Chattanooga to host America’s newest long-distance trail

The author hikes on Cloudland Connector Trail on Lookout Mountain, a section of the in-progress Great Eastern Trail. Upon completion, the GET will stretch 1,800 miles from Alabama to New York. (Photo by Jennifer Woods) The author hikes on Cloudland Connector Trail on Lookout Mountain, a section of the in-progress Great Eastern Trail. Upon completion, the GET will stretch 1,800 miles from Alabama to New York. (Photo by Jennifer Woods)

By Sunny Montgomery March 1, 2017 11 min read

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Chattanooga to host America’s newest long-distance trail

The Chattanooga Segment of the GET will run from Lookout Mountain, through Chattanooga, to the Cumberland Trailhead in Soddy-Daisy.

Great Eastern Trail Association President Tom Johnson, bottom left, is pictured in 2009 with past and present board members. The GETA, comprised of representatives from 11 regional trail groups across the eastern U.S., formed in 2007 to help plan, build and manage the GET.

Grandfather of the Great Eastern Trail, Earl Shaffer stands atop Mount Katahdin, the Appalachian Trail's northern terminus. In 1948, Shaffer was the first person to thru-hike the AT; in 1952, he first proposed the GET. (Courtesy of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy)

Unlike the Appalachian Trail, which is marked entirely by white blazes, the GET will not have one designated blaze color. Rather, each existing trail determines its own blaze color. However, these GET markers will be posted along the route.

America's newest long-distance trail, the GET is being formed by linking a braid of existing trails which run parallel to the AT.

Chattanooga: A ‘trail town’

In 2013, Mayor Andy Berke named Chattanooga the Great Eastern Trail’s first official trail town, making it the largest city in the country to host a long-distance trail. Trail towns become important destinations, both for thru-hikers who need to resupply and tourists who seek weekend adventure. This form of niche tourism also tends to attract new businesses — from outdoor outfitters to hiker-friendly hostels to local eateries.

On a recent Saturday morning, I filled my backpack with fruit and protein bars and headed out to Cloudland Connector Trail, a 14-mile footpath from Cloudland Canyon State Park to Lookout Mountain.

The Cloudland Connector Trail is also one section of the Great Eastern Trail, America’s newest long-distance hiking path which will stretch 1,800 miles from Alabama to New York when finished. Tom Johnson, president of the Great Eastern Trail Association, estimates the GET is 70 percent complete, though it has already been thru-hiked by a few ambitious hikers who didn’t mind road-walking its unfinished sections.

I wanted to walk a mile – or 14 – in those thru-hikers’ shoes. So, dressed in layers and equipped with snacks, I embarked on my longest day-hike to date.

The GET is being touted as a wilder, quieter alternative to the Appalachian Trail, and on my section, I found this to be true. The forest was silent save for the creak of winter trees and the crunch of my boots on frozen ground. When a pileated woodpecker squawked overhead, I gasped in surprise.