The frontiersman Daniel Boone first blazed a trail through the wilderness of the Cumberland Gap with an axe and his trusty rifle, Ticklicker, by his side. In the centuries that followed, generations of trail blazers knit a lacework of trail systems across the 450-mile long Cumberland Plateau. Crisscrossing four US states (Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia), its trails wind through lush Appalachian forests, climb rugged mountains, and wander along low-lying plains. The plateau’s waterfalls, natural bridges, and scenic views make the region a hiker’s paradise.
The Cumberland Trail became Tennessee’s 53rd state park in 1998, and the state’s only linear park. For the past 20 years, trail builders have been working to build the 300-mile Cumberland Trail across the plateau, linking it to the Great Eastern Trail. It is hard work. Nevertheless, volunteers join crews to cut branches, move rocks, build walls and bridges, and rake duff. This age-old trail building process has recently taken a step toward modernity as trail builders and designers now use web apps for mapping, data collection, and analysis.
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