Black Mountian to Ozone Falls - Sara

What was supposed to be a joint hike with the Nashville chapter, ended up being 3 hikers - 2 from Murfreesboro and 1 from the Highland Rim chapter. There was a chance of rain in the forecast, but we only had rain on the drive home.  We left a car at the Ozone Falls parking area and drove to the top of Black Mountain to begin our hike. Since there was a lot of foliage on the trees, we didn't have views on this section. But it's a well-maintained trail, had dry creek beds to rock hop across and beautiful stone steps. There was a newly built bridge over a creek but not much water flowing. There was water at Ozone Falls and several folks were swimming in the pool below. After driving back up Black Mountain to retrieve our other vehicle, we hiked over to the Grassy Cove overlook and saw the new bridge that was recently built there. The hikers were Jim Barritt,  Sara Pollard and J.C. Saunders. 

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Black Mountain - Sara

We had 9 hikers to hike the Black Mountain section of the Cumberland Trail. We met at 8:30 am CT at the Black/Brady Mountain trailhead on Highway 68. We explored Windlass Cave and then a back country campsite with what would have been a nice view, but it was too foggy to see into Grassy Cove. It stayed cloudy all day and we weren't able to see much from the overlooks. We enjoyed an early lunch at the South Overlook.  We explored old homesteads and a spring house. After hiking the short loop at the top of Black Mountain we made our way back down to the trailhead on Highway 68. 

The hike distance totaled almost 9 miles and we finished in 5 hours. Hikers were: Jim Barritt, Jay Brain, Jean Breuer, Craig McBride, Lora McBride, Sheila Miller, Thai Alan Ng, Sara Pollard and Jane Reyling. 

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Black Mountain - Sara

We had 6 hikers on the Good Friday hike at Black Mountain in Crossville. We started our hike at the southern terminus trailhead on Highway 68 and hiked to the top. At the top we hiked the loop trail with views of Grassy Cove and Crab Orchard. We saw lots of climbers at the top and a few wildflowers along the trail.  The trail is well marked but it was a hot day for hiking. We were able to get some cool water from the stone springhouse near the trailhead kiosk. This springhouse was used by the people living in the area years ago as a source of water and to keep food from spoiling. 

Hikers were Jean Breuer, Ann Jacobs, Doug King, Sara Pollard, Jan Safavi and Jennifer Zahn.

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