Winter is my favorite season.

The snow. The cold. The wind. I’ll take it all with a smile.

Now, before the haters descend (who are these poor epithets of opinion anyway?), the “winter” I get to enjoy here in Chattanooga often looks a lot like what people in Minnesota might call “July”. Winter for us has occasional elements recognizable to folks further north, but mostly it is the time of year when the humidity goes down, the bugs die or evacuate, and the grass (mercifully) stops growing for a bit. To put it another way, if you wonder why Tennesseans and other species of Southerner delight in winter, come spend August with us sometime. You’ll be yearning the relative comfort of a blizzard within a week.

Case in point: Saturday. It was 29°F at sunrise, without a cloud in the sky. By mid-afternoon, it was up to 65. I’m hard-pressed to think of a better all-around day to spend outside, and the climate of this part of the world presents an embarrassment of these riches from November to March. Faced with such finery, I naturally went hiking.

Being the last weekend of the month, it was an open-gate day at Lula Lake Land Trust. This privately owned plot of 8,000 or so acres is on the east side of Lookout Mountain (part of the Cumberland Plateau) in Walker County, Georgia, about 5 miles south of the Tennessee Line.

Like much of the plateau eco-region, the property features mature oak forests that thrive on the relatively poor, thin soil overlaying the mountain’s cap rock. These give way to a lush riparian zone along the course of Rock Creek through the middle of the trust’s land, with Hemlock, Rhododendron, Mountain Laurel, Ferns, and other species that need more moisture to thrive. I’ve been visiting this spot for several years, and the diversity of plants and terrain in such a small area makes it a special place indeed. The trust seems to know well what a treasure they have in their hands, and their careful management of the tract promises to keep it just as pristine for years to come (in fact, its current state is largely due to the founder buying up land to redeem it from logging and abuse).

For this trip, I had neither kids in tow nor a time limit, so I set out to explore some trails I hadn’t been able to get to yet. There are over 7 miles of trails in the section of the property that is open to visitors, in addition to the gravel road bed that runs along the creek (part of which is the way vehicles get in and out). All are very well signed, and the varying degrees of difficulty should keep any level of hiker satisfied with a visit. Continue reading →