First Visit to Sassafras Mountain Tower

Have you ever had an experience that defies your ability to describe it, an experience on a high place that was born in low expectations, an experience that it would be kind to call miserable, but an experience with an afterglow of unanticipated beauty?

I have.

Months ago, I learned of a place called Sassafras Mountain Tower, a large man-made platform atop the highest point in South Carolina, straddling the South Carolina and North Carolina borders, with views of those states and parts of Georgia.

The thought of visiting any distant place for the first time can lead me to procrastinate, as it did in this case. Nonetheless, my curiosity would eventually force me to go there and see what I could see from that high vantage point.

Online, I had looked at a number of photos other folks had taken. Some were quite nice. Most of them did not seem that impressive. The view that high up, in the middle of all those mountains and hills, should be breathtaking under the right circumstances. But experience told me that the chance of circumstances being “right” when I got there were 50-50 at best. This was going to be a long trip, driven mostly in the dark, partially over roads I had never traveled, much of it on winding roads up the mountainside. The thought of doing the drive was enough to keep postponing it.

Since it was likely to be unsuccessful, from the perspective of photography, I decided to think of it as a scouting trip, a journey with the sole purpose of determining whether or not I should come back someday to take photos. The pros do that all the time. I never have. Maybe it’s time I did.

To get comfortable, I reviewed maps online. Much of the journey would have been well-traveled by me in my previous trips to Table Rock State Park. Once I got past the park, all the turns would be right turns. That made it easier. I tested the GPS function on my cell phone, and it looked as though it would be helpful.

On the morning of the trip, I awoke at 4:30 AM. The tower opened at 7 AM. I had well over an hour and ½ drive ahead of me, assuming I did not get lost. It was April. The morning was a little cool, but I didn’t think I needed a jacket. On the way there, around the time I began to approach Table Rock State Park, I began to feel that old familiar pressure upon my bladder. The park was not yet open. I remembered reading that the tower had brand-new public restrooms. All I had to do was hold it for another half hour or so. I was sure I could do that.

Twilight and sunrise had already happened before I reached those mountain roads. I paid close attention as I drove, even though I used my cell phone’s GPS to guide me. Some of the roads were very steep. I wasn’t sure my old car would make it; but, after a bit of a struggle, it did.

I arrived at the parking area, which was quite large. Only one vehicle, a church van, was parked there. I would not be alone on the tower. That was a little annoying, but nothing like the annoyances that were about to happen.

I got out of my car, grabbed my gear and my old hiking hat. Then I noticed how cold it was. There had been a big drop in temperature from my house to the top of that mountain. But I came prepared. I always keep a vest in my trunk, just for situations like these. It’s one of those quilted, fluffy types, designed to keep the upper body warm.

The restroom was at the end of the parking lot, near the entrance to the walkway that led up to the tower. I walked toward it quite quickly. And you know why.

I was about to grab the door handle when I saw the sign: “Closed due to Covid-19. Sorry for any inconvenience.”

I could only hope that the members of the church group did not hear my one-word response to reading that sign. Fortunately, the parking area was surrounded by forest. I don’t have to describe the rest of what happened before I headed toward the tower.

I’m not sure exactly how far the tower was from the parking area, but the concrete walkway to the tower was quite steep. Two things happened as I walked up that hard concrete: I got completely out of breath, and I ran into a headwind so brisk that I could not keep my hiking hat on my head, no matter how I tried.

That wind was cold. And my vest was considerably less than adequate protection.

If you have read much of my writing, you know how easy it is for my mind to begin having negative thoughts. This trip, this trip that I had put off for so long, now seemed like a big mistake. I began to think about what might happen if my car would not start, although I had no reason to think I would have car trouble. I began to worry if I could find my way back home. What I did not know at the time was that my cell phone lost contact with GPS while on that mountain, and I would have to get back to Highway 14 on my own. Probably better I did not know that.

When I finally made it to the tower I could barely breathe. I was holding onto my hat with all my might. But it would not stay on my head. The chin strap kept me from losing the hat, but it stayed either on the side of my face or at the back of my head, depending upon the direction of the wind.

