Keowee Club → Lake Jocassee
Keowee's wild upstream sibling: a mountain reservoir ringed by protected gorges, three times deeper, with waterfalls you can drive a boat to. Here's the water, the depth, and how to get on it.
Reading the gauge…
Jocassee is the upper half of Duke's pumped-storage battery: water runs downhill to Keowee to make power when demand spikes, and gets pumped back up when it's cheap. A lake that's 15 feet down in one season and brimming the next is normal operations, not drought.
Keowee holds within a few feet of full; Jocassee routinely works a 0 to 23 foot range. Lower water uncovers red-clay banks and stretches the walk down the ramp — but the waterfalls keep falling and the water stays that impossible blue-green.
South Carolina's deepest lake. The bottom of the old Whitewater River channel sits some 350 feet under your hull — deep enough that divers visit a drowned lodge, and deep enough to stay cold at the bottom all summer.
Less than half Keowee's size, and almost none of the shoreline is developed — the lake sits inside the Jocassee Gorges, tens of thousands of acres of protected mountain land.
Duke Energy impounded the Whitewater, Toxaway, Horsepasture, and Thompson rivers to build its pumped-storage system. Under the water: the old Attakulla Lodge and the valley the lake is named for.
Our interactive depth model renders both lakes' basins — spin Jocassee around, drain it with the slider, and watch how much deeper it runs than Keowee. Modeled from shoreline shape, not sonar; wow-purposes only.
Rivers pour off the Blue Ridge Escarpment straight into the lake, which means waterfalls with boat parking. All of them are on our 3D map — fly the lake tour passes every one.
The postcard one — about 80 feet, dropping right into a cove at the lake's northeast end. Idle in close on calm mornings; kayakers camp nearby on the Foothills Trail.
A broad slide of water on the north shore. Less famous than Laurel Fork, which means you might get it to yourself on a weekday.
Tucked in the Whitewater arm — a veil of water you can nose a kayak almost underneath when the lake is up.
A 200-foot plunge just upstream of the lake — this one you earn on foot from the Bad Creek access overlook trail, not by boat. Worth the walk.
Before 1973 this was the Jocassee Valley — a resort valley with a lodge, a girls' camp, a church, and family farms. Duke flooded it with most of the buildings still standing, and the cold, dark water has kept them. Divers have been finding them ever since.
The valley's resort hotel, built around 1898, took in traveling families for half a century. It went under intact in 1973 and was found by diver Bill Routh in 2004 — still standing, roof about 270 feet below the surface. Only technical divers ever see it: 46-degree water, total darkness, 15 minutes on site, two hours of decompression coming back up.
The graveyard-relocation scene in Deliverance was filmed here while the lake was actually filling. Families were given the choice to move their dead; many chose to leave them be. Divers report headstones still upright, some names still legible.
Generations of Upstate girls spent their summers in the valley from 1922 until the late 1960s. The stone entrance pillars and the white picket fence are still down there on the old valley floor.
All of these sites are pinned on our 3D depth map — drag the drain slider and watch the lost valley come back out of the water, shallowest sites first. Pin locations are approximate, from historical accounts; exact sites are the dive community's to keep.
The only public boat access on Jocassee — ramps, villas, camping, and a swim area. Summer weekends fill by mid-morning, so launch early. When the lake is well below full, call the park office before towing to check ramp conditions.
Kayak and pontoon rentals operate from the park in season, and guided waterfall tours run most of the year. The water is famously clear — trout-cold at depth, swimmable up top all summer.
157 feet on average, about 351 feet at maximum per SCDNR — South Carolina's deepest lake. For comparison, neighboring Keowee averages 53 feet.
The live chip at the top of this page reads Duke's gauge right now, in feet below the 1,110-foot full pond. History and both lakes' gauges live on the lake level page.
Pumped storage: Duke runs water downhill to Keowee for power and pumps it back overnight. Multi-foot swings are routine and reverse themselves — it's an energy schedule, not a drought alarm.
Yes — the water is exceptionally clear and comfortable at the surface in summer, with a designated swim area at Devils Fork. It gets cold fast below the surface layers; this is a trout lake at depth.
Devils Fork State Park in Salem is the only public access. Arrive early on summer weekends.