The Cumberland Trail is a grassroots trail maintained by volunteers that spans some 300 miles from Cumberland Gap in Kentucky to its southern terminus at the Signal Point Military Park on Signal Mountain. Currently there are 210 miles of the trail that are open and complete with more than 50 trailheads and 28 sections.
It's a trail that I have been pursuing on and off for the last 18 years. Daniel and I did several sections in the northern part of the state when we were first married and living in Cookeville. I believe the first time we came across the Cumberland Trail was during our first visit to Cumberland Mountain State Park just east of Cookeville. We eventually went on to explore part of the Obed River, the Crab Orchard segment, and the Laurel-Snow Wilderness (all of this happened before blogging and social media).
When we first moved to Signal Mountain I noticed a sign for the CT at Signal Point, just two miles from our house. Over the last seven years we have been chipping away at portions of the southern-most sections, a few miles at a time.
We have explored most of the trails in the Tennessee River Gorge Section including Signal Point Edwards Point (I may have a little bit of bias toward the Signal Mountain trails over all the others!), and the Pot Point Loop (lower section). I have been told a new section recently opened up on our mountain and intend to check it out soon. We have done a decent amount of the trails in the North Chickamauga Creek Section over on Mowbray Mountain including Montlake Road to Stevenson Branch (Ladies Backpacking Trip) and shorter portions to Strip Mine Falls and the Hodgekin Loop with the kids.
The Three Gorges Segment has some of my favorite scenery. The Mowbray Pike Trailhead has some great waterfalls and rock formations that are lovely for climbing and bouldering. It is one of our family's favorite spots.
In the Possum Creek Gorge section
we have hiked from Little Heiss Mountain down to Little Possum Creek.
This was one of our longer hikes with kids (five miles and some lessons
learned for our hiking group!).The kids and I have also hiked a part of the pocket wilderness in the Laurel-Snow section with our hiking group and a couple of years ago the boys and I did part of the Piney River section.
Today we did a new section the northern end of the Mowbray Pike trail (Three Gorges Segment) starting at the Little Soddy Trailhead at Hotwater and Sluder. It has a much smaller parking lot and is less maintained, but lovely none-the-less. We did a quick out and back (3 miles total). The kids loved exploring the rocky streams that are typical for this area of the country. How blessed are we that we have so many well-maintained trails on every mountain in the vicinity!
The kids had a blast
skipping stones. All of the stones were incredibly flat and would easily
skip 3-5 times. The kids also took a dip in one of the pools they
found. It was only 70* out, but they did not care a lick! They caught a
crawdad (crawfish/crayfish depending on where you live), a lizard, and
noticed lots of mountain laurel, a Pharoah cicada (live) and the shells
of many cicadas that had already shed. It was a fun day! This will be a good
spot to revisit for swimming in the hot months ahead.
All of these section hikes we have completed are short, not full sections, but the little legs that go on hikes with us have covered a lot of ground on the Cumberland Trail. Some day I hope to complete all of the sections. Maybe my boys will as well.
If you are looking for a new trail to try, you really can't go wrong with a segment of the Cumberland Trail!
This was my 38th hike for 2021 (38/52). We did 3 miles bringing me to 118 miles hiked this year.
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