It is almost as if the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources doesn’t want people to find Wadakoe Mountain Heritage Trust site; their maps of the area leave a lot to be desired and the directions listed on their Web site do, too.

And, perhaps, that is with reason since Wadakoe is one of the Upstate’s premiere biological hotspots. There are at least seven species of plant that are thought to exist nowhere else in South Carolina including a specie of goldenrod unknown to science until it was found by Clemson botanist Patrick McMillan not 10 feet from his parked car a few years back.

That at your feet discovery makes for both the beauty of the mountain and its peril.

Wadakoe is technically part of the Jocassee Gorges as well as a stand-alone Heritage Trust preserve, but development eats away at edges of the 900-acre site perched atop a low range of mountains that frame Eastatoe Valley.

Natives know the hidden trails though the site and can often be found illegally riding their ATVs over the mountain for fun or as a shortcut to fishing on Eastatoe Creek at DNR’s fishpipe stocking point.

But fish aren’t the reason to visit Wadakoe; plants are, especially in spring when the mountain’s secret coves are home to an explosion of rare plant species that live in a series of ecological hotspots scattered over the north face of the mountain.

None of these spots are easy to get to and DNR hasn’t built the kind of well-marked trail system that neophyte hikers are accustomed to on Wadakoe.

Getting in is easy enough. Take Roy F. Jones Road off state Route 11 and go about a mile to the Peach Orchard fishing access point on the right.

This is the last sign even remotely giving directions to the mountain. Follow an old logging road in.

Bear right at each fork in the road (there are several) and go on past fishpipe (a long plastic tube that stretches from the logging road to Eastatoe Creek).

DNR personnel regularly flush fingerlings into the creek from here in season.

From there the trail will start a long series of switchbacks. Keep your eyes glued to the borders of the road, especially in wet spots. You’re likely to see trillium in season and more uncommon species of plants at other times.

Hikers will pass under two power lines. One is fairly small, the other major with massive steel towers and a good view of the mountains ringing Lake Jocassee.

At the spot where the logging road starts to drop back down the mountain is a very obscure logging trail on the right.

Hikers are on their own from this point. A good topographical map and the ability to read it are highly recommended.

You must bushwhack your way over the top of the mountain and using a topo map pick out drainages the lead down to Eastatoe Valley and Wadakoe’s secret coves.

Some of the cove plants, like the Plantain Sedge, are supremely unimpressive but rare. Others, like Foam Flower, or Nodding Trillium are gems both in their uncommonness and floral passion.

The roots of this profusion of rarity are sunk into the singular geology of Wadakoe. The discovery of the mountain’s uniqueness happened one day while Dennis Chastain was out hunting.

“I happened across this deer trail that had been worn hip deep into the side of the mountain back in 2000,” he said.

“Being a hunter (he is also a talented amateur botanist with books on mountain wildflowers to his credit), I followed the trail to see why so many deer were using it.”

What he found was an exposed rock face made up of amphibolite – a metamorphosed rock rich in calcium and magnesium, a poor man’s marble. The deer had, quite literally, licked the face of the rock smooth and were eating the dirt at the base of the rocks.

Wadakoe alone in the region is built on foundation of amphibolite; deer crave the minerals for their nutrient value. So do the plants.

However, for plants there is the additional benefit of calcium and magnesium making the mountain’s dirt basic versus the normally acidic soil of the surrounding mountains.

On Wadakoe there is almost no mountain laurel, or rhododendron – both acid loving species. The soil is “sweet” and many species of plant, like Sweet White Trillium (Trillium Simile) and nine other species of trillium thrive on it. Some species are not common anywhere else along the Blue Ridge Escarpment. On Wadakoe one can stand hip deep in rare Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides), while surrounded by troops of white trillium, under a canopy of titanic hickory and poplar spiced with rare Butternut trees (Juglans cinerea), a variety of walnut.

The coves on Wadakoe’s north-facing slope are part of an intricate system of “nutrient sinks” that funnel food and water down slope until they hit an obstacle and concentrate there.