LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, Ga. – A plan to extend Chattanooga’s trail network up Lookout Mountain and into Georgia is winning praise from Lookout Mountain, Ga., residents and officials.
Earl Carstens Jr., chairman of the Municipal Planning Commission on Lookout, said he was so impressed by the plans to add more parks and trails on the mountain, he would love to give the $23 million to build the entire proposed 93-mile route “if I had the money.”
For now, the Lookout Mountain Conservancy, which began as the Lookout Mountain Protection Association, is trying to raise $2.5 million to buy 90 acres just below Covenant College to add new trails and nature areas to its mountaintop properties.
If successful, those properties will be linked by trail to John Wilson Park, which the group already is expanding at the foot of the mountain along Cummings Highway.
“The John Wilson Park is going to be the gateway from the Tennessee Riverwalk to Lookout Mountain,” Robyn Carlton, president of the Lookout Mountain Conservancy, told Lookout Mountain commissioners last week. “Through a series of trail systems you will be able to get to the top of the mountain and then eventually be able to walk the entire 93-mile distance to Gadsden (Ala.)”
The conservancy already is clearing away kudzu to expand John Wilson Park by 21 acres, hoping to open up new vistas of the Tennessee River and Moccasin Bend.
Lookout Mountain, Ga., Mayor Bill Glascock, a real estate developer, said he was surprised to see the beautiful sites the conservancy has acquired through donations and purchases.
“If you spend any time on these sites with Robyn, you will be won over to this project as I have been,” Glascock said. “They are going to take the Riverwalk up the mountain and right into our backyards.”
For now, the conservancy isn’t asking for any monetary support from the town of Lookout Mountain, Ga. But community leaders urged residents to support the group’s fundraising – the biggest ever for the 19-year-old nonprofit agency.
Most of the money will be used to buy and develop trails on the Charles Howell and Harry Lawrence properties on Lula Lake Road. Those sites were optioned two years ago by developers of the proposed Chapel Brow senior facility before those plans were dropped in the face of community opposition to the development.
“This (expansion of the parks and trails) by the conservancy will help increase the value of all of our properties,” Lookout Mountain resident Cindy Whitaker said.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6340.