One of the really good things for Todd Rollins is that he coaches baseball rather than basketball for Copper Basin High School.
That’s no slam at the Cougars basketball programs but rather on the teams’ travel scheme within District 5-A. At least Rollins hopes part of his season is less complicated than the basketball teams faced throughout.
“From our place to Grace Academy would be an hour and 15 minutes. Now it’s more like two hours and 15 minutes,” said Rollins, who like many residents in the Copperhill area has been greatly inconvenienced by rock slides that have eliminated U.S. Highway 64 as a route to Chattanooga.
Those slides, which occurred on Nov. 10, have kept the highway closed for repair.
Rollins and his players and fans are hopeful that late-April trips to Boyd-Buchanan and Silverdale Baptist will be on Highway 64. It is expected to reopen on April 16, according to TDOT spokesperson Julie Oakes.
The Arts & Sciences baseball team made the trip from Chattanooga last week and took the route recommended by the Tennessee Department of Transportation.
“It was a beautiful drive, but it’s a slow go and there’s no quick way to get there,” said CSAS coach Jonathon Koch. “It was a good experience for the guys, and if we had won it would have made the trip a little sweeter. Next year I’ll probably get a bus to go. It isn’t a quick trip.”
TDOT recommended the Patriots travel Interstate 75 north to Sweetwater and then back down state highway 68 to Copperhill, which is on the Georgia border in extreme southeastern Tennessee.
“When we got off the freeway at Sweetwater, we wound up behind a ‘semi’ on a weaving highway, so that probably cost us another 30 minutes,” Koch recalled.
CSAS took another route home after Koch visited with Rollins.
“If I’m going to Cleveland, I’ll go the Sweetwater route, but if I’m coming to Chattanooga I’ll go through Blue Ridge, Georgia, to Ellijay and then across to Dalton. After you get on I-75 it probably isn’t but about 25 miles,” Rollins said. “One part that isn’t great is going over the (Fort) mountain, but that’s only about a 20-mile stretch.”
Koch said he and his team came home through Chatsworth and over to Ringgold to I-75.
TDOT-suggested routes* Motorists traveling to the Copperhill area from Chattanooga or Cleveland should take I-75 north to exit 60 (state road 68, Sweetwater) and follow 68 south through Monroe County and into Ducktown in Polk County. Those traveling from North Carolina are advised to take U.S. 74 to 68 at Ducktown and then north to I-75 at Sweetwater.* Another option is to go from Copperhill and McCaysville, Ga., on Georgia Route 5 to U.S. Highway 76 and from there to U.S. 411 north to the Tennessee state line and on into Cleveland.
Rollins said there is no easy way.
“Other people may be frowning, but they only have to make the trip once,” Rollins said. “They have been understanding, but we have to do it all the time.”
Copper Basin came to Chattanooga last weekend to play Lookout Valley, and the Cougars visit Grace Academy on April 5 and Arts & Sciences on April 14.
“Any trip other than going through the gorge (Highway 64) is tough, because it adds at least an hour to your travel time,” Rollins said.
In a Thursday release, TDOT noted that weather had hampered completion of the project and said workers are continuing to work 24 hours a day to meet the April 16 completion date.