LAKE JOCASSEE, S.C. — Our boat glided into an alley of narrowing steep banks and hemlock trees that dropped green branches nearly into the water, then it grated to a stop on a sandbar.

In front of us, the Toxaway River, in a last fit of complaint, tumbled over a series of granite shelves and falls and then was swallowed by Lake Jocassee.

South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism (ENLARGE)
Cabins at Devils Fork State Park on Lake Jocassee are so popular that reservations being made now are for 2005.
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IF YOU GO GETTING THERE • Devils Fork State Park, about three hours from downtown Atlanta or 2 1/2 from the I-85/I-285 interchange, is one of a string of beautiful mountain parks in close proximity along the South Carolina-North Carolina border. The best way to check them out is at discoversouthcarolina.com. Click on the far northwest corner of the state map, or select a park from the list at the bottom of the page. • Take I-85 north to Exit 1 in South Carolina (S.C. 11) toward Westminster, and stay on S.C. 11 for about 35 miles to turn left on Lake Jocassee Road. Follow the signs to Devils Fork State Park. To get to the Cashiers/Highlands area, take S.C. 107 north from S.C. 11 near the park. WHERE TO STAY • Devils Fork offers 20 fully furnished cabins for rent; 15 are two-bedroom cabins that sleep six, and five are three-bedroom cabins that sleep up to 10; no pets. Cabins are furnished with linens, cooking utensils, cable TV, fireplace and small outdoor grill. All you'll need are personal items and food. Boats can be brought, or pontoon boats rented at a business near the park entrance. Cabins must be rented for a week from Memorial Day to Labor Day. After Labor Day, they can be rented by the night or for weekends. Two-bedroom cabins from $104 to $110/night (Sunday-Thursday, the higher prices are for cabins with lakefront views), and from $250 to $264 for the weekend (Friday and Saturday nights); $718-$759 for a week. Three-bedroom/two-bath cabins cost $137 a night Sunday-Thursday; $329 for the weekend, and $946 for a week. The park also has camping sites that can be reserved: 59 paved sites with electricity and water can accommodate RVs up to 36 feet for $18 a night; 25 tent sites with elevated tent pads, grill pits and centralized water rent for $13.50 a night. 864-944-2639.

The eight of us had come to the northernmost end of the lake at the North Carolina and South Carolina border. We doffed our shoes and socks, rolled jeans up to our knees, and waded the last few feet to shore, then spent a pleasant hour rock-hopping, talking and exploring the secluded banks.

A picture taken that day of me and my wife, Linda, smiling in front of one of the falls, remains on our bureau mirror at home, and Lake Jocassee will always be one of our favorite weekend getaways.

The seclusion visitors find along the banks of this 7,565-acre crystal mountain lake are the rule rather than the exception. Except for one cove and one slice of shore near Devils Fork State Park in South Carolina, the borders of the lake are forested and will remain so forever. The shoreline is nearly all protected by a combination of state forests and preserves that are ideal for outdoor activities for all fitness levels.

Bird-watching, hiking, mountain biking, even scuba diving in the clear, cold mountain waters are popular. Fishermen can haul in bass, panfish and trout nearly as long as an arm.

At the same time, the comfortable, fully furnished, two- and three-bedroom lake cabins for rent at Devil's Fork State Park are ideal. After exploring, you can wash up and warm up in front of a crackling fireplace in surroundings closer in style to a lake chalet than a cabin.

The cabins are less than a hour's drive from North Carolina's trendy mountain towns of Highlands and Cashiers. And a weekend there can pull off that rare combination: satisfy the cafe society in your clan as well as the hunter-gatherers. The same weekend that produced the photo by the secluded waterfall ended in the purchase of a wine rack that sits in our kitchen.

I first visited Lake Jocassee more than 25 years ago, not too many years after the Whitewater River had been dammed to create the reservoir to generate power for northern South Carolina. Sometime after that, I don't remember when, my family started renting three to four cabins at Devils Fork during the fall.

Unfortunately for us, Devils Fork is becoming one of South Carolina's worst kept secrets. Don't expect to drive the 75 miles from Atlanta into the park and find an empty cabin. They are popular, and reservations have to be made a year or so in advance. Instead, take a weekend trip up now, stay in a nearby town like Seneca or camp at one of 59 drive-in or 25 walk-in campsites, enjoy the lake and region, and if you love it as much as I do, you'll stop into the park office on the way out and be ready to plunk down a deposit on a cabin for next summer or fall.

Kevin Evans, the park assistant manager, said holidays and fall are the most popular times to rent.

"We are taking reservations for 2005, and we suggest, especially for the three-bed cabins, that you make reservations at least 12 months in advance," he said.

The lake is in a unique spot along the Blue Ridge escarpment that gives it more the look of Switzerland or the American West than the South.

The mountains fall off steeply from North Carolina into South Carolina in a bowl shape. The geography makes lake views from any direction spectacular, and it generates plenteous rain in the bowl, which comes tumbling back down in a concentration of trout streams like the Horsepasture, Toxaway, Whitewater and Thompson rivers. Being the edge of the mountains, the rivers create one of the heaviest concentrations of waterfalls on the East Coast. They can be discovered by boaters, hikers and car riders.

Whitewater Falls, one of the highest in the eastern United States, is a quick drive and short walk to a viewing area. The more hardy can venture down a steep trail to the base of the thundering falls along South Carolina's Foothills Trail, which connects a string of mountain parks along the two states' Blue Ridge border. As you approach the bottom, look carefully how the woods take on the character of rain forest, being misted perpetually by the falling water. You'll notice ferns growing in trees and moss that creeps across anything that stays still for long.

North Carolina's newest state park, Gorges State Park, the land bought from Duke Power, covers more than 7,000 acres where the Toxaway River tumbles into the lake. It has the feel of wilderness, with very little development except for a park office.

The gorges are so deep and forest so dense that you can get a feel for what Cherokee Indians or pioneers must have experienced.

The contrasts of expansive lake views and the looming mountain forests, town and country, boutiques and canoes can put a soul well down the road of getting away from it all.