National Parks: Point Park on Lookout Mountain

Did you get the chance to take advantage of free admission to a National Park over the weekend?

We did.

We happen to live about 15 minutes from Point Park – a National Military Park located on Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga.

Point Park is a ten-acre memorial park that overlooks the Lookout Mountain Battlefield and the city of Chattanooga.

Once inside, a paved path circles the park with views of Chattanooga and the Tennessee River below.

In the center of the park is the New York Peace Memorial, which was erected by the state of New York as a tribute to peace and reconciliation between Union and Confederate veterans after the war.

At the actual point of the mountain, you can explore the Ochs Memorial Observatory.

We were able to pick out our mountain from the several vantage points on Point Park, which is fun to point out to Jack.

Also, from the point you can also choose to access several of the trails located on Lookout Mountain.

We had planned to do the hike from Lookout Point to Sunset Rock back in January, but the park was closed the day we visited. So we did the eighth of a mile hike to Sunset Rock from a parking area instead.

Thankfully the day we visited Point Park, it wasn't very crowded – which was nice. We were able to walk the grounds at our leisure and snap the photos we wanted.

Jack's favorite things were the cannons. He had to look at every single one.

I carried Isaac for this trip. I think he would have preferred to walk around, but sometimes it's just easier to hang on to little ones at this stage. 

We also had several talks with Jack about the importance of staying away from the edge and listening to us at all times.

It was really hot and humid on our afternoon visit, so we were excited to stop at Clumpies Ice Cream before making our way back to our car.

Jack informed us that his ice cream was Batman Good which means extra, super good. It's no secret that Isaac loves food and he was very demanding that we share our ice cream with him!

It was good to get outside and spend some time together as a family – we were couped up last week due to illness, so it was a much needed change of pace!

Normally admission to the park is $5/adult and children under the age of 15 are free. Parking can be found outside of the gate (I saw one free lot and the rest were metered parking). You can also ride the Incline Railway from St. Elmo to the top of the mountain and take a 5-minute walk to Point Park.