OCTOber 2023

Big South Fork Recreation Area

Where:  eastern Tennessee

Directions: Take I-40 West to Exit 317 onto TN-127 North towards Jamestown. Continue on TN-127 North for approximately 50 miles until you reach the entrance. From I-75 take Exit 141 onto TN-63 West towards LaFollette. Continue on TN-63 West for approximately 30 miles until you reach the entrance.

Good to Know:

* Dogs are welcome in the campgrounds.

So many people visit the Great Smoky Mountains this time of year that the National Park Service actually puts out recommendations that we should just go somewhere else. “The Great Smokies,” they like to say, “is not the only place fall is happening.” The place the park service suggests we visit instead is the Big South Fork Recreation Area. Since dogs aren’t allowed on the Great Smoky Mountain National Park trails is it a go-to option any time of year. So want is there for dogs at Big South Fork?

Why so good:

THE OPEN SPACES.

Flowing north from Tennessee into Kentucky, the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River and its tributaries have been carving up the Cumberland Plateau into cliffs, natural arches and rock shelters for tens of thousands of years. In 1974 Congress placed 123,000 acres of wilderness under the management of the National Park Service in the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area. The centerpiece of the park is the Big South Fork River with 90 miles of free-flowing, navigable water through gorges and valleys. Straddling the Tennessee-Kentucky border, the 150 miles of hiking trails through mixed hardwood and pine forests are typically uncrowded - in stark contrast to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, America’s most-visited national park, to the southeast.    

ROCK FORMATIONS.

In the remote western region of Big South Fork are a sandstone double archway known as the Twin Arches. A short, but hardy, trek of less than a mile leads to the largest natural sandstone bridges in Tennessee. It is also larger than anything found in Kentucky, a region known for its spectacular arches. Rock shelters like these deep in the woods were once popular harbors for moonshine stills and old still equipment is on display in the park.

THE RIVER.

The South Fork in question is from the Cumberland River, an energetic stream cutting through the native limestone. To the east of Bandy Creek is the Leatherwood Ford, the trailhead for the popular Angel Falls Trail, a small segment of the John Muir Trail which stretches 50 miles across the park. This easy two-miler along the west bank of the Big South Fork Cumberland River winds to the top of a limestone bluff with a commanding view of Angel Falls, actually a series of rapids. The cliffs are unprotected but the climb can be negotiated by an agile dog.

THE MINING CAMP.

The Stearns Coal and Lumber Company operated along the Big South Fork until 1937. In another 25 years the mining town of Blue Heron was completely abandoned. The buildings eventually decayed but have been re-created as ghost structures in the park. The canine hike to the historic mining camp is spiced up by overlooks and passages throughout the cliffs called “Cracks in the Rocks.”

THE FARMSTEADS.

The Big South Fork was hardly considered “wilderness” by the farming families who scratched a living out of the woodlands for generations. At the Visitor Center is the Oscar Blevin Trail, an easy 3.2-ramble loop through mature forest to an historic farmstead that was worked until the National Park Service took over into 1974. It will take several hours to fully explore the historic John Litton Farm.