The Cumberland Mountain State Park is one of the nearest locations to my house that has decent hiking trails. Because of this, I’ve walked its trails so often that I don’t think of those hikes as anything special. But the other day when I was there, I began to look at the sights along the trail with a “photographer’s eye;” which means, as though I were seeing them for the first time. And I thought, “Wow, this is an interesting joint!” Not only does it have my favorite trail point of all the local trails that I’ve hiked, but it has more than enough other sights to make it worthy of a camera shoot.

It might seem weird, considering that I have so many

photo web sites, but, truthfully, I hate carrying a

camera on a hike, both because it’s something extra

to have to carry, and because I don’t like having to

stop and shoot the pictures. Once I get moving, I like

to keep moving! So it takes some time for me to talk

myself into doing a photo documentary of a hiking trail.

And one more thing about taking photos is that you

have to look around for the good shots, and that takes

you eyes off the trail, which makes it too easy to fall

victim to ankle-twister tree roots like these stretched

across the path. If you’ve seen some of my other sites

you may remember my talking about how easy it is to

trip or stub your toes on hidden rocks and roots on the

trail.

You can well imagine how treacherous it will be in a

few more weeks when these roots will be hidden under

a layer of leaves that will remain until well into next

Spring.

Although I was hiking the Pioneer trail in the park, I didn’t

actually enter the park to start my hike. The Pioneer trail is a

large loop, so instead of driving all the way around to start

my hike within the Cumberland Mountain park, I use a handy

pull-off area that is large enough for about three cars on the

Old Mail Road, right next to the stone bridge that is the Pioneer

Trail’s turn-around point.

The trail reaches this point on

one side of the creek that the

bridge spans, and then heads

back on the other side of the

creek, so I just start from this

point, since, in the first place,

it’s a shorter drive, but, more

importantly, the trail on this

side of the creek passes all the

best photo sights – either you

are passing them right next to

the path, or they are on the

other side of the creek, but only

visible from this bank. See, that’s

what experience does for you!!

The trail section that appears in the shot below is pretty enough, but that

is what the entire length of the trail looks like on the other leg of the loop.