Chickamauga Battlefield Trail (Walker County, Georgia)

Today's first adventure takes me to the site of the greatest loss of life during the American Civil War. In the various battles in and around Chattanooga, TN, Chickamauga stands out as one of the most bloody and for being the first battle fought in Georgia. Between September 18-20, 1863 in a series of offensive and counter-offensives, approximately 120,000 troops split fairly evenly between the Union and the Confederacy met in battle. Nearly 4,000 of those soldiers lost their lives here. Our world is in multiple levels of turmoil right now, much of caused by racial injustice, but regardless of that, visiting this place is quite humbling no matter your political views.

The trail starts a the Visitor Center and after passing under a small stone bridge, enters a large field. A number of marble and granite monuments stand in the field commemorating the various regiments and companies from both sides that participated in this terrible battle. The trail quickly turns into the woods and becomes double-track. More monuments adorn the path. Additionally, there are a number of civil-war era cannons placed at various places along the path, simulating what the battlefield may have looked like back then. Interestingly, most of the cannons are pointed to fire into the woods, leading me to believe this land was probably cleared at the time of the battle.

After departing the woods, the trail runs parallel to a paved road with even more historical markers and monuments to the veterans who fought here. Many of the markers describe various events and offensives that occurred during the three days of hell that this place must have been all those years ago.

As I continue to walk the well traveled trails of this historical park, I can't help but think of the men that offered up and lost their lives to fight for their beliefs. How strong their convictions must have been to have been willing to endure something so horrific. I wonder how much political propaganda was responsible for their steadfastness. I wonder if they were pressured by their families to support their cause. I wonder what this young men really wanted and if they truly knew why they were here. 

Eventually, the trail begins to loop back towards the parking lot where I started. During my hike here, I've covered nearly 6.8 miles and there is much more to see that I didn't visit today. Additionally, I must have passed 30 cannons and more than 100 monuments to the brave soldiers who fought here. It's a sad thing that human disagreements must end in bloodshed, but perhaps someday, we'll learn a better method.

Millstone Bluff Petroglyphs (Pope County, Illinois)

My next stop for the day is at Millstone Bluff, which was the site of a late Mississippian village several hundred years ago. As I leave my truck in the gravel parking area, I first head towards the stone bluff face itself directly ahead of me. It's overgrown, but rises sixty or more feet straight out of the ground. It seemed the obvious place for the ancient inhabitants to have created rock art, but after scanning the wall and not finding anything, I return to the parking lot, only to notice a trail heading off the far side of the lot.

Here at the start of the trail, a number placards describe the hike, the ancient culture that lived here, and plead with visitors to care for this historical place. Of course, that last point sets well with me. As an advocate and practitioner of the Leave No Trace principles, I am always extremely careful to protect such sites. I'm glad that others share my views and I hope everyone who visits such places will consider how they may protect the rich heritage they are visiting.

The trail meanders through the thick southern Illinois woodlands and circles around to the back of the bluff, climbing gradually before taking a sharp left turn to reach the plateau on which the village once stood. I'm all alone out here and given the humidity, I decide to loose my shirt. As I wander around the loop trail that encircles the former village, I note signs indicating a graveyard (pillaged by treasure-seekers in decades and centuries past), the remains of a stone wall fortification, the depressions that are indicative of former structures, and finally a maze of natural stone corridors, on top of which in one particular section, an ancient artist carved images.

                  

While the image of a large thunderbird is quite obvious, I utilize the tools I have at hand to enhance the image. D-stretch is a mobile app I have used before with great success, but it normally works better on pictographs than on petroglyphs. In this case tough, it certainly does help as you can see by the included image comparison. A number of figures, including a spider-like creature, a humanoid, turkey prints, and most obviously the thunderbird all begin to pop with the right color filter.

After spending a little time with the petroglyphs, I finish the loop and head back to the parking lot. I still have a lot of driving yet to do today and I might as well get started. That said though, it was nice to get a little in a short hike, which was right at 1 mile, to stretch my legs on this long road trip, to say nothing of being able to experience the richness of this ancient culture.

Kincaid Mounds (Massac County, Illinois)

The drive between Atlanta and St. Louis is a long one, and on such drives I often find the need to get out and stretch my legs a bit. As I'm on my way to relocate my mother to live with my wife and I, I sought out a couple of interesting stops to do just that. My first stop is at an Kincaid Mounds State Historical Site. After driving for the last five or six hours on interstate highways, the switch to gravel roads is a noticeable change in the way my truck handles.

