Bits of the Cumberland Trail!

Sunday afternoon we got to hike just a little bit of the Cumberland Trail. Something we've been wanting to do for weeks!

If you don't know anything about the Cumberland Trail, it's a hiking trail built by volunteer hikers. It runs from Cumberland Gap National Historical Park up near Knoxville, TN, and ends at Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park and Prentice Cooper Wildlife Management Area just outside Chattanooga, TN.

Still a work-in-progress, the Cumberland Trail, when completed, will pass through 11 Tennessee counties and numerous communities on the eastern escarpment of the Cumberland Plateau. What a great place, only a couple of miles from our cabin, and dog friendly too!

We started out driving from the entrance to the parking area and saw lots of lots of Kudzu covering the terrain. Kudzu is a very, very evasive plant that was brought over from Japan in the 1800's, and promoted as a way to for landowners to control erosion in the SE US. Well, the conditions here made it propagate so rapidly that's it's really taken over and become a detriment. Makes a very interesting site to see, everything covered in this one type of vine...

Once we got there, unloaded and started on the trail we immediately came up to where the trail runs along Richland Creek. Quite a site looking down on the creek. We saw a few folks hanging out on the rocks, jumping in the creek, and cooling off down there.

We walked on and then came to a long footbridge that ran over a feeder to the creek, really cool!

Once we all got over Mum being nervous walking us across the bridge, and us stopping, looking down and hanging our heads over the edge, BOL, we ventured on and came up on one of the entrances to a mine that was used long ago. Oooo, it was dark in there, very interesting! We heard from some folks that you can only get in about 20 feet because the mine has collapsed inside over time.

We walked on...the drop off was quite steep, but I loved teetering on the edge and scaring Mum. (You'll see in the vid how close to the edge I loved walking :) We walked on and came up on a small falls coming out of the rock, from a natural spring. Now that's good tasting water!

We kept on and came up on where the railroad used to cut through. Here we are checking out the stone pilons (covered in moss, so cool!) that are still there from when the railroad ran over the creek.

We had to cut our time short, so then we headed back and got to stop and wade in the creek some. Great way to cool off!

What a great little hike! And the best part is Mum says we are going back this afternoon to venture even further. We hear there is lots of cool stuff to be seen down the trail. Can't wait!