Graphic: LuLa Lake Trails
LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, Ga. - Volunteers are moving one step closer to linking Chattanooga and Cloudland Canyon State Park through a hiking, mountain biking and horse-riding trail.
Teams of trail builders with the Lula Lake Land Trust and the Southern Off-Road Bicycle Association built 5.8 miles of trail last year and have nearly completed the 4.3 miles planned for this year.
With 4.5 miles planned for next year, the trails will link Lula Lake with Cloudland Canyon. The full 14.6-mile trail will be known as the Cloudland Connector.
"This is a big piece of the puzzle," said Bobby Davenport, development director for the Lula Lake Land Trust. "It's all there, it just takes persistence."
The group needs only two more pieces of property to connect Lula Lake to the Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Military Park on Lookout Mountain, which has trails running down to Ochs Highway in St. Elmo.
Davenport said this year's nearly completed phase two could be open to the public early in 2011.
The trails are built for minimal impact on the land. Jeffrey Schaarschmidt, president of the Chattanooga chapter of Southern Off-Road Bicycle Association, said they should last a long time.
"The goal is, if you do it right you won't have to come back and do maintenance and maintenance and maintenance," he said.
The builders and first few mountain bikers to tackle the trail say the single-track bike path runs along a system of 30-foot-high coal tailings, which are the mounds of debris scraped to either side of mining pits when the ore is extracted. The trail runs along the mounds for 25 to 50 yards, then dips back down to surface level for a few feet before climbing the next mound.
"It's making a silk purse out of a sow's ear," said Katherine Eddins, executive director of the Lula Lake Land Trust.
On Wednesday, four women from Walker County rode horses along the nearly six-mile finished portion of the trail.
Elaine McClure, of Rock Spring, Ga., called the new trail a "peaceful, clean place to come." The women usually ride on the Pinhoti Trail, and said the new Cloudland Connector should rival Pinhoti for beauty and quality.
"I can't wait to come back when the leaves change," McClure said, sitting on top of her quarterhorse Samari.
When Davenport told the riders that phase two would open early next year, they said they were eager to ride it.
"Woo-hoo," said Carole Pinion, from Villanow, Ga., atop her quarterhorse Pete. "I don't know that area but it will be great."