RSS Feed« Saturday at the Hawk Watch | Main | Heading to Asheville »
October 08, 2006
The Cumberland Trail - Possum Creek Segment
A beautiful waterfall found along the Cumberland Trail
in the newly opened Possum Creek segment
Chattanooga is a great place to live if you're a hiker. The city and the surrounding area abound with natural areas to get out and stretch your legs. There's the Chickamauga Chattanooga National Military Park, Reflection Riding, Lula lake Land Trust. Savage Gulf Natural Area, Cloudland Canyon State Park. And then there is the vast Cherokee National Forest which lies less than an hour to the east of Chattanooga.
The Cumberland Trail is one of my personal favorites. Stretching from Signal Point
all the way to Cumberland Gap National Historic - this linear state park is a work-in-progress. It's actually part of a much larger trail system - The Great Eastern Trail - which will eventually stretch from Florida to New York! 35 miles of new trail is recently opened to hikers just north of Chattanooga. This includes the Rock Creek, Possum Creek , and the Soddy Creek segments of the Cumberland Trail. Each of these trail segments traverses steep gorges containing a dizzying array of wildlife.
The Soddy Gorge segment begins less than two miles from where the Soddy Mountain Hawk Lookout is located - off of HWY 111 atop the Cumberland Plateau. For a map and directions that will help you find the trailhead, please take a moment to visit the Cumberland Trail Conference website.
Later this month the Cumberland Trail Conference will be hosting volunteers from all over the USA to help build and maintain this magnificent trail. The trail club will be housing, feeding, and entertaining volunteers in exchange for their volunteer time. It's a great way to meet new friends, visit beautiful places, and help build a trail for future generations. For information on how YOU can become a trail volunteer, please visit this link, or contact Tony Hook at 931-456-6259.
Happy Trails!
Great Places to Hike | By Jeffrey Hunter | 07:44 PM
