John Shearer: Exploring And Searching For Greenways, Part 36 – The White Oak Connector Trail

In my series, I have written about visiting both the stairstep-like White Oak Park in the summer and the mountain-trail-like Stringers Ridge Park in the winter.

 

After reading about the mostly completed trail that links the two places with the help of the Trust for Public Land, the city of Red Bank, TVA, a private property owner and others, I decided to check it out.

That included partly retracing my previous steps.

 

What I found in the new trail was a link that gets an A+ for connectivity convenience but maybe a lower grade for natural beauty. But it certainly has the potential to be improved. Plans to make it function even better are scheduled to be completed soon, and I certainly would encourage some aesthetic improvements, too, even though one end of it was a nice and a pleasant surprise to me.

 

Regarding the challenge of the trail, an exerciser probably does have to be in pretty good shape to walk or jog all the way from White Oak Park down the connecting trail and up into part of Stringers Ridge Park a mile or so away and back.

 

I wish I could say I did examine it that way, as I probably could have enjoyed some comforting and high-calorie food afterward from one of my favorite eateries and still not felt guilty.

 

Instead, I examined it in different sections on different days, but still managed to get plenty of exercise the second day.

 

I began my journey on Monday, Jan. 24, when my wife, Laura, and I left our home near Northgate Mall and drove over to Dayton Boulevard before turning left at East Midvale Road as the car was heading toward town. As we approached the lower entrance of White Oak Park a half mile or so away, I saw on the right the gravel road that was part of the connecting trail.

 

We parked our car at the lowest lot possible in White Oak Park, but it was still 200-300 yards back to the gravel road entrance. But it was a nice walk down the well-constructed concrete walkway and bridge to the trail, and we even saw an old friend, who had a little mud on her shoes, as did her walking companion.

 

Also nice on the way down was the beautiful and very steep hill across the park through road. I assume that might be city of Red Bank property, but I am not sure. If I had the energy, it would be fun to climb to the top of the hill in the wintertime when there are no snakes and ticks out.

 

As soon as we walked a little farther and turned onto the gravel trail, we realized why our friend likely had muddy shoes. It had been raining for a couple of days or so before then, and there were spots along the gravel trail where you had to stretch out three or four feet to clear the small streams of water running across it. 

 

I understand this is part of what is going to be fixed soon. Primarily because of the water, we turned around after a couple hundred yards and went back, although I did jog just a little more around the larger field at the top of White Oak Park to get more of a typical workout.

 

While the fact that a connecting trail exists between these two different styles of parks is great, it is not overly pretty, as I mentioned. It ran down under the power lines in an area that looked like a giant gully, and kudzu and brush -- probably blackberry bushes -- were in a lot of places.

 

Cleaning this up might be part of the plans, and some of the land with the overgrowth might have been on private property. But I would encourage keeping the area cleared of invasive plants, mow it regularly and maybe even plant some flowers, etc. Of course, some of that might be in the plans, so I do not want to scrutinize too much.

 

When I went back the following Saturday afternoon by myself and examined the other end of the White Oak Connector Trail, I was more impressed. 

 

I had arrived at the trailhead to Stringers Ridge Park after going south down Hixson Pike, working my way over to North Market Street, and then turning and driving back away from downtown on the parallel Spears Avenue. At the top of Spears is the trailhead with the nice parking and even a restroom building – an important amenity often missing from many parks.

 

The weather on this day was entirely different, as it was in the low 30s with clear skies. I brought my sweatpants, sweatshirt, running gloves and a toboggan, so off I went up the slightly steep trail to near the top.

 

Within about 8 or 10 minutes of huffing and puffing, I reached the side of the crest area, and I could see beautiful Signal Mountain to the west. It is a neat view seeing it from another elevated spot in the Chattanooga area.

 

Thankfully here and at the area by White Oak Park, plenty of temporary-like signage had been put up to direct people like me. I understood the Double J trail is what links into the White Oak Connector, so I followed it.

 

I passed a young woman coming up a trail through the woods and realized she might have taken a shorter, makeshift trail down to the connector link. But she said it was steeper, so I opted to follow the signs.

 

After a few hundred yards of enjoying the nice trail on this undeveloped hillside covered with hardwoods and quite a few ferns, I reached the trailhead by Ridgemont Apartments. A shelter and viewing deck looking back down the connecting trail under the power lines and towers had apparently been recently built, and it was all nicely done.

 

This spot seems like a great amenity for residents here, as you can enter both the connector trail in one direction and the Double J one up to Stringers Ridge in another. Many apartment dwellers elsewhere feel fortunate if they have a small grassy area to walk their dogs, so hats off to those involved in making all this possible around the apartment complex.

 

It is also a great bonus for apartment dwellers who want to do more recreationally than be couch potatoes. While most people enjoy going to different places to exercise, it is nice to have a trailhead like this for those times when you don’t want to get in your car and drive somewhere.

 

When I reached this point by the apartments, I thought I was finished, as I expected to see where a boring trail under a power line started on that end, and then head back. But I realized the trail going back toward White Oak Park goes through the woods flanking the apartment buildings and creates a much nicer back-to-nature experience than examining the architecture of the decades-old power towers does.

 

There is a steep gully separating the trail from the apartment complex, and I thought that could be cleaned out better and beautified more, although it would take a little work every year.

 

After I did run down the wooded trail a few hundred yards until it reached the place where it goes back in the open under the lines, I turned around and jogged back to the trailhead and up Double J trail and back to my car on the other side of the ridge.

 

It should be noted that quite a few newer homes were on the hillsides above the connector trail and across from the trailhead at Stringers Ridge Park. So, in case anyone has not been following the local news or the steady stream of proposals before the local planning commissions, undeveloped land in the Chattanooga area is going fast, including on the formerly wooded hilltops.

 

But on this cold day when I managed to spend an hour jogging while regularly pulling on and off my gloves as often as a jeweler to take photos of pretty scenes, my heart was warmed because I was able to enjoy some nice areas that have not been developed. These places were indeed gems in a proverbial sense.

 

And this trail that is like nature’s rope tying the two parks together is a definite additional bonus as well.

 

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To see the previous story in this series, read here.

https://www.chattanoogan.com/2022/1/7/441186/John-Shearer-Exploring-And-Searching.aspx

 

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Jcshearer2@comcast.net