Back for Photos

I was due for a run yesterday so I decided to go right back to where I had been the day before: the Upper Truck Trail, where I could get some photos of the mysterious vehicle remains. Parking at the Ochs Highway trailhead, I joined what would become a regular stream of people enjoying the beautiful winter day. I ran a couple of miles past Ruby Falls, stayed straight ahead at the swtichback and about a mile later I was at the site.

I took the liberty of moving the fender and putting it on top of one of the two sheets of metal where it seemed to fit. The result definitely looks like part of a vehicle of some kind, although the mystery continues. I noted both screws and nails along one edge of the metal sheet. What kind of vehicle is nailed together? Perhaps a trailer? I've never seen such an elaborate fender on a trailer.

The foot pedal, bolted to another sheet of metal, is another oddity. The pedal doesn't look as if it would pivot or move.

The remains of the tires are nearby. Most sources seem to agree that rubber tires do not decompose, and if that's the case these are very old. The only other item I found in the area appears to be an old paint can. Was this just a dumping site? Or was there a paint can in a work vehicle that was abandoned here? Perhaps the frame, engine, and other heavy components were salvaged for scrap. Instead of just running back to the car I decided to go a bit further on the Truck Trail, and eventually found myself at its end. On the trip out I made it to the Eagles Nest for an 11.4 mile run but had to walk the Guild Trail. I've lost some conditioning and had run too far, but at least this time I got the photos.

Old Trails, New Sights

It was Groundhog Day, so fitting (at least so far as the movie goes) that I return to my usual haunts on Lookout Mountain. I parked at the trailhead on Ochs Highway at 2:00 PM and pedaled off on the mountain bike into the 40 degree day. Past the Incline I veered right onto the Millers Trail and ended up on the Wauhatchie Pike Greenway, which seems to be in a state of neglect. I walked the bike up through the Eagles Nest to the Hardy Trail.

I stopped to look at Dogwood Spring, which was a short but maintained side trail when I moved to the mountain 25 years ago. Today it is a faint path with a couple of trees across its start, which makes it even harder to see. The spring is only 100 feet from the Hardy Trail and almost hidden from view. The water emerges from underneath a huge sandstone boulder and then immediately plunges back underground. Kent Ballew die-traced this water and I believe he told me it came out on the opposite side (eastern) side of the mountain. In the old days I theorized this was the source of Ruby Falls, but I can't remember that Kent confirmed this. I remembered a small rock bench to sit on, and a sign. The bench was gone, but I found the sign buried under some small fallen trees. In another minute I had the sign back upright in front the spring. I can't swear to it, but I remember the big rock being taller; I suspect that over the years it has slumped down as if to cover the already elusive spring.

I had intended to head up the Hardy Trail past the Cravens House to examine a large boulder than had rolled into the trail near its terminus at Scenic Highway but when I got to the switchback that would turn me in that direction I thought I would ride on a bit instead. There were mountain bike tracks and a few footprints in the snow, so I wasn't the first to have that idea. The view of the slopes above and below was amazing; with all the growth gone I could see through the trees across acres of mountainside.

 Not far after I had passed beneath Sunset Rock I noticed a small cairn at what looked like a parking spot, so I stopped to peer down the hill to see why. Just fifty feet off the trail where I passed so many times before, an old fender from an ancient vehicle was prone on the ground, and around it were rusted bits of metal, one of which had some kind of foot pedal bolted to it. In the leaves nearby I found the remains of old tires. I took many pictures using the MapMyRide app on my phone, thinking it would pin down the location for me, but this backfired as I apparently didn't tell the app to save the pictures--none were on my phone when I got home. Is this the remains of an old truck, dating even perhaps back to days of the CCC in the 1930's? The style of the bolt-on fender looked old enough. Obviously there are a lot parts missing (where is the frame, the engine?) but I tend to think a vehicle would have arrived at such a spot under its own power.

It was 4:00 PM when I reached the end of the truck trail beneath Covenant College.  My toes were very cold and this seemed odd until I took off my biking shoes and discovered that (1)  the shoe was ventilated so that cold air was coming right in and (2) my toes were quite wet.  I put sandwich bags over my toes inside the shoes to block the wind and soon they were happy again.

Around 5:00 PM I was coming down the Hardy Trail through falling snow, not far from Ruby Falls, when I spotted two people with full backpacks ahead. This proved to be Jo Swanson and Bart Houck, who are hiking to New York on the Great Eastern Trail (GET). What a treat to meet and talk with them; they in turn seemed pleased to learn they were on course for Ruby Falls. There are some GET markers here and there along the route, but not many. The pair had started hiking today at Nickajack Road and would be picked up at Ochs Highway where I was parked, or "just 15 miles today," as Jo described it. They will be the first people in the world to thru-hike the Great Eastern Trail. Their website is www.gethiking.net. Even though they obviously have a long way to go, I felt like congratulating them in advance just for going forward with such a groundbreaking plan.

