions of years, leaving the isolated high point in the predominantly flat lands around Richland and Sumter counties.
“Eventually, we would like to be able to open a trail up and over Cook’s Mountain itself that involves many of the agricultural studies that are underway,” said Miller.