With miles of dirt roads, dikes and trails, there's no shortage of options available for visitors who want to hike or bike through the ACE Basin.
Here are a few of the possibilities:
- The trails that wind through the maritime forest at Edisto Beach State Park feature salt marshes fed by beautiful tidal creeks and some of the state's tallest palmetto trees. The 1.7-mile Spanish Mount Trail leads to a 4,000-year-old shell midden created by Edisto Indians.
- The designated self-guided driving tours at Donnelley WMA and Botany Bay Heritage Preserve are suitable for mountain bikes and have interpretive stops along the way.
- Bicyclists also will enjoy the 17-mile trip down Bennett's Point Road to Bear Island Wildlife Management Area and the Michael D. McKenzie Field Station. The marsh habitat, creeks, and shallow grassy flats, especially along the right side of the road, are teeming with birds, from plovers, rails and bitterns to American white pelicans, wood storks and bald eagles.
- Caw Caw Interpretive Center features more than six miles of trails through many distinct habitats and 1,400 feet of elevated boardwalks through wetlands. Bird walks are offered from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays.
- Conveniently located along US 17 in Jacksonboro, the Edisto Nature Trail is a 1.5-mile loop through a Lowcountry forest filled with mature pines, hardwoods and bald cypresses. A section of the trail runs through a cypress swamp atop an old railroad bed to a tributary of the Edisto River.