Old Mysteries Still Decline to Solve Themselves

A bit over twenty years ago, during a late afternoon hike off-trail, I thought I had stumbled upon something mysterious and possibly significant. I had come up from the Upper Truck Trail somewhere near Gum Springs, having stashed my mountain bike there, looking for a legendary hole in the mountain. It was probably Ranger Dennis who told about this hole, which was said to go all the way through the mountain (don't they all?) and perhaps contain gold or some other treasure. Kent Ballew and Neeld Messler had been inside and reported seeing timbers supporting the thing like an old mine. Someone had done a huge amount of work tunneling down into the sandstone float--but who, and why?

On that afternoon I did in fact find the mysterious hole exactly where it had been described, but while making my way there I had come across what I remember as a series of long, low walls on a flat bench of the mountain. I remember thinking that they were man-made and probably very, very old. Of course, I'd come across man-made walls all over the mountain, particularly in the gullies where the CCC boys did their work even far from the nearest trail, but I remember thinking that these walls were different, perhaps ceremonial in purpose.

This past December 24th Mark Wolinsky and I had been back in the same general area as we scouted around an extremely large poplar tree off the trail near Gum Spring. I had traversed the bench from there to the Gum Spring trail looking for the walls but hadn't found them. Today, on an overcast Sunday afternoon, I went back to try again.

This time I approached from the Cravens House via the Rifle Pits trail, which of course has its own mysterious stone walls. Experts debated whether the walls we see today dated to the Civil War or were built by Indians, but ultimately the Civil War explanation seems to have won out. When I hiked the trail this past November with the Lookout Mountain Hiking Club, John Wilson had pointed out an old gate in the fence line that runs just below the trail (that fence is another mystery that vexes me). Today, less than 100 feet from the gate, I came upon what looked to me like part of an old boiler. The photo shows it next to one of the old fence posts, which give some scale. It's a big chunk of metal!

When the Rifle Pits trail began to descend steeply, I continued off-trail along the same bench, finding the going easy along game trails probably made by deer. I ventured across several flat benches that looked promising, but none contained the mystery walls. Eventually I reached the large drainage beneath the "Towers" on the Bluff Trail, which is where the "mysterious gold tunnel hole" should have been. It was still there, with obvious piles of rock and dirt that had been excavated, yet the hole itself was nothing like I remembered.

In twenty years, had my memory simply gone south, or had the dig changed dramatically? I remember an obvious hole that led vertically down into rock (I had poked my head inside but did not really enter). What I saw now was a steep sinkhole that led nowhere, with no void large enough to enter. I can't be absolutely sure (memory is a tricky thing) but I believe that sometime in the past twenty years the hole collapsed and sealed the mystery forever. I will note, however, that if Kent and Neeld didn't get through to gold or other riches, nobody ever could. Those two are pretty much unstoppable.

I made a sweep of the mountain back towards the Cravens House at a lower elevation, but still failed to find the mysterious walls I remembered. I did come across a very nice "Rocky City" of large boulders, one of which might well have been used as a campsite by ancient Indians, but no mystery walls.

Taking the Truck Trail back up past the CCC Camp the Rifle Pits trail, I followed the old fence line from the Rifle Pits trail up to the Cravens Trail. The fence continued hard up the hill towards Point Park. Just what was the purpose of this fence, and when was it built? Both times it crosses the trails, there is no sign of a gate or reinforced posts--could it predate the CCC-built trails? The vertical wires are wrapped, not welded as in a modern fence, but does that help date the fence? The fence runs down the mountain in a line with the big stone property line up at Point Park. Could this fence have been strung by Harriet Whiteside in the 1880's to help secure her property at the Point?

When I got back to the Cravens House, I poked around the old Hardy House, which was quite amazing. The NPS has acquired this property but says they have no money to keep it up--I am afraid they may tear this beautiful home down. I hope someone or some organization in Chattanooga can rise to the challenge and restore the home. I'm sure there's nothing wrong that a couple of million can't fix. The photos are from the top of the big rock and one looking in a window at the beautiful staircase.

In the meantime, the mysteries of Lookout Mountain win another round.

Should be map of this hike at www.mapmyride.com

Lights Mill

According to various sources, the federal government constructed a mill on Lookout Creek near the southern boundary of Reflection Riding in 1803. One route of the Old Federal Road crossed the creek at or near this spot. Back in the early 1990's I had taken a canoe across the creek and explored briefly on the other side, finding the roadbed but little else. Today I was kayaking on the creek and decided to take another look.

