January 2023
Land Between The Lakes
Paris Landing State Park
Some people might not imagine the winter months being very ideal for exploring the outdoors…
We like to think those are some of the best months! They tend to have less foot traffic and cheaper stays. Generally we do not come across other humans during these excursions apart from passing the occasional hunter on a service road, and whatever skeleton crew may be working the off-peak season.
We opted to bring our two dogs, Benny and Briscoe on this trip as well, another pro to traveling during the colder months is that with almost no foot traffic on the trails, the dogs can run off the leash. We are mindful to note the current hunting season and learn which areas will be safe to navigate. Our base camp was located in Springville, TN so that was our first stop. Since we were a group of 4 plus 3 dogs, and our friends love to cook, we opted to book with AirBnB so we could have a full kitchen, cozy shared spaces while each couple could still have privacy. We have found that whenever we travel in a group, AirBnB or Verb are the cheapest options. The house we booked was nestled in a small community that backed right up to the Tennessee River (bonus!).
Land Between The Lakes - South End
We decided to start our adventure on some of the service roads (numbered roads on the map) in the southern portion of Land Between The Lakes (LBL) Map South End which is mostly located in Tennessee. Land Between The Lakes is a beautiful, national recreation area nestled between the Kentucky and Barkley lakes, spanning across the states of Kentucky and Tennessee. We frequent LBL often as its one of our favorite places in the state of Kentucky and holds sentimental value for us. The service roads in LBL are gravel and tend to not have much inclines, which makes for easy terrain but you still can get all of the sights, sounds and smells of the outdoors. They also tend to have less foot traffic than the regular trails. Occasionally hunters in vehicles or park staff may use these roads to access other areas in the park, in which case just stepping to the side and letting them pass is all that’s needed. If there has been a hard rain these roads can be a little muddy but not slippery. On this occasion there was a few puddles but nobody seemed to mind and the dogs were able to run off the leash.
Paris Landing State Park
Our second outing took us to Paris Landing State Park, located in Buchanan, TN. This is a smaller state park but has a newer lodge and though small, had well kept up hiking trails. This was a new one for us as we had never visited this park before. We did need to leash the dogs on this outing, there was an unexpected number of people also out on the trails, the day was unusually warm for a January. This may also have also been due in part to the park’s size. Everyone was just trying to enjoy the sunshine and fresh air.
Land Between The Lakes - Fort Henry Trail system/South End
We returned again to LBL south end and started on another numbered service road. Beautiful warm weather for January, we even found a field of early blooming daffodils! Eventually we headed to the South Station and began an 11 mile trek up the Telegraph Trail and connected to Devil’s Backbone. This is one of our favorite trails! It is a bit hilly in some areas as you ascend some of the ridges and there are places where you may need to cross a creek or two. We found that along the stream/creek beds there was plenty of blue slag, we took home a few pretty pieces for souvenirs. Great wildlife and birding on these trails, we’ve heard and caught many a glimpse of assorted owls. At this time of year in particular, foot traffic is minimal so we didn’t have the dogs leashed on this one. The area has a perfect blend of terrain; ridges, plains, woodlands, creeks(and other wetlands). Both the Telegraph and Devil’s Backbone trails are part of the Fort Henry Trail system. Dogs and humans alike were tired by the time we returned to base camp!
Food
Since our Airbnb had a full kitchen we made most of our meals at base camp, but there was a small hole-in-the-wall place nearby called 4-Way Grill that we stopped at twice. Kind of a diner style joint, super friendly staff. We packed some items down with us in a cooler but for groceries we didn’t have, there was a Piggly Wiggly in Dover, TN. This was conveniently located on the main drag (highway 79) running below LBL.