Kentucky Part IV: more "Noble Forests"
After his visit to the entrance to Mammoth Cave, Muir walked on toward Glasgow and then Burkesville, Kentucky, through “the hill woods” that he described as a “Deep, green, bossy sea of waving, flowing hills” scattered with fields of corn, cotton and tobacco. Waxing poetic, Muir observes:
Another day in the most favored province of bird and flower. Many rapid streams, flowing in beautiful flower-bordered canons embosomed in dense woods. … Amid the wide waves of green wood there are spots of autumnal yellow and the atmosphere, too, has the dawnings of autumn in colors and sounds. The soft light of morning falls upon ripening forests of oak and elm, walnut and hickory, and all Nature is thoughtful and calm. Kentucky is the greenest, leafiest State I have yet seen. The sea of soft temperate plant-green is deepest here…. Far the grandest of all Kentucky plants are her noble oaks. They are the master existences of her exuberant forests. Here is the Eden, the paradise of oaks.
From Mammoth Cave National Park and lodging near Cave City, my driving direction was southeastward on KY Highway 90. One may elect to visit either Onyx Cave or Crystal Onyx Cave on the outskirts of Cave City, both privately owned and open to the public. That my route was faithful to that of Muir was confirmed by roadside highway markers identifying Hwy 90 as the “John Muir Memorial Highway” as well as a “Kentucky Scenic Highway.” Glasgow is another interesting historical community. Today this route is more agrarian than forested, except for the wooded ridges, hilltops, and many small stream corridors with limestone rock outcrops. Like Muir, I admired the sizable Cumberland River that flows along the eastern margin of Burkesville.
I chose to detour a few miles from Muir’s route (off from today’s Hwy 90) by way of State Routes 449 and 1206 to stroll a few miles on trails and the lakefront of Dale Hollow Lake State Park and Wildlife Management Area , a large reservoir on the Obey and Wolf Rivers, impounded long after Muir’s visit. Instead of returning to Hwy 90, I followed Route 1351 and the “Old Burkesville Road” to the margin of Albany, Kentucky. From there I took US Hwy 127 south and crossed the Tennessee state line (where Hwy 127 combines with TN Route 28). It was evident, by the terrain, that I was now entering into the Cumberland Mountains.
Private, citizen-supported land conservation organizations in Kentucky, as in all other southern states in which Muir once walked, are dedicated to championing efforts and initiatives to protect special natural places and environmental assets of their commonwealth. The principal private, nonprofit organizations with statewide/regional programs and goals to protect and conserve critical natural heritage resources in the vicinity of Muir’s path in Kentucky are the Kentucky Natural Lands Trust and the state chapter of the international Nature Conservancy.
>>>CONTINUE ON to Tennessee-North Carolina . . .
I chose to detour a few miles from Muir’s route (off from today’s Hwy 90) by way of State Routes 449 and 1206 to stroll a few miles on trails and the lakefront of Dale Hollow Lake State Park and Wildlife Management Area , a large reservoir on the Obey and Wolf Rivers, impounded long after Muir’s visit. Instead of returning to Hwy 90, I followed Route 1351 and the “Old Burkesville Road” to the margin of Albany, Kentucky. From there I took US Hwy 127 south and crossed the Tennessee state line (where Hwy 127 combines with TN Route 28). It was evident, by the terrain, that I was now entering into the Cumberland Mountains.
Private, citizen-supported land conservation organizations in Kentucky, as in all other southern states in which Muir once walked, are dedicated to championing efforts and initiatives to protect special natural places and environmental assets of their commonwealth. The principal private, nonprofit organizations with statewide/regional programs and goals to protect and conserve critical natural heritage resources in the vicinity of Muir’s path in Kentucky are the Kentucky Natural Lands Trust and the state chapter of the international Nature Conservancy.
>>>CONTINUE ON to Tennessee-North Carolina . . .