by Leslie Lytle, Messenger Staff Writer

“I’ve reiterated over and over to our designer, we want to remain a wilderness park. We don’t want to be like some of those other parks where you can reach out and touch your neighbor,” insisted Savage Gulf State Park Manager Aaron Reid responding to a question about distance between camp sites at a car camping area proposed for the $105 million capital project changes coming to Savage Gulf. At a March 5 public hearing, Reid talked about a grant to fund a connector trail from the Stone Door area to the proposed new development with 55-acre Laurel Creek Lake as the center attraction. Designated as a state Natural Area in 1973, the legendary Stone Door staircase between massive boulders leads into the heart of Savage Gulf, the largest state park in Tennessee encompassing nearly 20,000 acres.

Currently, four trailheads serve Savage Gulf. The first phase of the capital project will create a fifth trailhead just off Hwy. 56 near the Beersheba Springs Post Office. “We’re not allowed to build roads in the park,” Reid stressed. Annually, 160,000 visitors experience the park’s wild beauty, hiking or mountain biking on the 56 miles of trails. A gravel connector trail, just under a mile long, will join the Stone Door visitor center to the three-miles gravel trail that will circle Laurel Creek Lake.

Among the goals of the State Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan is to “balance use with resource protection,” Reid observed. “The Great Stone Door is the park’s most iconic attraction. Visitors will be able to get there [from the lake] without driving.” Reid proposed the connector trail as part of the capital project, but it was not included in the budget. A federal Recreational Trails Program (RTP) grant will fund the connector trail, estimated cost $180,000. The grant also includes funding to hire a landscape architect to engineer rehabilitation of the Stone Door trail built in the late 1980s. Reid anticipates funding the rehabilitation construction with another grant or money from the state.

The RTP grant rules will allow money spent on the capital project to count as the 20 percent matching funds requirement of the grant. Phase 2 of the capital project includes a visitor center with 100 parking spaces, 60 RV camping sites, 16 car camping sites, 16 yurt sites, three pavilions, a boat dock and boat rental.

Reid predicts the capital project’s Phase 1, constructing the road from Hwy. 56 to the lake area, will begin this summer, with phase 2 beginning next summer. For the connector trail project, full authorization and environmental review will likely take until early 2027. The timeline projects two years for implementation, but Reid said, “I don’t think it will take that long.”

Asked about new hiking trails, Reid doesn’t anticipate any in the Stone Door staircase area but pointed to possibilities on the south side of the park, perhaps a mountain bike trail, a trail to a waterfall, and a backpacking loop trail past Hobbs Cabin.

The Stone Door connector trail will pass one of the park’s nine backcountry campgrounds. “I foresee both day hikers and overnight campers using this trail. It will make the area more appealing and more user friendly to our visitors by allowing better access to our most popular attraction, which in this part of the park is the Great Stone Door.”

The park service welcomes public comments on the connector trail project through March 20. Mail comments to P.O. Box 561 Beersheba Springs, TN 37305 or submit comments to Reid via email at <aaron.reid@tn.gov>.