The church group turned out to be a bunch of young folks, some young men and some young women. They were all sitting down on the concrete with their backs up against the wall of the tower, apparently trying to stay out of the wind. I said hello and waved to them, then proceeded up the concrete steps to the top of the tower, hanging onto my hat as best I could. By the time I reached the top, the folks at the bottom of the tower got up and proceeded toward the trail. They all had backpacks. There are miles and miles of trails in that area.

The top of the tower was quite large. I walked all around it, surveying the scenery, some of which was quite beautiful. Much of the view back toward the parking area was blocked or uninteresting. That left plenty to look at. This should have been enjoyable. But that cold wind made it miserable. At times, with the wind at its strongest and my hat at the back of my head, the chin strap felt like it was trying to choke me. It’s hard to think creatively and clearly in an environment like that.

Although this was supposed to be just a scouting trip, I brought my camera. Considering what I saw as I looked around, maybe this was going to be a photo trip, after all.

As I prepared to take some photos, I made a blunder. The morning sun was bright. The scene had abundant light, something usually rare as I begin an early morning photo shoot. In lowlight situations I always bump up my ISO to make the sensor more sensitive to the available light, which just means that the photo will be a little brighter but will also have some, or a lot of, digital noise. If there’s not much digital noise, it can be removed during editing. If there’s too much noise, the photo will get culled. I saw the abundance of light as an opportunity to set my ISO at this lowest natural setting: ISO 100. That setting makes for the clearest and most colorful, noise free photographs, something that rarely happens for me.

That proved to be a mistake, a totally unnecessary mistake. I could have set the ISO up to ISO 400 and whatever noise might appear, if any, would have disappeared by the time I finished editing the photograph. High ISO readings also affect dynamic range and the quality of the colors that can be captured. Although I know that, I have never really thought about it or tested it to prove its usefulness to my photography.

I always set my camera to aperture priority, which means I determined the f-stop and the camera determines the shutter speed. Two of the things that affect the shutter speed are the f-stop and ISO. Given a particular f-stop, a higher ISO amount will increase the shutter speed. Shutter speed, along with the lens’s vibration controls, affects the focus quality of the photo, whether or not the subject will look blurred and unusable. With wildlife photography that’s extremely important. But it’s also important in landscape photography, especially in the windy situation I was about to step into.

What I did not take into account was how unsteady I would be as I tried to brace myself against that strong wind, or the fact that those nearby Spring leaves and buds would be moving in the wind. And I did not think about the fact that on the side of the tower facing the sun, the light would be abundant, but less so on the opposite side of the tower.

The harsh conditions were so distracting, and the expanse of possible compositions so massive, that I became completely disorganized, taking a few photos from one side, then from the center; then I would go to the other side of the tower and take a few photos there, and then repeat that process. I felt compelled to keep moving.

It was too uncomfortable to stay on that tower very long. So, I did not take a lot of photographs. About half of them were no good, either blurred or out of focus. I did not realize that until I got home and began the editing process.

According to the timestamps on my photographs, I only spent about 15 minutes on the tower. It seemed a lot longer than that. The only reason I made it that long was because of the perceived quality of some of the shots I captured. I could not be sure, but I thought that a few of them probably looked better than most of what I’d seen from other folks.

[Note: the timestamps on those photos told me one other thing: my camera was not adjusted for daylight savings time. I stopped writing this story long enough to fix that.]

I did take the time to get one photograph of the tower itself, and a couple of photos of two big identifying plaques in front of the tower. The tower photo turned out okay. But the other two photographs, photos I thought would help identify where I was, were amongst those many photos that were completely blurred and unusable.

I had all the icy cold wind I could handle, and I probably had some good photos, so I headed for my car, still hanging onto my hat. Considering how many times I was about to take a photograph and the wind would blow my hiking hat in between my eyes and the camera, I’m surprised it didn’t blow away. And I can assure you, if it had, even though it was my favorite hat -- a Tilley LTM6 Airflo Hat costing almost a hundred dollars -- if it had taken wing in the wind, it would still be out there, somewhere on that mountain.