As I approach the ancient earthen mounds constructed sometime between 1050 and 1400 C.E., the first that strikes me is the location. This site is located within a few hundred feet of the massive Ohio River and likely in its flood plain. I can imagine that the river behaved any differently during the Mississippian Culture than it does today. Perhaps these tall mounds offered some relief for the indigenous peoples by functioning as islands during such floods. Either way, the four obvious mounds are quite striking as they rise up thirty to forty feet above the tall sea of grass. A set of historical markers have been placed near the parking area and describe the site as it may have been in the distant past. While this site is considerably smaller than Cahokia, 150 miles to the Northwest, it's still an impressively large site and worth a visit.

Dunbar Cave (Montgomery County, Tennessee)

 

Returning home from a visit to see some of my family in Western Kentucky, I decided to stop by for a ranger-guided tour of a well-known cave near Clarksville, TN. Dunbar Cave is the centerpiece of a state park, which is named accordingly. There a huge number of caves in this part of the world and while I'm not much of a caver (or spelunker), I do enjoy the occasionally journey into the depths. 

I arrive well before the tour's start time and speak briefly with some of the rangers before walking around Swan Lake, which is fed by the creek flowing from the cave and was once home to a very popular resort. In recent times though, the state park service has allowed the lake to return to a more natural state of swampy wetlands. It attracts quite a few waterfowl, or so it seems. That said though, the heat is crazy and I return to the visitors center to wait for my tour in the cool air.

At the appointed time, two of the three rangers call the group together and we wander outside. As he tells us a little of the history of the park and cave, we being to stroll down towards the entrance. The cave has been known for thousands of years to the indigenous peoples, but gained some celebrity in the 1950's after Country Music Legend Roy Acuff purchased the land and begin holding concerts at the cave entrance. The cool air blowing out of the cave must have been a big part of the attraction, but apparently many musical stars of the period would perform here later in the evening after having put on shows at the nearby Grand Ole Opry.

The park service respects the local Cherokee's view of the cave as sacred and does not allow pictures inside. They also removed all electrical lighting inside the cave and require visitors to bring flashlights (face masks are also required at this time due to the pandemic). As soon as we approach the entrance, the cool air offers a nice break from the intense heat and humidity of a July summer day in Tennessee.

The entrance is locked by a steel grate, but the rangers quickly unlock it and we begin our tour. It's unfortunately, but it seem that the last century or so has not been kind to the cave. During it's time as a resort destination, visitors were encouraged to enter the cave and scratch their name or break off a stalagmite or stalactite to take home as a souvenir. The early part of the cave is so damaged, that the Native American pictographs and petroglyphs inside were not even discovered until 2005, well after the park had been established. 

*Note: Photo courtesy of Google

During the tour, our guide highlights three panels. The pictures included here were borrowed from a Google search. The first panel, drawn with charcoal, would seem to represent the sun and an unknown object, perhaps a meteor or comet. The ranger states that carbon dating showed it to be between 800 and 1000 years old. Given the time frame, I also wonder if it could be a representation of the 1054 CE Crab Supernova, which was documented elsewhere in the world and would have been visible for some months.

The second panel is a series of thirteen circular pictographs and four circular petroglyphs. Each circle contains other small circles within in varying patterns. As the group discusses it's meaning, I'm forced to think of the 13 Moons Petroglyph near Bishop, CA. I suggest that perhaps the thirteen pictographs represent the lunar cycles of the solar year, and were drawn independently of the four pictographs. We may never know, but speculating is rather fun.

Finally, we reach an anthropomorphic pictograph. This one is a life-sized humanoid with a triangular head and what appear to be bear-like feet. The figure holds objects or tools in each hand, but they are difficult to discern. Perhaps this was a burial place or this was a spirit guarding ancient travelers as they explore the cave. It's an interesting depiction, but we likely never know the artist's true intent.

*Note: Photo courtesy of Google

The next section of the cave requires some amount of squatting to get to, but in days past would have only been accessible by crawling on our bellies. The park service or one of the entities that owned the cave previously carved out a walkway to a much more manageable height. As we enter the last room of the tour, Independence Hall, it's clear that this room wasn't accessed nearly as much as many of the previous areas. Here numerous columns and flow-stones have formed at the meeting of stalagmites and stalactites. It's quite a beautiful area. 

The cave extends some eight miles in total, but for today, this short tour will have to suffice. As this is the last room we visit, we do an about-face and return the the cave entrance the way we came. It was well worth the stop and I'm glad to have had the opportunity. 

