Runners, walkers getting in step on trail in Cayce park

A trail through a new Cayce park no longer is off the beaten path for walkers and joggers.

Jeannie Aull and Betsy Hutton decided the trail in a wooded preserve near I-77 and 12th Street is the right spot for their weekly get-together to work out and catch up with each other.

“It’s pretty, peaceful and scenic,” Aull said of the path along Congaree Creek.

Her rave is echoed by others who come to the Timmerman Trail, a 3.5-mile paved path through a 1,000-acre area on the south edge of the community slowly being developed as the 12,000 Year History Park.

“I see it as my own little getaway,” said Kayla Millholland, a doctor’s assistant at nearby Lexington Medical Center offices who runs the paths training for a marathon.

Those descriptions are what leaders of the River Alliance had in mind in proposing the park 20 years ago.

“People are discovering it and it knocks their socks off,” said Mike Dawson, executive director of the organization. “It’s been operating under the radar.”

The heavily-shaded trail is popular with 1,600 employees at nearby SCANA Corp. offices, with the path named for a former company executive starting on the edge of corporate headquarters.

It originally was going to be for company workers, but “it didn’t take long to realize it could be something bigger,” SCANA spokesman Eric Boomhower said. “It evolved.”

The path across the park connects to the south edge of the Riverwalk, but some users aren’t interested in going there.

“This is more spectacular,” runner Joe Pownall said of the forested setting.

Former University of South Carolina football player Jeff Barnes considers the trail ideal for long walks.

“I like to look around,” said Barnes, athletic director at Hammond School in southeast Columbia. “I like to be outside.”

The trail is lit at night, with call boxes to contact police for emergency help. Bags to clean up pet waste are provided while signs warn that alligators may appear in the creek.

One strand of the trail abuts a tennis and exercise center run by Lexington County recreation officials.

“We help each other,” said Paola Maoli, tennis coordinator at the center. “It’s good for us – it brings people here.”

River Alliance officials want to add a $3 million visitor center to the park to highlight its role as a gathering spot for Native Americans and for colonial settlers in the 1700s.

But the project is on hold until a way to pay for it is found. It was suggested but not included in a package of improvements rejected by county voters in 2014.

There’s also interest in transforming former logging trails into paths for riding horses.

Adding features to the park will take time, Dawson said. “Eventually we’ll get there,” he said.

For now,the paved trail is perfect for those who amble, trot and even bicycle.

“Look around,” Hutton said as she and Aull walked in the quiet setting a few blocks from the hum of traffic on nearby thoroughfares. “It’s awesome.”