I got back down to my car, noticing there was no wind in the parking area. I stowed my gear, sat down in the car, closed the door, and just rested there for a while. Two things popped into my head: what if the car does not start, and will my brakes be okay going down those steep roads. On my last trip to the dealership, I was told that my brakes were rusty and would soon need to be replaced. That was about four months earlier. The brakes replacement was going to be expensive, so I put it off. And then I forgot about it. Until that moment.

That’s how my brain often works: I remember something I need to do when I’m in a situation where it’s impossible to do it.

I turned the ignition. The car cranked right up. I pulled out my phone to use the GPS to help guide me back to Highway 14. GPS was out of range. I was going to have to travel down those steep roads, those long curves, and make three or four turns, hoping that I did not get lost. The one thing that I did remember clearly was that all the turns were left turns on the way back to Highway 14.

I drove down the mountain quite carefully, keeping my speed reasonably slow. The brakes felt a little bumpy from time to time. And I thought I smelled something burning; might’ve been my imagination. I kept watching for landmarks. I had tried to memorize how things looked at all the turns. That didn’t help. Nothing looked familiar. But I thought I remembered that I had taken every turn I came upon. So I did the same in reverse on the way back down.

At the bottom of the mountain, I drove for several miles looking for something familiar, wondering if I had missed a turn or had turned too soon. Finally, I saw a memorable white house that was situated in a somewhat peculiar way near the road. This road led straight to Highway 14.

I wasn’t lost.

And I had made it safely down the mountain. My brakes had not failed.

Back at home, looking at the photographs on my computer, I felt disappointed and pleased at the same time. Too many of the photos were unusable; my fault. But some of them were nice. And one of them looked quite beautiful to me.

I took 30 photos that morning. Under better circumstances I would’ve taken 100 or more. After culling, I had 12 left, plus one I kept just because it made me think a somewhat humorous thought. Sitting at my computer, looking at my results, I realize what I missed by being so distracted by the miserable conditions. Except for the icy wind, it was a beautiful morning. The light was incredible. The scenery was vast and magnificent, inspiring. On a better day I could have spent hours there.

There are times when you're way up high, looking out, drinking it all in, caught up in the splendor of the morning, observing layer upon layer of rolling hills, their up-close colors bright and sharp, then slowly losing their punch as the layers move out away from you ... in moments like these it almost feels like flying; because, though your body is not able, your mind breaks free from the bonds of earth and sets out into the ether toward infinity.

It couldn’t happen for me on that morning. I wasn’t ready. The situation wasn’t right. But I believe, and have already begun to prove, that feelings like those are still possible even after the fact, especially if that beautiful light, those sharp and colorful close-ups, and those layers upon layers of rolling hills can be captured in a memorable form, and then reviewed, like the photos I took that morning, each one spending a full day as the background on my computer.

Over the years I have made a number of trips, taking dozens or even hundreds of photographs. A fairly large number of those trips resulted in no good photos. Some of the pros, some of the folks I follow on social media, are perfectly satisfied if one good photo results from a photo trip. Of course, those guys put a lot more thought and effort into their gear, their skill, and their excursions out into nature.

Although I love photography, a lot of the things that the pros do would take all the fun out of it for me. So I can’t expect to reach their level of quality. Oddly, this trip was initially supposed to just be a scouting trip, an idea I had gleaned from pro photographers.

When a pro does a scouting trip, he doesn’t expect to capture any good photographs. That’s his preparation for the real deal, which comes later. So, the fact that I ended up with some nice photographs, makes me feel pretty good. And, unlike the pros, and considering how miserable that trip was, I’m not sure I will ever go back there again.

But maybe, maybe I will return in the fall, when the colors are at their peak; we’ll see.

At least, if I do go back, I won’t have to worry about my brakes. I spent that money and I’m glad I did. I can drive with quite a bit more confidence now that my new brakes can properly do their job. And now I know what to expect when I get there if I go back. I’ll take a heavy coat and gloves, just in case … and a thick knit cap, instead of a homicidal hiking hat.