Cumberland Trail
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The Cumberland Trail, or CT, is a hiking trail following a line of ridges and gorges along or near the eastern escarpment of the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee. The CT begins at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park and terminates at Signal Point National Historic Park and Prentice Cooper Wildlife Management Area just outside Chattanooga. The trail cuts through eleven Tennessee counties.
Over 300 mi (483 km) of trails are planned but only 165 mi (266 km) have been completed. The CT became Tennessee's 53rd state park in 1998, also Tennessee's only linear park. The Justin P. Wilson Cumberland Trail State Park (headquartered in Crossville, TN) will contain a core corridor of the trail outside the Cumberland Gap National Park and stretching south to Signal Point National Historic Park and Prentice Cooper Wildlife Management Area. The state park is named for Justin P. Wilson, who was commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation in 1996 and Deputy Governor for Policy for former Tennessee Governor Don Sundquist as well as Sunquist's Chief Policy Advisor from 1997 to 2003. The honor of the park naming was due to Wilson's "conservation and environmental contributions to the State of Tennessee."
The 165 mi (266 km) of the CT that are open includes the Cumberland Mountain Segments above La Follette, TN and Jacksboro, TN and in the Cumberland Gap National Military Park, the Obed Wild and Scenic River Segment in the Obed Wild and Scenic River and Catoosa Wildlife Management Area, the Grassy Cove Segment on Black and Brady Mountain in Cumberland County, TN, the Tennessee River Gorge Segment in Prentice Cooper State Forest.
Over the next eight to ten years, the state of Tennessee will work in partnership with the Cumberland Trail Conference and other volunteers to solicit public and private support for acquisiton of additional land along the trail. The Cumberland Trail Conference (CTC), an associate organization of the Tennessee Trails Association, is building the actual CT. All trail construction is complete by volunteers. As land acquisitions and donations acquired, volunteer trail-building efforts have increased dramatically. Every year, the Cumberland Trail Confrenece (CTC) volunteer base and volunteer hours have increased; volunteer trail-building manhours through June 30, 2005 exceeded the total volunteer manhours in all of 2004.
See also
List of Tennessee state parksExternal links
- [CTC website]
- [Justin P. Wilson State Park]
- [Justin P. Wilson] the man the park's named after
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