A cautionary tale. This trail is tough. The first two or three miles is a nice ride around the top of a ridge. After that you drop down a fun, technical down hill to Larual river. That is where the "fun" gets stared. You will have to pack your bike over some large boulders, unless you have some nice trials riding skills. from there you push your bike around the side of a hill through some more rocks and around downed trees. The trail stays about the same the rest of the way. Out of the 14 miles I think we were able to peddle maybe 4 miles of it. The rest we were pushing or packing. It is designed as a hiking tail and it shows. On the up side there is some beautiful scenery. Every where I looked I wanted to get off the trail and explore for a while. The Cumberland river runs down the right side of the trail with a large cliff line on the left. The trail runs past three very pretty waterfalls on the way to Cumberland falls. However I have no plans on hauling my bike down that trail again. Hike it, don't bike it.
This is a great trail ..for hiking. I wish I'd read the reviews on here before I attempted riding it. I had a pack on , planning to camp overnight but the extra weight made the very difficult trail that much harder. It was a beautiful trail and I would love to go back and hike it. Warnings if you decide to try it: rocks and lots of them , rock staircases ( they all seem to be uphill) stinging nettles ..all throughout the trail by the river.
| ThankI am so glad I read this review. I rode the part around the lake and loved it. When I saw you could go all way to the falls I wanted to ride that also. Then I read this review I decided to hike it 1st. I'm so glad I did. It was a tough hike I couldn't imagine having to drag my bike through that also. By all means do this trail because it's one of the prettiest I've seen but leave your bike at home for this one.
| ThankBeautiful scenery, but not designed for mountain bikes. Expect a lot of downed trees, large rocks, and briers. It would be much better for hikers. I give it two stars. one star is just for being a trail, the second star is for the scenery
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