The Edisto River Canoe and Kayak Trail in SC is part of the ACE Basin, consisting of three rivers (Ashepoo, Combahee and South Edisto) with 350,000 acres of forested wetlands, fresh, brackish and salt water tidal marshes, barrier islands, finfish, shellfish, bald eagles, wood storks, ospreys, short nose sturgeon and loggerhead sea turtles.
The Canoe and Kayak trail is eighty miles long and follows the same routes used extensively by the colonists and Native Americans, and is still as wild and undeveloped, bordered by banks of live oaks dripping with Spanish moss.
Outfitters (in Colleton State Parks) can take you on guided paddles lasting from two hours to sleeping overnight in a treehouse! The leafy abode has a tiny kitchen and sleeping loft that sits sixteen feet above the riverbank in a private refuge on the Edisto River.
You paddle a leisurely twelve miles, stopping at sandbars to swim and picnic, then step across a rope swing bridge to your secluded porched treehouse, with songbirds and owls as your only neighbors.
SC Exit 68
843-538-8206
http://www.southcarolinaparks.com
Carolina Heritage Outfitters offers short trips
843-563-5051
http://www.canoesc.com