Caesars Head, SC

If there is one place on the Blue Ridge Escarpment you take your visitors to Greenville, it should be Caesars Head State Park.

The park is only a 45 minute drive from downtown and amenities include ample parking, a visitor center, restrooms and an easy to walk to what is possibly the best view of the Upstate. We usually stop at a half-dozen other places along the way including Bald Rock, Wildcat Branch Falls and Table Rock, but Caesars Head is the feather in the cap of our tour of the mountain region of South Carolina.

It doesn’t matter if there are very young children or less-able hikers in your group, as it is only a couple hundred feet from the parking lot to the overlook. Even the added loop of descending through the Devil’s Kitchen for the view of Caesars Head from the side is a relatively easy walk, suitable for the young and old.

We enjoy packing a snack for one of the picnic tables up top, which barring heavy winds or extreme cold are the perfect spot to relax and take in the view. If you visit on the right day in mid-September you might see hundreds of broad-winged hawks in migration, peregrine falcons being another common sight.

Caesars Head and Jones Gap State Park form the 11,000-acre Mountain Bridge Wilderness Area and are connected by several hiking trails, while less than a mile away is the parking area for the trails to Raven Cliff Falls and the falls overlook. Beyond that is the NC/SC state line and the Eastern US Continental Divide, and even further north is DuPont State Forest, the home to dozens of waterfalls (that you might recognize from The Hunger Games). Whether it’s a day trip from Greenville, a stop on the way north or just a weekend trip, the Blue Ridge Escarpment and Caesars Head offer a remarkable view of the Upstate, one that should not be missed.