View of Nashville from Fort Negley Fort Negley was the largest inland fort in the Civil War and is currently being maintained as a semi ruin. Only parts of the walls of the fort are still standing, but there has been effort made into developing the area with an educational center being made and boardwalks made for walking trails. There's also a good panorama of Nashville from the top of the hill the fort is on. Reenactors brave the cold for the 153rd anniversary of the Battle of Nashville For most people until recently they weren't even aware what was at the top of the hill as the area had been blocked off and was right behind the Adventure Science Center and next to the now defunct Greer Stadium. With Greer Stadium recently being slated to be redeveloped, hopefully Fort Negley will benefit from more educational funding. The fort boasts a nice visitors center, walking trails around the fort, and a fossil program on the weekends. It's an interesting historic site just because of the condition it's been left in. Also a great place to take kids as it's not too daunting of a walk.
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The Cason Lane trailhead to the Murfreesboro Greenway is one of the less busy parts of the Greenway. There is a nice playground there and a bark park and bathrooms all right behind the Cason area neighborhood. The extension of the Greenway we walked was to the left and is fairly flat, following a branch of the Stones River. One of the features on the trail is a fairly long pedestrian bridge over the river which makes some nice pictures. The trail is fairly short on picturesque places, but the bridge is nice. The whole Cason trailhead is a nice area to access the Greenway.
Ozone Falls in Ozone, TN just past Sparta is an incredibly impressive waterfall very close to the road. It's only about a quarter mile to the bottom of the fall. The bigger issue is how steep and rocky the terrain is. It isn't the safest climb down to the bottom, but the waterfall is worth it in sheer size. Ozone has an impressive plunge pool at the bottom and climbing down on the rocks near the base gives an opportunity for some very nice pictures. Gambler's Den is the rock wall that you walk along to get to the base of the falls. Ozone was used in the movie The Jungle Book back in the 90s and it's completely understandable why. You barely know it's there from the road. The parking area isn't large, but being hidden in plain sight has left a very large falls you can get to with only minimal foot traffic.
There's nothing like a bucket of sand to hunt through for treasures. The Pigeon Forge Gem Mine gives you the whole 5 gallon bucket. There's something novel about looking for stones in your own bucket of dirt and as a fun little activity this was interesting. I did get the aquamarine I found set as a necklace. It's my birthstone and there's something novel about turning something you found into a piece of jewelry. The Gem Mine offers a nice geology gift shop and the standard "we'll tell you what stones you got and offer to cut and set them" service. We ended up finding some emeralds and one ruby in our bucket and I got a smokey topaz cut for 15 $ just because it was pretty. It's not something you do every time you go on vacation, but it's nice to say you've done it once.
Dollywood goes all out for Christmas. If you want to see Christmas lights, this is the place for more than you can shake a stick at. For your money, particularly if you've bought a season pass, Dollywood is the best place to see a huge amount of lights at your leisure (no waiting in lines or having to drive through parks). There is a huge light up tree that performs to music at certain times and a night parade. The park stays open until 9 for their nighttime parade (which we didn't stay for this year). And it is cold after dark so bundle up. Not all their rides are open in the winter, understandably the water rides in particular, but the majority of the high thrill ones are. Expect large crowds and crowded areas during the parade. Other than that I far prefer going in the fall and winter to Dollywood than the summer.
Old Sugarland Trail, directly across from the Great Smoky Mountain sign at the Sugarland entrance to the park, is a nice moderate hike. The section that connects the Old Sugarland Trail to Two Mile Lead I would describe as more verging on difficult. The whole hike is 3.5 miles and the connector part is an uphill slog though. The trail hasn't been maintained very well after the wind storms and we had to climb through a good number of downed trees on the trail. The cut through is still marked so the trail is supposed to be usable, but it's the least maintained I've ever hiked in the Smokies. One of the bi-products of hiking a wilder trail is that we came upon three bears this particular hike. This isn't the first time I've hiked up on a black bear in the Smokies, but this was the most I've seen on one. The first was a mother bear and cub on the cut through trail to Two-Mile Lead. The second was on Two-Mile Lead, which is actually used as a riding trail for the Sugarlands Stables so that particular sighting was a bit more surprising for me. It was a warm day though so I feel like a lot of the bears were out trying to find more food.
On of the most visited areas in the Great Smoky Mountains is the Sugerland area headquarters. Right behind the park center is the Fighting Creek Nature trail, one of the easiest trails to get to in the park. Plenty of families use this trail as a starter for small children just to get out into nature, but the day I went it really wasn't that crowded. We honestly saw very few other hikers. I think the fact that there's no major land feature at the end (i.e. waterfall, overlook, cave) causes some people to move on to more highly trafficked trails. John Owensby cabin is on the turn around of the one mile loop trail. It's one of the smaller historic cabins in the park (the Walker Sisters' cabin is much larger for example), but for the short hike it's a picturesque spot for some rustic shots. Fighting Creek also goes by the trail and offers some nice shots. Linked to the Fighting Creek Trail is a short side trip to Cataract Falls. Cataract is a small falls not far off the road that makes nice pictures if you're not looking to walk too far for a waterfall. I've seen this falls with a pretty decent amount of water where it looks much better than this shot, but apparently the water table was a bit low when we were there. The trail from the nature center to Cataract goes under a bridge near the parking area for the falls. Cataract is a little hidden because it isn't marked particularly well from the road, but it's always busy.
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AuthorA librarian who likes to travel and experience life. CategoriesArchives
June 2022
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