Hiking the Fiery Gizzard Trail
Here are a few photos from the Fiery Gizzard Trail, a 12.5 mile trail in South Cumberland State Park near Tracy City, Tennessee. My hiking buddy is a wood elf named Sarah Thomas, who is a seasoned naturalist and outdoorswoman. We hiked on April 12, 2025, a week before I left for Spain to hike the Camino del Norte. Over the eight-hour hike, we discovered new ways of saying “'wow” as we passed steep gorges, boulders, towering hemlock trees, and lush coves of trilliums.
Little Fiery Gizzard Creek
A cove of trilliums
Sarah, enamored by the trilliums
great white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum)
Crossing the boulder fields
heartleaf foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia)
Sarah beside Big Fiery Gizzard Creek
southern red trillium (Trillium sulcatum)
Me in my Camino gear
star chickweed (Stellaria pubera)
Raven Point: a fine place to stop for lunch
A tiny tendril unfurling
Sarah beneath the curtain of the waterfall
Piedmont azalea (Rhododendron canescens)
Me ascending and descending a bridge/ladder to cross a barbed wire fence near the end of the hike (hence the slightly crazed expression, ha!)
Laurel Branch
Looking back
Warning sign near the southern entrance
Looking south
Water pooling in the sandstone near the top of the Foster Falls plunge, which is characteristic of the Cumberland Plateau
Foster Falls from above
birdsfoot violet (Viola pedata)
