Reaching back into the archives for this trip. Ever since I heard about the Cumberland Trail, I have been fascinated by it. When it is finished, it will be a long distance trail that runs from Chattanooga, TN to Cumberland Gap National Historic Park on the Tennessee Kentucky line. In 1998, the state has come in and decided to help with the trail, naming it the Justin P. Wilson Cumberland Trail State Park. The trail will be a little over 300 miles long when completed. There are currently 190 miles of trail open. In my mind, this trail is like the Benton MacKaye Trail a long trail right in my back yard!
Stinging Fork Falls like Virgin Falls and the Laurel-Snow Pocket Wilderness used to be owned by the Bowater Paper Company. Bowater set the lands aside to not be logged noticing their beauty and then they donated the lands to the state. The Stinging Fork Falls makes up the Falls Segment of the Cumberland Trail. So far the trail to the waterfall and the overlook are the only constructed parts of the Cumberland Trail constructed in the Falls Segment. The Cumberland Trail Conference currently does not know how it is going to route the trail through this segment.
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| The trail from the parking lot |
I always like to find an excuse to hike on the Cumberland Trail. My wife like to hike when the trail goes by a waterfall. She says that it give us something to look forward to. So when I can, I try to find a trail that takes us to a waterfall. After searching and running the numbers, translates to driving time vs. hiking miles, I ran Stinging Fork by Jackie. She was up for it. We drove to the trailhead and saw another couple getting out of their car for a hike. The parking lot is right on the side of the road. It would hold around six cars. The trail starts from the side of the parking lot and goes downhill from the start. It is not a bad slope, but it is downhill. As the picture shows, the trail starts off grassy, but once past the curve it turns to a dirt trail.
After half a mile, the trail splits. The trail that goes to the right, leads to the waterfall and the trail that goes to the left goes to the overlook. We chose to go left since the other couple went right. The trail is at most a quarter mile long. It was fall when we went so the view was fairly good. The only problem was, there wasn't much to see. It wasn't a bad view and we were able to see up and down the gorge.
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| A panorama of the gorge |
We after we finished our pictures we went back to the split and went in the direction of the waterfall. It was about a mile hike to the falls. The trail comes to some stairs and then continues down into the gorge. The trail then goes through several switchbacks while still going down towards the creek and the falls. The trail becomes very rocky when it reaches the top of the falls. There is another set of stairs leading down again that were beginning to fall apart when we were there. As the trail goes down the stairs, it leads you away from the waterfall. Once the trail reaches the bottom of the gorge it drops into an old roadbed and turns to the left to go back to the fall.
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| End of Trail at the Falls |
We had not had a lot of rain when we went to the waterfall and it was a little disappointing. We had hiked to see the waterfall but it was just a trickle. I could imagine how the waterfall would look running full, but after putting in the work, it was a little disappointing to have to imagine how it would look.
We hiked back to the car, going a little slower. It was tougher going back up the gorge to the car. Once we reached the trail split the trail eased out. We had hiked some parts of the Cumberland Trail before and I have decided to dub it the trail of switchbacks. With how the trail is laid out and the terrain that it covers, the trail makers have little choice but to use switchbacks.
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| Little Hiker Guy I like these |
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| Stairs needing repairs |
I would this trail to people. I have high hopes for how the Cumberland Trail will run when it is finished. The only thing for this particular trail would be to go after some rain, but that is standard advice for just about any waterfall. For the Cumberland Trail Conference's page on the hike, visit this page: http://cumberlandtrail.org/website/maps-and-guides/trail-segments/stinging-fork/
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