Have you ever thought about how a trail is actually created? When I first began hiking, I was far too consumed with my natural surroundings to consider the work put in to design and construct a trail. Then I spent a Sunday morning rerouting the Fiery Gizzard Trail with Team Green Adventures, and my outlook on hiking trails was changed forever.
Hiking trails do not just appear out of thin air. They are created with in-depth forethought and are paved by nature lovers abound. Designing a trail requires proper vision with the most sustainable route in mind. Think long-term. How can we design a trail so it can be used for the next 50+ years, with the minimal amount of maintenance needed to keep it safe and functional?
So here we are, one week away from Valentine’s Weekend. If you’re like me, you probably lost track of time and have found yourself cutting it close without plans!
Don’t freak out.
It’s not too late to take advantage of some great deals for a fun-loving weekend with your sweetheart (or best friend)! This week’s Adventure Blog is a follow up to last year’s “Valentine’s Dates for Outdoors Lovers” blog (which still has some valid tips!)
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I’ll keep the intro short on this one. It’s always satisfying to look back on another year of adventures, Team Green’s 19th year to be exact, and take some time to think about the people we’ve met and the places we’ve been. To celebrate the year that was, here are our 20 best adventure photos from 2015:
October is one of the most beautiful times of year to go hiking. From the vibrant fall colors to the pleasant temperatures, you really can’t go wrong by taking some time to hit the trails before winter sets in. To add an extra layer of intrigue to your hikes this week, check out a few of our local favorite cemetery hikes just in time for Halloween on Saturday!
If you’re new to the Southeast, there are probably many geological features that shock you! I, for example, was shocked by the number of waterfalls in Tennessee, and it took me nearly 3 additional years to realize just how many caves we have access to! Some sources report there are as many as 9,600 known caves in Tennessee, and that doesn’t even take into consideration the caves only two hours from Nashville in Alabama and Kentucky!
Lightning 100’s Team Green Adventures not only explored one of these many caves in late July, we camped underground in it—an especially refreshing experience when cave temperatures remain a constant 54-57 degrees year-round! In the spirit of such an exhilarating adventure, this week’s Adventure Blog spotlights some of our favorite caves, and favorite cave features!
Imagine yourself waking on a late spring morning, embers still crackling in the wood-burning stove and the sound of birds seeping through the open window. You throw on your hiking shorts and fleece pullover then step onto your patio, where you take a seat at the rocking chair and you think to yourself “which trail am I going to wander down today?”
There are three amazing lodges, only accessible by foot, that Team Green Adventures frequents for our spring and fall hiking getaways. This week’s blog gives you a taste of each!
If you’re a good outdoorist, you can wing it on the trail with the resources around you. If you’re a great outdoorist, you’ll bring everything you need, packed to precision. Our goal at Team Green Adventures is to foster a community of great outdoorists, which is why we have several downloadable checklists on our resources page, and have partnered with Cumberland Transit for a series of eight Gear Workshops in 2015. Topics cover our region’s most popular recreations including backpacking, hiking, trail running, water treks, cycling, and rock climbing. Our first workshop, Backpacking 101, was a huge success (and we’ll offer it again on September 23rd). We not only learned which gear to bring, but how to pack it efficiently.
In case you haven’t heard, Valentine’s weekend is just around the corner. Coming up with something really creative is tough when Valentine’s falls on a weekday, but when you have a whole weekend to work with, your options open up! “Dinner and a show” is a great go-to in Music City, but you’re missing out on some amazing (and memorable) opportunities outdoors. This is the Adventure Blog, after all!
Some of the ideas below may require reservations and could be booked up already. It just so happens February 14th is on a weekend next year too, so start planning!
According to one recent study, Nashville ranked just 29th among the 50 largest cities in the United States for recreation opportunities. While it’s no surprise that peer cities like Denver and Portland ranked ahead of Nashville, it did come as a bit of a shock that Nashville was ranked behind cities not necessarily known for their outdoor and recreation cultures, including Cleveland, Detroit and Kansas City. It should be noted that the study used certain metrics like public beaches per capita, which might put Nashville at a disadvantage (and cities like San Diego at a clear advantage), but factors like music venues per capita were also taken into consideration, which would definitely help to give Nashville a boost relative to other metro areas around the country.
While Nashville certainly has plenty of room to improve in many ways, especially when it comes to things like creating more access points to utilize the Cumberland River as a recreational asset, Davidson County continues to make great strides towards being a regionally- and nationally-recognized recreation hub. Here’s a list of our top 5 reasons why Nashville is a great city to get outdoors and be active:
1. The Greenway System
Whether you’re a walker, a runner, a cyclist, a rollerblader, or just about anything else, Nashville’s greenway system is a great resource for local outdoor recreation. If you’re not familiar with them, greenways are “linear parks and trails that connect neighborhoods to schools, shopping areas, downtown, offices, recreation areas, open spaces and other points of activity,” and are “often located along natural landscape features like streams, rivers and ridges, or along built features, such as railroad corridors and scenic highways,” according to Greenways for Nashville. With more than 65 miles of greenway trails in Davidson county, it’s no surprise that upwards of 90 percent of Nashvillians live within 2 miles of a greenway access point. The best part? They’re completely free and open year-round!
