“Wow, I didn’t even know this place existed!”
This is only appropriate response when you discover over 30 miles of walking, hiking, and biking trails just a few miles outside your front door.
Enterprise South Nature Park is a gloriously pruned tract of land across the parking lot from Volkswagen’s manufacturing plant in Chattanooga. On a clear day you can look towards the brilliantly lit VW logo and see Lookout Mountain’s Point Park as you enter and exit the park.
Newly paved and landscaped, this once abandoned dynamite manufacturing locale hosts dozens of trails for casual walking, bike-riding, scenic hiking, and even roads for your leisurely Sunday drives. It’s best to stop by the Visitor’s Center when you enter to pick up a color-coded layout of the diverse and winding paths. Being mine and Abigail’s first time, we simply started walking down the first path we saw – Poe Run Path, which after a mile ambiguously becomes Hidden Lake Trail. Several minutes later, we split off on the Hidden Lake Overlook. It’s not as scenic of an overlook as you might imagine compared to the rest of Chattanooga’s trails, but you do get a nice view of the hidden lake, as well as the picnic area on the opposite bank.
From there we looped around and took the paved roads back to our car. All in all we walked between 3.2 and 3.5 miles. Had we not both been under-the-weather, we would have loved exploring all the ins and outs around the park. As the trails are so well kept and do not vary much in difficulty (all moderately easy, it seems), Enterprise would be a great area to get away for the day. In fact, I highly recommend it. Take a day for yourself and get lost in the splendor of the outdoors.
Perhaps my favorite part of the area, and certainly a main contributor to the park’s popularity, is the 100 old dynamite bunkers. No, those flora-ridden mounds with ventilation shafts are not, in fact, hobbit holes. What once held tons of explosives during WWII, and the rundown roads that lead to them, are now a fascinating scenic additive. Chattanooga never is one to be short of something unique, I’m so thankful to say.
Total Hike Time: 1.5 hours
Three down, thirty-seven to go.
