Earlier in the week the Knoxville News Sentinel
announced that the Trust for Public Land has purchased 1388 acres along the top of Cumberland Mountain which will add another 19 miles to the Cumberland Trail.
The land was purchased from Molpus Woodlands Group, a Mississippi-based timberland investment company. The acquisition will enable the Tennessee Division of State Parks, which assumed management of the Cumberland Trail in 1998, to extend the trail from Cumberland Gap National Historical Park almost to LaFollette.
So far, about 170 miles of the Cumberland Trail are open to the public in discontinuous sections, mostly on Tennessee public lands such as state parks and wildlife management areas.
When completed, the trail will stretch 300 miles through 11 counties, from Cumberland Gap National Historical Park to Signal Point National Historic Park, near Chattanooga.
Here's a short video about the expansion from the Knox News:
The Cumberland Trail is a Tennessee State Scenic Hiking Trail and became Tennessee's 53rd state park in 1998. For more information on the trail, please
click here.
Jeff
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