Green Creek

  • Location: Greenville County, SC

  • Size: 16.22 acres

  • Habitat: Creek

  • Public Use: Pending transfer to DNR

  • Partners: South Carolina Conservation Bank

  • Year Protected: 2021

The Cherokee Foothills Scenic Highway traverses the foothills of the Blue Ridge escarpment, offering motorists and bicyclists stunning views of South Carolina’s most iconic parks and wilderness areas. Designated a scenic highway by the Federal Highways Administration helps to bring attention and modest tourism to this part of South Carolina. However, the designation offers little to no protection to the views that make the highway scenic. One of our missions has been to protect the scenic values of Highway 11, and over the last 15 years, we have protected over a thousand acres and miles of frontage on the road through Greenville and Pickens counties.

Black bear tracks are found on the property. Green Creek is used as a wildlife refuge and corridor by animals traveling between Chestnut Ridge Heritage Preserve.

The majority of our efforts have been beneath Table Rock, near the Nine Times Forest and the South Saluda River corridor next to Wildcat Wayside State Park. These projects have been wildly successful and are some of the most popular places for visitors and anglers to the upcountry. One of the largest funding sources that helped us accomplish so much during this time was the Scenic Byways Program, which ran out of funding in 2012. Our buying power for properties along the Highway was greatly diminished, so we sought to find properties that also adjoined other protected land to bring in funding partners like SCDNR or SCPRT. Green Creek on Scenic 11 is ideal for this very reason.

The property is a 16-acre wooded wedge between Highway 11 and Oak Grove Road, adjacent to the Chestnut Ridge Heritage Preserve, and over 200 acres that Naturaland Trust continues to own and manage. The property protects over a third of a mile on Highway 11 and contains the headwaters for Green Creek, a major tributary to the South Pacolet River. The property accomodates plant species of interest to SCDNR’s biologists and is an important thoroughfare for wildlife, as indicated by well-worn game trails and tracks throughout the forest. Equally important, protecting this tract could lead to more conservation along this corridor, which is growing in popularity for estate-type lots and views of the mountains.

The immediate conservation plan is to acquire the property before our purchase option expires with the help of the Conservation Bank and when SCDNR is able, we will transfer the property to them for inclusion in the Heritage Preserve program. Albeit small, this property is a gorgeous vestigial forest of chestnut Heritage Preserve, a refuge for wildlife, and an important stretch of South Carolina’s most scenic highway that will continue to inspire travelers for decades to come.