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Lake Lure

We took a trip up to Lake Lure last week1. The weather was about perfect… a bit cooler than the scorching temps we’ve had down in the Piedmont.  Getting out onto and into the water in summer is almost a ritual for me at this point.  We rented a nice house on Lake Adger2 just about ten miles south of Lake Lure and we had a boat rental. We just spent a couple of days trolling around the area. We went partly because we’ve been looking at property in the area and the best way to get to know somewhere is to stay there.  The lakes were nice and quiet because all the other folks usually travel over Labor Day weekend. There couldn’t have been more than fifteen other boats out Friday morning on Lake Lure. The best time to travel is when other people aren’t.

We have some friends who just got back from Lake Como3 in Italy and we joked with them that we had a much better experience because we saved about twenty-five grand and the commute was much easier. It’s only an hour and forty-five minute haul up the road from us and we’re lucky to have such beautiful getaways within a short drive. It’s also reasonably priced… we had a nice house with million-dollar views for around $200 a night. Granted the history is much shorter, but we had lunch at a local winery which surprisingly had some decent wines. We went to some local stores for fun. There’s a bit of good ole’ fashion tacky American tourist shite lingering around, but that’s certainly in Italy too. Lake Lure is mostly nice and I can see a lot of potential. Given its shorter history, Lake Lure still has the same kinda of small-town old-world charm with the boathouses lining the lake. 

Lake Lure and Lake Adger were both privately built in the 1920s for hydroelectric power. Lure feeds and is fed by the Broad River4 and Adger the Green River5 which merges into the Broad further downstream. I grew up where the Saluda6 and Broad meet. I’ve moved downstream as far as I could go and now I prefer to spend time back upstream. Lake Lure, Adger, Jocassee, and the Saluda Reservoirs are about as far upstream as you can go in the Carolinas before you’re into the hills. The headwaters are always the cleanest and least developed mainly because of the constraints of the landscape. Aside from the dams, the legacy of various textile and other industries in the Carolinas has really spoiled the natural beauty of many of our watersheds. They get relatively overdeveloped and overused where they’re accessible. Where they aren’t, like the blackwater swamps of the Pee-Dee, are generally the most lovely. As a kid, I used to do a bit of the Lynches and Pee Dee Rivers where we kept a chainsaw in the boat to clear fallen trees. I also used to paddle a bit of the WambawSwamp7 at the end of the Santee River8, which is the terminus for the same water from Lake Lure. 

Sometimes, the only place to really escape the summer crowds on the water is offshore.  My budget isn’t exactly deep water friendly and even the Charleston harbor and Intercoastal waterways get swamped with people on busy weekends. Sailing in cold weather is about the only way to avoid it which is why my wife and I crewed a sailboat. I’m mostly a landlubber though and don’t enjoy the big water as much… likely because it just feels unfamiliar.  I don’t really enjoy fishing, especially in deep water in a small boat. I like skiing alright, but not as much as just drifting along in decent company. I grew up on Lake Murray9 and even then, in the late 80’s, the best time to be out on the water was anytime but the weekends and mostly on the upper end of the lake that was less developed. That’s not the case now as the development has stretched all the way up into the Saluda River.  

Lake Greenwood10 is also fed by the Saluda River and is very close to our home.  We hardly ever get out on it though because it tends to get packed with the motorboat crowd zooming from one spot to the next. Much like Lake Murray, there is a lot of new development going on.  We owned a lot out there for years but sold it because we had no intent on building. The whole ‘lake life’ thing is just the sound of jet skis, motorboats, and drunk folks on boats blasting music behind your house. There is something nice about how every inch of space along Lake Lure has mostly been developed and they’re now in the stage of trying to make it sustainable with boating regulations and building restrictions. Lake Adger has no jet ski and low-power motor restrictions. It’s hard to find a time and place to enjoy that people aren’t ruining with their nonsense. Lake Jocassee is one of those places just because the shoreline isn’t developable and we tend to visit there most often. And although I should ruin it by advertising, Lake Lure after Labor Day is also just that place.

  1. Lake Lure – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Lure,_North_Carolina 
  2. Lake Adger – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Adger 
  3. Lake Como – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Como 
  4. Broad River – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broad_River_(Carolinas)
  5. Green River – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_River_(North_Carolina) 
  6. Saluda River – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saluda_River
  7. Wambaw Swamp – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wambaw_Swamp 
  8. Santee River – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santee_River
  9. Lake Murray – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Murray_(South_Carolina) 
  10. Lake Greenwood – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Greenwood_(South_Carolina) 
  11. Lake Jocassee – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Jocassee 
  12. Lake Jocassse – https://davidawindham.com/jocassee/