Plan Your Hike

The Guide to the Foothills Trail and the Foothills Trail Map are indispensible tools for planning your Foothills Trail hike. The guidebook is designed to be a complete and comprehensive source of information about the trail. The guide includes a brief description of each section of the trail, the estimated length, hiking time, and difficulty of each section, topographical maps, mini-maps of trailheads, and descriptions of landmarks and points of interest along the trail.

The official Foothills Trail Map includes GPS coordinates, water and tear-resistant paper, trailhead access maps, point to point distances, elevation profiles and much more.

The guidebook and map are available in our store and at many local retailers.

On The Trail

The Foothills Trail can be approached as a multi-day through-hike, a weekend section-hike, or simply as a day-hike.

The trail is 77 miles in length, and a through-hiker should plan to spend approximately 5-10 days on the trail. Week-end backpackers and day-hikers can utilize numerous trailheads for shorter trips.

One popular day-hike is the section from Sassafras Mountain to Table Rock, a high-elevation ridge-top hike of about 9 miles.

A popular backpacking trip or section-hike is from Laurel Valley (US 178) to Bad Creek (SC 130), a 2-3 day backpacking trip through the wild and remote Jocassee Gorges area, about 33 miles.

Another popular section for day-hikers follows the Chattooga River, using trailheads at Burrell’s Ford and Nicholson Ford Road, off SC 107.