I've known for years about a wildlife management area, with public hiking trail, in a neighboring town, but I never took the time to check it out.
So off my wife and I went. This trail head started beside a busy 4 lane highway. It runs through the woods and down to the local lake. This lake is a hydroelectric impoundment and also serves as a means of flood control. It was dammed in the mid 1940's. Every year right after Labor Day, TVA drops the lake level to a winter pool. In the spring it is allowed to refill to higher levels.
The trail had a gate that restricted motorized vehicles except wildlife management personnel. The trail was an old road bed. I'm guessing the road was built when they dammed the lake because it flooded over the roads where residence that resided on the higher hills still lived. The old, paved road was covered with years of dirt and leaves. There was some gravel scattered about also. We walked about a mile and half down this old road that meandered through the woods and over hills. We followed a fork in the road that lead down toward the lake. We thought it ended before exiting onto the dry lake bed
Interesting. Easy walking along this old road. Then we came to a crossing of some sort. I noticed a rail road tie imbedded in the ancient asphalt
I could plainly see where train tracks crossed this road, and where the rail road bed went through the earth up ahead. They also made sure the rail road had a smooth grade and un-impeded. The roads people drove on were build on animal game trails. 
The road ran parallel to the rail bed. We elected to take the way the choo choo went. Road and rail bed continued on into the lake. I knew where both went. They both led to a little town that got moved when they built the lake. It was also the site of a civil war battle, Battle of Bean Station.
It was a nice hike and there is more there to be explored. Remnants of where people lived were scattered about.
Roy
So off my wife and I went. This trail head started beside a busy 4 lane highway. It runs through the woods and down to the local lake. This lake is a hydroelectric impoundment and also serves as a means of flood control. It was dammed in the mid 1940's. Every year right after Labor Day, TVA drops the lake level to a winter pool. In the spring it is allowed to refill to higher levels.
The trail had a gate that restricted motorized vehicles except wildlife management personnel. The trail was an old road bed. I'm guessing the road was built when they dammed the lake because it flooded over the roads where residence that resided on the higher hills still lived. The old, paved road was covered with years of dirt and leaves. There was some gravel scattered about also. We walked about a mile and half down this old road that meandered through the woods and over hills. We followed a fork in the road that lead down toward the lake. We thought it ended before exiting onto the dry lake bed
Interesting. Easy walking along this old road. Then we came to a crossing of some sort. I noticed a rail road tie imbedded in the ancient asphalt I could plainly see where train tracks crossed this road, and where the rail road bed went through the earth up ahead. They also made sure the rail road had a smooth grade and un-impeded. The roads people drove on were build on animal game trails. The road ran parallel to the rail bed. We elected to take the way the choo choo went. Road and rail bed continued on into the lake. I knew where both went. They both led to a little town that got moved when they built the lake. It was also the site of a civil war battle, Battle of Bean Station.
It was a nice hike and there is more there to be explored. Remnants of where people lived were scattered about.
Roy