Bonny Hall Trail #5 at Earnest F. Hollings Ace Basin
in South Carolina · centroid 46 mi from Charleston
The Bonny Hall Trail Number 5 is managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service as part of the Earnest F. Hollings A.C.E. Basin National Wildlife Refuge. Visitors to the refuge can see shorebirds, eagles and songbirds.
Located nearby is the Bonny Hall Plantation, which was a rice plantation in the 1800s. While the plantation house itself is privately owned, the National Wildlife Refuge preserves many of the rice fields, canals, and dikes that were used as irrigation systems on the Bonny Hall Plantation complex. These rice fields were engineered by enslaved West Africans who brought sophisticated irrigation knowledge from the regions around present-day Sierra Leone.
Plantation owners on the coast of South Carolina specifically enslaved these highly skilled people to transform the Lowcountry landscape into highly profitable rice fields. During the Combahee Raid of 1863, some of the people enslaved at Bonny Hall escaped to freedom on these rice dikes that make up the modern trail system that visitors can explore today.
- States
- South Carolina
- Trail type
- National Historical Park trail
- Centroid nearest city
- Charleston, SC · 46 mi · ~1.3 hr drive
- Centroid coords
- 32.6603°, -80.7138°
About Reconstruction Era National Historical Park
This trail is inside Reconstruction Era National Historical Park, a national historical park managed by the U.S. National Park Service. Conditions, road status, trail closures, and reservation requirements are published on the park's NPS page — check it before driving in, especially in winter or during major weather events.
Official NPS trail page: https://www.nps.gov/places/bonny-hall-trail-5-at-earnest-f-hollings-ace-basin.htm
Park homepage: https://www.nps.gov/reer/index.htm
Plan your hike
Maps + permits: long-distance trails like this often require permits for through-hiking, backcountry camping, or specific sections (especially in National Parks). Check with the maintaining organisation listed above and the relevant land manager before booking travel.
Water + supplies: water sources vary seasonally on most U.S. trails. Carry a filter and consult current trail-condition reports — through-hiker journals (PCT-L, AT Reddit, etc.) and the maintaining organisation publish regular updates.
When to go: hiking seasons vary widely with elevation, latitude, and snowpack. Through-hikers traditionally start the AT in March-April (Springer northbound) and the PCT in late April (Campo northbound). High-elevation western trails (CDT, JMT, Wonderland) generally aren't passable until July.
If you've hiked Bonny Hall Trail #5 at Earnest F. Hollings Ace Basin and have current notes (water sources, trail closures, permit changes), tell us at /contact — we update pages as we learn.
Stay nearby
Sources
Trail data on this page is compiled from OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), the maintaining organisation's public-facing materials, and Wikipedia (CC BY-SA where excerpts are quoted). Distance, terminus, and descriptive text for nationally-designated trails are hand-curated from federal land-manager websites and trail-association sources. We do not modify the underlying data; this page presents what is already publicly recorded. To suggest corrections, see our methodology page.