Weston Lake Overlook

Weston Lake Overlook is a raised wooden platform at the edge of an oxbow lake in Congaree National Park. It is one of the numbered stops on the Boardwalk’s self-guided route. The full Boardwalk Trail is a 2.6-mile round trip from Harry Hampton Visitor Center; this stop is along the way, with no separate mileage listed. The easy, flat boardwalk has benches and is listed as wheelchair and stroller accessible. Restrooms and a drinking-water fountain are at the visitor center before you set out. Flooding can close low sections, so check park conditions before the walk.

The elevated platform looks over still water ringed by floodplain trees. When the surface is calm, keep both the reflections and a few tree trunks in your photo; they show the broad wetland around the lake better than a tight shot of the railings.

Weston Lake formed when the Congaree River changed course and left one of its bends behind more than 2,000 years ago. The river has shifted south, and clay and organic debris are slowly filling the old channel. Oxbow lakes begin when a river cuts through the narrow neck of a bend, leaving a quieter curve beside the new channel.

Yellow-bellied sliders and common snapping turtles are often spotted here in warmer months. Watch the water from the platform and leave wildlife undisturbed; don’t touch or feed the turtles.

A study of sediment cores described a five-acre lake with much of its steep-sided basin more than 20 feet deep and a deepest point near 25 feet. It also found gravel where mud and plant matter are more typical. Artesian springs have been suggested as one possible reason sediment settles slowly, but that explanation is not settled.