Huntington’s Natural Beauty Draws Visitors, Even in Winter
By Lenore McKenzie-Morris
Ever changing, yet reliably wild and undeveloped, Huntington Beach State Park may be quieter in the winter, but it’s never deserted.
Elizabeth Moses, a historian and interpretive ranger at the park, was on duty on a recent winter day. She thought she’d have a quiet week manning the desk at the education center during the week between Christmas and New Year’s, but she had a lot of company instead.
“We had 195 visitors today,” Moses said, noting that a lot of them were searching for the park’s alligators.
The freshwater lagoon to the right of the causeway as visitors enter the park is almost always in use by one or more alligators during warmer months. Below 65 degrees, however, the alligators are harder to find in the park.
“The alligators go into the mud with pockets of air,” Moses told a visitor. “They will come up for a breath of air once in a while but they don’t stay up. They are hibernating, kind of like bears.”
Most visitors were content to wander to the back of the education center where a lone juvenile alligator swims in a small tank. The education center maintains a separate tank for a few fish and a stingray, and visitors are welcome to reach into this tank and touch the animals.
Photo Gallery
Leanne Biance watched as her daughter stroked a ray as it swam by. She and her husband Mike brought their three children to the education center on their winter vacation while visiting her parents in Murrells Inlet.
“We always make the trip to Huntington Beach,” Leanne said. “We walk out on the jetty and we always go to Atalaya. We spend three or four hours here.”
Atalaya is the park’s historic Moorish-style home. A landmark added to the National Historic Register in 1992, the house attracted more than 50,000 visitors last year, not including the thousands who attended the September Arts and Crafts festival or were private guests at weddings. An unassuming building at first glance, the maze-like corridors inside the home (locally referred to as “The Castle”) were designed by Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington as part of their winter home.
Anna, a sculptor, and Archer, a leading Hispanic aristocrat in the early 1900s, once owned all of the park lands and Brookgreen Gardens across the highway. The state now leases the park lands from the Brookgreen Garden Foundation, allowing the public access to the oceanfront park while preserving its natural setting.
The 2,500-acre Huntington Beach State Park allows visitors to see Coastal Carolina in its natural state. Its 3-mile-long beach is the setting for many a family portrait or bridal photo. Its quiet setting makes it a favorite for locals.
“In the summer we’re there about every weekend,” said Shanelle Disinger, a Myrtle Beach resident who purchased a park pass at the county library. “It pays for itself in a month.”
Disinger spent part of a day there recently with her daughter and a friend during her college winter break.
“It was cloudy and it was windy, but the surf was high enough when we first went over the boardwalk that the tide was almost to the front of the sand dunes,” Disinger said. “There was a lot to find on the beach. We found three starfish, one big conch shell one of those angel fish shells and some living things that Cheyenne and Rikki looked at. I’ve never seen a real star fish and these were a pretty good size - one was bigger than my hand.
“There were quite a few people that were serious, people with five or six Wal-Mart bags of big shells,” Disinger continued. “Other than that, it was pretty quiet.”
In addition to shelling, the park is very popular with birders. “This time of year is good for birds,” Moses said, “because a lot of birds are stopping by on migration. We have more different species of birds in this park than in any other park in South Carolina.”
Moses attributed part of the popularity of the park to the Huntington’s conservation efforts. “They built the causeway to damn up the freshwater specifically to attract birds sometime in the early 1930s,” she said.
The park’s 90 acres of freshwater marshes and 1,060 acres of salt marsh were closely observed on Dec. 30 as part of the Audubon Society’s annual Christmas Bird Count. The park also keeps a record of bird sightings. An online guide shows the frequency of bird sightings for more than 300 species, from the commonly seen Great Blue Heron to the rarely witnessed flight of Baltimore Orioles in the fall. Park officials note that a full day of bird watching can reward birders with a tally of 100 or more species.
Park admission is $5 for adults, $3.25 for S.C. seniors, $3 for children ages 6 to 15, and free for children 5 and younger. The park is open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Fridays but closes earlier at 6 p.m. on other days of the week during the winter. During daylight savings time the park is open until 10 p.m. daily.
Atalaya is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. with a $1 admission fee. Guided tours to Atalaya begin on March 1 but a docent is on duty daily to answer questions to visitors taking a self-guided tour. Educational programs resume in March. Contact the education center at 843-235-8755 for more information.
There are no comments posted. Add yours below.