We left West Virginia and headed in our optimal direction – Southwest. After a short 6 hours and several stops, we made it to Cumberland National Historic Park on the border of Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky. In the early days of Westward advancement, the Appalachian Mountains were the blockade. The mountain range goes from Canada to Alabama, and crossing points were few and far between. The Cumberland Gap discovery in the mid 18th century opened the path for many travelers into the Ohio Valley. The first wave of westward migration started after this important discovery. In 1775 Daniel Boone was commissioned to blaze a road through the Gap, which later became the iconic Wilderness Road. In fact, Wilderness Road was highly used for those westward travelers as the main road to Ohio Valley until 1810. In the 30 years prior some 200,000 people crossed the gap. The Cumberland Gap lost its value to other means of transportation – canals, railroads, etc., but held importance once again during the Civil War since both sides considered it a strategic hold, even though it never saw battle (just minor conflicts). It officially became a National Historic Park in 1940 and thanks to the National Park Service (NPS) and the re-routing of the highway through the newly built Cumberland Gap Tunnel in 1996, much of the land has been restored to its 1810 look. Today, it is a hiker’s and history enthusiasts dream. There are dozens of hikes – day hikes and overnight, history exhibits, historic towns, a cave and scenic drive. We loved our time here, and with dogs allowed on the trails – Sparky did too!
Where We Stayed
We camped at the NPS campground – Wilderness Road Campground. This first-come, first-served campground was quite nice. We arrived in the late afternoon and had a good amount of spots to pick from. We had picked a spot with electricity and plenty of shade, but really each spot was spacious and well covered. To have electricity again was nice. We had been boondocking since we left Virginia, so to not have to worry about putting out the solar panels, or the battery running low was a great feeling. Although, we don’t really need electricity, with the rainy weather it was good to recharge everything since we hadn’t been seeing the sun as much as we would have liked.
One thing that was peculiar was the campground store was never open. We had debated one night to have a campfire and went to the store early to find out it wasn’t open (The NPS and most other campgrounds have gotten pretty strict about not moving firewood around because of the damage that the bugs on the wood can do, so we always try to “buy it where we burn it”). It hadn’t been open when we arrived either. It was for the best anyway because it started pouring that night.
We did take advantage of the camp’s shower. Our little R-pod has a “wet-bath”, which is basically a toilet in a shower. It feels like showering in a telephone booth, but a telephone booth you can sit in. Our camp spot was across from the shower hall, and it felt luxurious to have a big shower room that you didn’t have to worry about elbowing the walls.
What We Did
We arrived at camp in the late afternoon on Wednesday in rain, yet again. Steve and I have been out of practice on the setup/cleanup of the trailer at sites, but when arriving in rain we seem to up our pace a bit and fall into habit. Since we arrived a little later in the day, we relaxed, read and worked on photos for the rest of the evening.
The next morning we realized we needed to do laundry. So we ran into the nearest “big town” next to the park – Middlesboro. To get to the town we had to travel in the Cumberland Gap Tunnel. Like I mentioned before, this tunnel is relatively new (built in 1996) and pretty large. Sparky doesn’t care to be traveling in tunnels and stayed alert the entire time we were in there. Middlesboro was larger than we expected – and turns out our friend Bruce’s family is from there! Wow! We found a laundry place, started the wash and headed to the Cumberland Gap’s Visitor center, about 10 minutes away. The visitor center was nice. It had a large exhibit about Black Bears and doing our part to save them. Black Bears had recently been reintroduced in the area since they were long ago overhunted. The visitor center has stickers and pamphlets for locals on the Do’s and Do Not’s for when a Black Bear visits your yard – like – DO NOT FEED IT. I am guessing that seems to be a problem here as there are signs everywhere – DO NOT FEED BEARS! We picked up our maps and trail guides and after a quick chat with a very helpful and enthusiastic young ranger, made our way back to the Laundromat to put our clothes in the dryer. We waited in the parking lot for our laundry to dry and planned out our day and trails.
With laundry clean and mostly dried we headed to do our scenic drives and hiking. We first drove up to the Pinnacle Overlook. We drove to the top of the mountain, over 2,000 feet, to see nothing but clouds. We were in a cloud. We were disappointed we couldn’t see the pinnacles, however, on this trip alone we have seen dozens of other pinnacles. On our way back down the mountain we made a brief stop at the earthen works of Fort McCook. Today, they have a canon there to mark it, but it doesn’t look like much.
We parked at the base of the hill in the Thomas Walker parking area. We picnicked in the parking lot, which was fine other than the bugs. We ate pretty quickly because the bugs were everywhere. We began on the hike on the Object Lesson Road. The trail was named that because it was an experimental road for automobiles in the early 1900s. I cannot imagine cars on this trail today as it is narrow and has lots of holes. The trail led to the Wilderness Road, the original trail leading travelers through the Cumberland Gap to the Ohio Valley. We stayed on that trail for a little while till we reached the historic Cumberland Gap. We took a right onto the Tri-State Peak Trail to climb to the 1,990 feet peak where yes… you can be in all three states: Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky all at once. When we climbed down the peak back to Cumberland Gap we went the opposite way to visit the entrance of Gap Cave, an additional mile away. The cave was closed the day we visited which was fine by us. We did stand in the entrance and feel the cool air coming out of the cave – natural A/C – it felt great! When we were all done, we headed back to our car. The total hike was close to 3.5 miles. Not a whole lot by our standards, but with humidity and the elevation climb we were pretty exhausted. In fact, over the coming days, most of our daily hikes will be less than 3 miles because of the heat.
On our way back to camp we made a detour to visit the historic town of Cumberland Gap. It was like going back in time to the turn of the 20th century, except people actually still live there and function. It felt like time stood still, but people were out and about on their smart phones, walking dogs, jogging and running errands.
Our last night at camp was of course another wet one. We didn’t mind the sound of the rain, its actually soothing when falling asleep, though Sparky gets a little stir crazy. Our time in Cumberland Gap was too short, but lucky for us, we are already planning our next trip to Tennessee – we still need to go to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park!
What’s Next
Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, Kentucky & Tennessee.