Nashville has a TON of greenways with great natural and manmade features, including this pedestrian bridge over the Cumberland River, connecting the Stones River Greenway to the Shelby Bottoms Greenway in East Nashville. Photo cred: Greenways for Nashville.
2. Great Local Parks
Nashville is fortunate to have access to an abundance of high-quality parks. Ask anyone around town where their go-to place to get outdoors is, and you’re sure to hear a lot of the same answers. Percy Warner Park, Radnor Lake State Natural Area, and Centennial Park (and Sportsplex) are all common favorites among locals, providing space for walking, running, hiking, festivals and races, and other beloved community events. Places like Bells Bend Park and Cane Ridge Park (in addition to Warner Park) offer access to mountain biking trails, and dozens of other parks across the county feature everything from tennis courts and golf courses to baseball diamonds and basketball courts, providing recreational outlets for just about anyone. In total, Nashville has 108 parks and 19 greenways, adding up to more than 12,000 acres of accessible open space around town. Current projects like the renovation of Riverfront Park on both the east and west banks of the Cumberland continue to add park-based amenities to Nashville, with features like a dog park, river access, and a 6,500 seat amphitheater soon to be open for use.
Centennial Park is always bustling for Nashville’s annual Earth Day Festival, one of our favorite community events to partner with every year!
3. Tons of Local Waterways
For a landlocked city, Nashville has access to a plethora of water-based recreational opportunities. If you’ve spent even one summer living here, you know that it gets HOT, so taking some time to get out on a lake or river is key to keeping cool. Whether your activity of choice is grabbing a canoe and floating one of Middle Tennessee’s scenic rivers, like the Harpeth or Caney Fork, or hopping in a boat and spending a day on Percy Priest or Center Hill Lake, there’s no shortage of ways to enjoy the water in Nashville. Other opportunities include plenty of fishing and swimming, a growing stand up paddle board culture, and Nashville’s annual Dragon Boat Festival on the Cumberland River (seriously, check it out if you never have – it’s a blast! Here are some pictures from when we raced in it last year.).
This small waterfall at the Narrows of the Harpeth is a great place to cool off on a hot summer day!
4. Our Growing Cycling Community
Did you know that Nashville is one of only 18 cities in the United States with a population of 500,000 or more to be recognized by the League of American Bicyclists as a Bicycle Friendly Community? Over the last decade, Nashville has made a ton of progress in becoming a safer city for cyclists of both the commuting and recreational variety. Nashville has more than 140 miles of designated bikeways across the county, including the 26-mile long Music City Bikeway, which links Percy Warner Park on the west side of town to Percy Priest Dam on the east side. Nashville has also invested heavily in its BCycle bikeshare program, providing affordable access to bikes for both residents and tourists in the downtown area and surrounding neighborhoods. The BCycle system currently features 25 stations and 225 bikes, with plans for five more stations to be installed in 2015. In the two short years since the program’s inception, more than 50,000 BCycles have been checked out!
Check it out! We sponsor multiple BCycle stations across the county, including this one on Rolling Mill Hill just south of downtown.
5. Our Close Proximity to Nearby Recreation Opportunities
If the outdoor amenities in Nashville proper aren’t enough to keep you busy year-round, then it’s fortunate that Nashville also happens to be surrounded by incredible outdoor and recreational opportunities that are just a short day trip away! Within a 2-hour drive are plenty of world-class rock climbing destinations, including King’s Bluff in Clarksville and T-Wall and Foster Falls near Chattanooga. There’s also an endless number of nearby backpacking and hiking trails that make great weekend getaways, including the Cumberland Trail System, Savage Gulf State Natural Area, and Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area. Nashville is also the end point of the historic Natchez Trace Parkway, and is just a few short hours from sections of the Appalachian Trail, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the thrilling whitewater of the Ocoee River. Seriously, there are so many recreational resources in close proximity to Middle Tennessee that there’s no way they can all be covered here, so you’ll just have to do some exploring yourself!
King’s Bluff, one of our favorite local climbing destinations (fall 2014).
Itching to get active in Nashville? Join us for one of our upcoming trips! We’re heading to Frozen Head State Park on Saturday, January 31st for a backpacking trip, and we’ll be at Climb Nashville for Indoor Rock Climbing every Tuesday now through the end of March!
We all know the holidays can be a stressful time of year, especially when you have no idea what to get your loved ones. In need of some last-minute gift ideas for that adventurous person in your life? Look no further! Here are a few of our favorite stocking-sized (and priced) pieces of outdoor gear that we never leave home without:
The AdventureBlog 