With the mountains at your doorstep, Walhalla offers a vast playground to enjoy all your favorite outdoor activities in a stunning natural setting. Along with a new mountain biking park and miles of wooded hiking trails, the town offers easy access to several beautiful waterfalls.
Here are some cool places to add to your outdoor itinerary:
Stumphouse Park – Bordering Sumter National Forest, this 440-acre park is where you’ll find the famed Stumphouse Tunnel, Issaqueena Falls, the Stumphouse Passage of the Palmetto Trail and the exciting new Stumphouse Mountain Bike Park. With picnic tables, restrooms, a covered pavilion and a gazebo overlooking a pond, it’s a great spot to enjoy a picnic lunch or the simple pleasure of being outdoors.
Stumphouse Tunnel – Built primarily by Irish immigrants in the 1850s, the Stumphouse Tunnel was part of a project to connect the port of Charleston to cities in the Midwest. When the state’s economy collapsed after the Civil War, the project was abandoned with just 1,617 feet of the proposed 5,863 total feet excavated through the mountain’s solid blue granite. Visitors can walk a quarter mile into the tunnel and enjoy the constant 50-degree temperature. Be sure to bring a flashlight.
Stumphouse Mountain Bike Park – It has been hailed as a state-of-the-art mountain biking facility with 14 miles of trails accessible to every skill level of rider. To date, 14 miles of trail have been opened in the park with 10 more in the works. All of the flow trails are designed for beginner mountain bikers with big berms, rollers, tables, rock gardens and more.
Issaqueena Falls – From the parking lot, it’s an easy .4-mile walk to the viewing platform for this beautiful 100-foot waterfall fed by Cane Creek. According to legend, the Indian maiden Issaqueena rode to the nearby fort to warn settlers of an impending Indian attack. To escape pursuing Indians, she pretended to leap over the falls but was actually hiding beneath them.
Stumphouse Passage of the Palmetto Trail – This easy 1.5-mile hiking trail is the first Upstate section of the state’s 500-mile mountains-to-coast trail system. It runs alongside Cane Creek and the Walhalla Reservoir, offering access along the way to several loops in Stumphouse Mountain Bike Park.
Oconee Station State Historic Site – The historical significance of the site may be the big draw, but the park also offers some recreational amenities, including a fishing pond and a 1.5-mile nature trail that circles the pond and provides access to the half-mile trail to Station Cove Falls.
Station Cove Falls – A three-quarter mile walk through a beautiful Appalachian cove forest takes you to this 60-foot cascade, formed from the headwaters atop Station Mountain.
Windsor at Walhalla – The par 72 course features 6,866 yards from the longest tees. Designed by Harry Bowers, it has a slope rating of 135.
Sertoma Field – A recreation complex for sports activities, it includes ball fields, two playgrounds, a one-mile walking track, shaded picnic areas and a disc golf course with a creek running through it.