Although it can't been seen from the creek, the roadbed is obvious, cut deeply into the earth as old roads tend to be. From the creek it bears away to the southwest, headed for a gap between the hills. It might be an interesting walk someday to follow the road and see where it leads--although I already know from Google satellite images that just beyond the hills are a massive railyard, Highway 11, and the Interstate.

I walked uphill and slightly upstream of the roadbed near the creek and quickly came upon some kind of old foundation that included stones, bricks, the remains of two iron bands of some sort. There are some flat sheets of iron, not much bigger than license plates, on the ground nearby. About 100 feet away, I found a sunken area that included a nice section to stone wall.

Time to Get Hiking!

The leaves are off the trees, the serpents are deep in their dens, and best of all, the poison ivy is mostly gone (although you still need to watch out for the woody stalks and vines with hair on them). It's time to hike! I haven't accomplished much hiking lately beyond one trip with John Wilson's newly chartered Lookout Hiking Club. Here's a great account of that adventure written by Jen Jeffrey: http://www.chattanoogan.com/2012/11/11/238349/Jen-Jeffrey-Lookout-Below.aspx

Russ Manning Cleared of Geologic Crimes!

After accusing author Russ Manning of being confused about the Skyuka Arch yesterday, I confirmed that I was a little confused myself. It wasn't the Manning book I read twenty years ago, it was Natural Bridges of Tennessee, a 1979 bulletin of the Tennessee Division of Geology by James Corgan and John Parks. I remembered I had found the book in question at UTC's library and thought I might take another look at it.

Then another thought hit me like a wall of limestone going sixty miles an hour: I didn't need to go to the library! I had photocopied the pages of the bulletin all those years ago and stashed them away in my trailbook files.

The bulletin contains a description with measurements and even a photo of the Skyuka Arch. Yes, it is the same one Brady and I revisted yesterday. And yes, the two state geologists, of all people, are evidently the source of the confusion about the type of rock and its original elevation. "The rock that forms the bridge is obviously sandstone," they write. They go on postulate that "apparently this arch acquired its distinctive shape elsewhere and tumbled into place as a large boulder that rolled down the mountain."

My apologies to Russ Manning! Russ, you may have committed some minor plagiarism (and who doesn't, these days?), but you're not to blame for turning Monteagle limestone into Pennsylvanian sandstone.

Ah, Geology! Ah, humanity!

The Skyuka Arch

Almost twenty years ago, I read about a small but mythical arch on the side of Lookout Mountain. Russ Manning, in his 1992 book The Historic Cumberland Plateau: An Explorer's Guide, described it as "unique, possibly the only such arch in the world." Following Mr. Manning's description, Terry Hamrick and I located the tiny arch and I took a photograph.

Now, decades later, I had forgotten exactly where the arch might be but I did remember this about it: aside from the location, almost everything else Russ Manning had said about the Skyuka Arch was wrong!

I wanted to take another look just be sure that Russ Manning, who I don't know personally but would normally consider a reliable source, wasn't completely off his rocker when it came to arches on Lookout Mountain. So today Brady and I parked the truck at the Skyuka trailhead at the Highway 318/Alford Hill intersection. Walking up the highway a short distance to a wooden barrier that read "no parking" (still exactly as described by Manning), we could see it from the road. The Skyuka Arch beckoned! As arches goes, this one was just an infant: about five feet tall, two feet tall, and two feet long. As Manning says, the arch is really nothing more than a short section of solution passage exposed to the elements.

Beyond that it gets weird. "The arch-shaped rock is sandstone," Manning writes, "while the surrounding rock is siltstone. The most likely explanation is that the arch originated atop the mountain, perhaps as the opening to a cave or spring, but then fell, coming to rest in its present location, forming an arch."

Whoops! I'm no geologist but I do know that the arch and most of the rocks in immediate area are all part of the same outcropping of limestone, not sandstone nor siltstone, and that particular bit of rock is completely at home at its current elevation. There are plenty of sandstone boulders in the area that came from the top of the mountain, but the Skyuka Arch is not among them.

That said, I salute Mr. Manning for bringing the world's attention to a small rock feature that otherwise would probably have gone unnoticed. The Skyuka Trailhead is actually quite a fascinating place, arch and all. The trailhead marks the point at which the Old Federal Road starts up the mountain. The area has huge boulders, massive sinkholes, English Ivy growing on a Kudzu scale, red barrels, mysterious holes, and even a secret hideout under a large rock that Brady and I discovered only this evening.

A secret hideout, you ask? Where? We could see it from the Arch, and that, my friend, is just another reason to visit that most infamous of the arches of Lookout Mountain.