https://www.postandcourier.com/users/profile/Christian%20Boschult
CHESNEE — Track suits are out; birthday suits are in.
At least, that’s the prevailing vibe at the Carolina Foothills Resort’s Buck Creek Streak 5K on June 14.
The clothing-optional trail race at the nudist resort in northern Spartanburg County has a record 161 people signed up so far.
“You can go anywhere and do a 5K, but you can’t go anywhere and run a 5K naked,” said Tom Crowder, a lifelong nudist who’s on the resort’s board of directors. “If you go to the turkey trot and drop your drawers, you’re probably gonna be arrested.”
Not so at the Buck Creek Streak, which takes place entirely within the confines of the private community and away from public eyes.
The race, started by the late Mike Ward, is going on its 11th year. About 25 people ran the first race, but it’s gotten a lot bigger in the intervening decade; 138 ran it last year, and the winning time was 21:45 — a pace of seven minutes per mile.
“A lot of people will come here for the first time during the 5K, which to me is pretty bold to come here for the first time and have that many people around,” Crowder said. “But a lot of people will come back after that first visit because they’ll have such a great time.”
About Carolina Foothills Resort
The community, one of only a handful of nudist retreats in South Carolina, dates back to 1991 when a dozen founders set up the campus on 92 acres near Chesnee. It’s just a mile north of Strawberry Hill USA and the surrounding peach orchards.
The co-op has 230 member-owners, some of whom have permanent RV and cabin sites.
The layout is quaint, exquisitely manicured with flowers, ivy, grassy lawns, rustic fences and road signs. Residents’ homes and RVs are decorated with trimmed hedges and wood carvings. It’s flanked by Buck Creek, the 5K’s namesake, which runs through the adjoining woods.
And it has plenty of amenities: a hot tub and two swimming pools, pool table, poker table, pickleball, minigolf, horseshoes and darts. Plus, there’s a clubhouse with a DJ booth.
But its most valuable asset may be the humanity within the gates.
“The people here are without a doubt the most amazing group of people you’ll ever want to meet. All walks of life,” said Verna Eller, who’s been a member for more than 20 years. “People come from all over the country.”
Eller was first introduced to the resort when she stopped at Bantam Chef in Chesnee on the way back from a sales trip. She was coming from Georgia and heading home to Boone, N.C., when she popped in for a bite.
A man inside asked her to sit with him and began telling her about the lifestyle in the resort.
“Dear Lord, help me, help me, help me,” she thought.
Then he asked her to come back with him and check it out. She didn’t intend to follow him there, but a little voice in her head said “Just go look, just go look,” she recalled. “And I did.”
She never looked back and married that man in 2009. They’re still married to this day.
The draw of a nudist lifestyle
A big misconception about nudist — or, as they’re sometimes called, “naturist” — resorts is that they’re sexual. But members at Carolina Foothills say the lifestyle is more about equality, acceptance and body positivity.
“It’s not a swingers club,” said member Cheri C., who provided only her last initial due to the stigma that often comes with belonging to a nudist community. “A lot of people think with nudity there’s all this sexuality. It has nothing to do with it.”
ll body shapes and sizes are represented, including amputees and those who are post-surgery and post-illness.
In 2009, Cheri C. was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a double mastectomy. After her reconstructive surgery, she bought a roll of smiley face stickers to wear on her chest. The community showed up in solidarity.
“I went back down to our RV to have lunch,” she said, “and when I came back up, everybody in the campsite had gotten my roll of the little stickers and they all had their little stickers on to support me.”
The judgment-free environment is a major draw of the nudist lifestyle, said Al Gilewicz, who’s one of the directors for the American Association of Nude Recreation’s eastern region.
The association has more than 25,000 members, with more than 6,000 in the eastern region, where Spartanburg’s resort is located.
Because members generally walk around nude, they’re not separated by objects that would normally denote status, like expensive shirts and chic outfits.
“Once you take the clothes away, you don’t know if the person you’re standing next to is a wealthy CEO or a regular person,” Gilewicz said. “You’re not making a judgment based on the clothes you wear or the car you drive; it’s based upon the person.”
One of the AANR’s biggest annual events is International Skinny Dipping Day in July. But Gilewicz estimated that the second-most-popular events, taken collectively, are the naked races.
“I know of at least a dozen to two dozen,” he said. “Some of the regions in the West and Southwest have nude races going back 30 years.”
If you go
Anyone who wants to run the Buck Creek Streak at the Carolina Foothills Resort will have to pass a background check to come on the property, which is standard procedure for all visitors.
