Randy Whorton with Wild Trails, carpenter Mark Aikers, and Cumberland trail Park Ranger Steve Rudy, clockwise from left, scout the former location of a three-tiered set of stairs which were destroyed during the wildfires that burned segments of the Cumberland Trail.Hiking through the woods atop Mowbray Mountain’s southern edge reveals bits of lingering evidence.
Fire spread here during the fall, and charred tree limbs strewn about the woods are visible reminders of the ecological changes it set in motion.
A certain amount of fire is healthy for the woods, forestry experts say.
Fire, however, is not beneficial for man-made wooden structures, and there is nothing subtle about what it did to a three-tiered stairwell on a steep bluff in the North Chickamauga Creek Gorge section of the Cumberland Trail now set to be rebuilt.
Again.