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