Perfect! We should get to Manchester five-ish, we can hike for an hour or so, and then get some dinner and go on to Chattanooga. We did arrive around five. The museum closed at 4:30 but there were signs around, so we thought we'd be okay. The museum was a fascinating looking building made of layers of thin rock that juts out of the steep slope that goes down to the river. In fact, there's a lookout on the top of the museum with interpretive signs to explain the history and the geography of the region. Marty and I both read the first sign and then give each other a look that says, "we have no idea what that sign just said." It was the worse description of what we were about to see and a horrible explanation of the history or purpose of the "Old Stone Fort". Even the diagrams gave us more confusion than explanation. But all the information on the sign confirmed what we read in the AAAA book: it's a 1.25-mile hike around an American Indian ceremonial site. We did learn that the moniker "Old Stone Fort" was a misnomer given by early settlers who didn't know what it was.
So we headed out on the trail. We were pretty certain from one of the maps that we saw that the "enclosure" went around the edge of a promontory of land totally surrounded by water on 3 sides, so it shouldn't be too easy to get lost. If you just keep going, you'll end up back where you started.
HA! They had done such a bad job of marking the multiple trails (which were never mentioned in any literature or signage) that it was very hard to guess where you were or where you were going. We did see waterfalls through the trees and very far down. The photos don't do it justice as they just look like white haze in the background of a bunch of trees. Oh well. We got to what we thought must be halfway but weren't sure where it was going, so we decided to go back the way we came. Even that didn't work! It was a good thing we were both intelligent, experienced hikers with Girl Scout training or we might still be at Old Stone Fort wandering around. Two hours after arriving at the parking lot, we finally got back to our car. Fortunately, it was a pleasant hike with nice nature to look at and a good hiking surface on most of the trails. It was an enjoyable time and a nice break from being in the car, but until Tennessee gets better engineers and historical technical writers, we can't recommend going to Old Stone Fort Archaeological State Park to learn anything historic or geologic.
Somewhere behind those trees is a waterfall. We could see it but couldn't get close enough to it to really photograph it well. So how good is your imagination?
Here's another test of your imagination with yet another waterfall:
Guess what this is:
The mushroom on the right had to be at least 12 inches tall! Sorry there's nothing in there to give you a good perspective on size. It was quite amazing.
What looks like a construction site is actually some kind of dig into the famous "wall" that we couldn't see. Hopefully, they're making something like a cutaway so people can see the construction and better understand how the thing was built. It sure wasn't obvious from their description.
More details about the site are at: http://www.state.tn.us/environment/parks/OldStoneFort/
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