Lone Rock Trail at Grundy Lakes
As you head down I-24 toward Chattanooga, you’ll pass across the South Cumberland Plateau, home to kaleidoscopic natural splendor with state parks and hiking trails galore. It’s only about 90 minutes from Nashville to the vicinity of Monteagle, Tracy City and Sewanee, so it’s an easy day trip. However, you can get even more out of the experience if you plan a longer stay, as my wife and her pals discovered in early spring — so much so that we repeated the trip in July with our 18-month-old. Kids mean you’ve got to be even more ready than usual to pivot; sure enough, we woke up to rain on the first day of our visit, so backup activities quickly became primaries. But we had a blast nonetheless.
Stay
While chain hotels are not far away, your alternatives range from Tracy City’s Goat Pen Hostel to RV parks and glamping resorts. Short-term rentals of tiny homes in wooded settings are attractive, and they are abundant around the Big Fiery Gizzard Creek Reservoir. If you need multiple beds or bedrooms, be aware that these spaces often include bunk beds tucked into a hallway or a loft bedroom up a ladder — great for lots of parties but not all, and definitely not us and our adventurous toddler. We ended up in a one-room guest house near Tracy City with its own private yard. It might work better for a solo or couple trip (I thought, as my son fought a nap by making a game of shoving his hand in my mouth), but it was charming, comfortable, convenient and well-kept.
In Savage Gulf State Park
Do
The biggest attraction here is the outdoors. Starting in 2022, a group of eight wild areas established in 1978 as South Cumberland State Park has been divided up. We were closest to what is now Fiery Gizzard State Park, at the north end of the legendary Fiery Gizzard Trail. There are many ways to take manageable bites at it, but the longest route is more than 16 miles over terrain casual hikers like me call “very challenging.” You can get from the North Trailhead to the South Trailhead at Foster Falls by car in about 15 minutes, but hardy souls get a permit and spend the night in trailside camping areas to soak in gorgeous views, including several other waterfalls and swimming holes.
Savage Gulf State Park, home to another beloved trail called Stone Door, was also formerly part of South Cumberland State Park, and it’s about a 40-minute drive away in Beersheba Springs; another spinoff is Head of the Crow State Park, 20 minutes away in Sewanee. For cyclists and others who prefer their paths paved, a 12-plus-mile section of the Mountain Goat Trail is open between Tracy City and Sewanee, with much more under construction along what was once the Mountain Goat Railway. Juggling the weather and the needs of a little one, we spent an hour on a beautiful 1.3-mile loop through the woods and around the water on Lone Rock Trail at Grundy Lakes. There’s also a playground and a small swimming beach on the site, which was reclaimed in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps and is home to coke ovens once run with the unpaid labor of incarcerated men.
Inside Mountain Goat Market
Outdoor activities are bound to work up your appetite. To satisfy it, check out Hank’s Corner Grille or Tracside in Tracy City, where you’ll also find breakfast as well as baked treats at Dutch Maid Bakery & Cafe. Our favorite spot was Monteagle’s Mountain Goat Market, which has a delectable panoply of hearty, generous sandwiches and pizzas, plus delicious coffee drinks. You’ve got several options for a fancy dinner, and we were thrilled with the one we picked: La Bella Pearls in Sewanee. Nestled among thriving gardens and tall trees, the building appears to have been a home at one time, and it felt wonderfully like going to dinner at Mom’s — provided Mom has an antipasto bar and cooks an excellent steak. (Bonus: We asked ahead of time to make sure it was OK to bring the little guy, and despite not having a kids’ menu they were happy to whip him up some tasty pasta with red sauce.)
Staying in the South Cumberland area made it much easier to visit places we would struggle to get to on a regular weekend. The Lodge Museum of Cast Iron and Factory Store is a short jaunt down the interstate in South Pittsburg, and was a fun rainy-day stop (plus, the discounts are serious on factory-second cookware). We were also just a few minutes from Pelham, home of renowned underground concert venue The Caverns — you could easily build a weekend around a cave tour, a show and a hike. Manchester isn’t far away either, and reviewers on Airbnb say a relaxing stay there made their Bonnaroo a delight. There are other annual events to watch for too: Monteagle is home to the long-running Mountain Market arts and crafts fair, and the Grundy County Swiss Historical Society hosts its Swiss Heritage Celebration at the Stoker-Stampfli Farm and Museum in nearby Gruetli-Laager. We even fit in a stop along the way at The Bell Buckle Cafe, a fantastic meat-and-three at the crossing of some of the nicest country roads I’ve driven in a good while. Though we didn’t exactly have the trip we planned, we made some great memories, which is what it’s all about.
From Asheville and Highlands to Little Rock and beyond, here are our recommendations for late-summer getaways
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