Foster Falls (Marion County, Tennessee)

I'm heading up to Kentucky to spend some time with my aunt and uncle this weekend. Of course, that doesn't mean I can't find some interesting places to check out along the way. It is a 6-hour drive after all. After having reviewed the route a bit on Google Maps, I decided to make a quick stop at Foster Falls near the Fiery Gizzard Recreation Area. The Fire Gizzard Trail is on my to-do list, but I don't have enough time for that today and so the waterfall will have to suffice.

After finding a parking spot, I wandered over to the overlook platform, which looks down on the waterfall and it's pool, but the view is somewhat obstructed by trees. I saw a sign indicating a trail down the cliff side to the base of the waterfall and decided to follow it. While only a short half-mile hike, it's very rock and pretty steep in a couple of sections. It climaxes with a short walk over an extension bridge spanning the creek outlet from the waterfall pool. As I cross, a father tells his young children to watch how the bridge bounces.

There are a few people wading and swimming in the large pool created by the creek water's eighty foot plunge over the cliff side. The water is fairly tame today, but it's quite a beautiful waterfall. With the heat and humidity being what it is here today, I'm very tempted to go for a swim myself, but I have a lot of miles to cover before reaching my destination. My jeep's air-conditioning will have to suffice.

Mulberry Riverwalk and Waterfall (Barrow County, Georgia)

Another of my psuedo-urban hikes takes me to the Mulberry Riverwalk in Braselton this morning. It's nice being able to get a few trail miles in before I start work and more importantly, before the Georgia summer heat kicks in for the day. The trailhead is just a few miles from my home and when I arrive on this early Tuesday morning, there are only two other cars in the small lot.

Quickly departing the parking lot, the trail starts out as a paved path, but soon turns to a single track that is not yet overgrown, but certainly on its way in that direction in places. The trail runs parallel and above the Little Mulberry River, which is really nothing more than a shallow creek twisting and turning its way through northeastern corner of the Atlanta Metro Area. It's flat and I'm able to keep a good pace. I start out with some headphones and listening to a podcast, but as I see the number of places along the way for a snake to be laying and given the proximity to water, I decide to remove them from my ears and focus on my surroundings.

At several points along the way, the foliage opens up for a view of the river twenty or so feet below the trail. I can see the bottom and it's a bit muddy, but it has washed out this canyon in such a way that it reminds me of the creeks in western Kentucky that I used to play in as a kid.

As I continue along, I arrive at the "waterfall". It's not really much of a fall, but a natural slab of granite stretches across the width of the river here and forces the water into a chute situation. If the water were cleaner, it would be probably be fun to slide over this "waterfall" on a tube or one's rump. Still though, it's a nice scene so close to the city.

Further down the trail, I encounter a little friend. A small (7-8 inches long) eastern box turtle has made his way out onto the trial. Cute little guy. I stop for a picture, but quickly move on, as I need to finish the hike and start work pretty soon. 

Eventually reaching the loop on the end, which follows a sharp 180-degree bend in the small river, I'm put turned around and headed back towards my jeep. I do encounter a few folks on the way back. The trail comes near a few neighborhoods and I imagine it offers some great opportunities for morning runs or walks. Arriving back at the jeep, I check my distance I was able to get in just over 5.4 miles this morning. Not a bad way to start the day.

Yellow River (Gwinnett County, Georgia)

The Yellow River flows very near my house, northeast of Atlanta, and continues south. A few miles from my home a park has been dedicated and named after this small river and offered another opportunity for me to get out with one of the local Meetup Groups. The parking lot we chose to meet up was somewhat secluded and caused a few issues with people finding it, but I think that is only because they didn't read the directions provided. 

Our large group does a quick round-robing describing a television show we've recently watched and enjoyed before hitting the criss-cross of wooded trails in this park. At first, we really don't see the river, but as we progress, we eventually hike a section right next to the water. I can certainly see where the name Yellow River came from, as the water here is quite muddy and almost has a yellow hue to it.

As we make our way through the woods, I have a number of conversations with my fellow-hikers. Some of whom I have met before and others who are brand new to the group, including one very nice lady who has never hiked before today. She's been steadily building up her endurance walking around her neighborhood and chose to take to the trails for the first time today. I try to give her some encouragement as she's doing very well for someone who has never hiked this far. 

The trails are very nice and well maintained here, but generally, not very exciting. We return to the parking lot after about three hours, having completed just over 8.4 miles. I think it's time for me to go home and rest now, between the three hikes I've completed this weekend, I've put in almost 25 miles and I'm ready to put my feet up.