A crowd of about 50, bundled in jackets and some with walking sticks in hand, met at the Wellness Center early March 13 to walk trails built by volunteers.
Last week was the first of four gatherings to be highlighted. The first included walking Possum Run and back through Butterfly Way, which was about a mile. People were also encouraged to continue with another roughly two-mile walk on Chain Gang Break down to Tugaloo Trek, along the power line and eventually back to the Wellness Center.
“What we’re doing today is we spent several years building these trails and it’s community-built trails by volunteers that live in the Village,” Simon Bradbury, Tellico Village Property Owners Association recreation director, said. “... We’ve got 15 miles of trails in the Village, 10 of which originate from the Wellness Center.”
While the focus is still crafting trails where available, Bradbury is shifting to maintaining, educating and marketing the trails. Members of the Naturalist Club will help hikers better understand what they are looking at and the “treasures we have here in our very own Village,” he said.
“People hear about it and people are excited about it, but not everybody knows where the trails go, what we actually have here,” Bradbury said. “Some people didn’t realize that we just finished some trails in Chota. So now you can be at the Chota center. We also have a trail behind Classico’s restaurant.
“So if people wanted to eat afterward or before or have a place to get together right behind Classico’s is where a trail starts and gets you on to 10 miles of trails if you like,” he added.
Those leading the way for these four gatherings are the trail builders, who call themselves the Chain Gang, Bradbury said.
Dan Callan, who lives in Kahite and has helped build trails in Kahite and Toqua, hopes to attend all four gatherings.
“Obviously, people need to be oriented,” Callan said. “They’ve got the maps over there for them on the different trails in the different neighborhoods and it’s for those people who just don’t want to walk on a treadmill and want to get out and see the scenery and experience the environment.”
Callan believes the area lends to simply experiencing nature.
That’s what Bradbury hoped last week’s hike would do.
“One of the things we’re not just hiking, we’re, I guess you could call it, moving meditation to slow down and experience what we’ve got,” Bradbury said. “We’re not really so much promoting destination hiking, we’re promoting experience. Slow down and take a look at what we have right here.”
Glennie Browne pushed for a community walk.
“There’s a lot of new people in the Village and even existing residents that want to hike the trails but they’re nervous about doing it by themselves because they don’t know the way, and so I thought it would be a great idea if once a month or so we did a trail,” Browne said. “So I said I would volunteer to lead them, so I’m here orienting to the trails so then I can lead other people so they can learn them.”
Browne believes community hikes are a good way to introduce the trails to people intimidated by going alone.
“Because if you don’t know where you’re going you might be concerned about how far it is and you don’t want to get on a trail and find you’re too far,” Browne said. “People might be concerned about getting lost, and if they’re not familiar with hiking and have never done it before they might be afraid in the summer of wildlife and creepy crawlies.”
Upcoming community hikes will be April 19 at Toqua, May 8 at Kahite and June 19 at Chota. For more information, call Bradbury at 865-458-7070.
“Let people know what we have here in the Village,” Bradbury said. “Maybe you don’t have time to go all the way up to the Smokies or you have family that’s coming to visit and you want to go find something that’s close, that’s outdoors, that doesn’t cost anything — there you go.”
