The Nickajack Naturalist

Russell Cave: The Overlooked National Monument

   A little visited unit of the National Park system lies just beyond the southern border of Marion County, near Bridgeport, Alabama.  Russell Cave National Monument was established in 1961 when 310 acres were donated to the public by the National Geographic Society.

  With a mapped length of 7.2 mi.,Russell Cave is the 3rd longest mapped cave in Alabama.  According to archaeologists, Russell Cave has provided shelter to humans for more than 10,000 years, with native people sheltering in the cave almost continuously from 6500 BC to 1650 AD.  Some may have lived in the cave, which would have been warm in the winter and cool in the summer, year around, while others were likely nomadic hunters.

  Archeological excavation began in 1953, conducted by the Tennessee Archeological Society and the University of Chattanooga (now known as UTC), and was completed in 1962.  About two tons of artifacts have been removed from the cave, including charcoal from fires, animal bones, spear and arrow points, pottery sherds, and human remains.

  The visitor center contains exhibits, shows a documentary film, and has a great gift shop/book store.  There are also picnic tables on the grounds.

  Park rangers conduct guided tours of the cave shelter, which is approximately a 300 yard walk from the visitor center via an elevated boardwalk.  There are also 1.8 mi. of paved walking trail which winds up the side of Montague Mountain.

  The cave is populated with two species of bats.  Over 115 species of birds have been identified at the park, which is a site on the North Alabama Birding Trail.  While no longer native to the region, there is evidence that porcupines and peccary once inhabited the area.

  Each year in May, the Monument hosts a Native American Festival, which includes storytelling, dancing, and and Native American flute playing.  Native American weaponry are demonstrated, such as the atlatl, bow and arrow, and blow darts.  There are also demonstrations of flintnapping (to make arrowheads), woodcarving, pottery making, and fire building.

  Russell Cave National Monument is located on County Road 98 near Bridgeport (follow the signs from U.S. Hwy. 72) and is open 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Central Time, seven days a week, year around, except New Year's, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  Entrance is free.

  As of this writing, the link to the NPS website for Russell Cave does not work.  But I found I could access the site by going to www.nps.gov, clicking on "Find a Park", then clicking on Alabama on the U.S. map, scrolling down to the entry for Russell Cave, and clicking on "Directions".   

Bob Butters

   

Lula Lake Land Trust

From a May 08, 2010 article on Chattanoogan.com by Bobby Davenport

  Since its creation in 1994 with a gift of the lake and falls and the 770 acres surrounding them, the Lula Lake Land trust has directly protected more than 7,800 acres.

  Lula Lake Land Trust's original project area is is the 40,000 acre Rock creek watershed, and the bulk of the trust's 5,000 acres is along Rock Creek and its major tributary, Long Branch.  The remaining acreage is protected by conservation easements or is owned by Cloudland Canyon State Park.  Our donation of land to leverage federal funds allowed the state park to nearly double its size from 1999 to 2003, which also created an unbroken conservation landscape more than 9,000 acres large and 20 miles long, including the original land of Cloudland.

  Ninety acres were donated to the land trust last year, along the "Cloudland Connector" corridor on the southern end of the Land Trust.  Our partner, the Georgia Land Trust (GLT), has added several conservation easements in the watershed, and our land acquisition focus is intended to allow us to accelerate the success of this program.  The GLT currently holds over 150,000 acres of easements, including all of the conservation easements in and around the Lula Lake Land Trust.

  Outright donations of land or easements have always been a part of how we operate.  Our conservation model, for both our land and the land that we have acquired for public parks, calls for cooperation and persuasion, as opposed to regulation and taking.  Several thousand acres later, with dozens of terrific partnerships and a small army of volunteers working with those partners, we believe this model to be the best.  Donated easements from private landowners have led to the Georgia Land Trust protecting an area about the size of an entire county, albeit spred over two states.  Their skill at achieving landscape scale conservation is allowing both of us to protect more land in the Rock Creek Watershed, the primary mission of the Lula Lake Land Trust.  The Rock creek watershed is a recharge area for Walker County's water supply, which requires very little chemical treatment.  Walker County's public water supply, drawn from three major wells, is sweet and pure - surely something worth protecting for the future.

  Watershed protection is a great thing, but it is public access and recreation that makes it fun.  In 2010, our focus continues to be on the incredible success of the "Cloudland Connector" trail project, a multi-use trail (horses, mountain bikes, and hikers) that connects this huge landscape and makes it safe and fun for everyone.  In the fall of 2009, we held a ribbon cutting at our Nick-A-Jack trailhead with all of our partners to celebrate the completion of the first 5.8 miles of this trail, which ends at Lula Lake Road just south of Thompsonville.  This facility is open dawn to dusk, seven days a week, thanks to a unique agreement between the Land Trust and Georgia State Parks where they help with the management and security of the trail.

  Today, the next 4.3 miles of connector trail are under construction, with an additional 17 miles of world-class mountain bike terrain on the land donated by the Land Trust to the State of Georgia several years ago to add to Cloudland Canyon.  The trailheads, of similar function to the Nick-A-Jack trailhead, will be at the 5-Points mountain biking area and at Ascalon Road.  The Southeastern Off Road Biking Association (SORBA) is overseeing the development of these trails.  This group is the same one that brought us a similar facility at Raccoon Mountain.  Mountain bikers from all over the country are traveling to Chattanooga to enjoy this venue, and we are expecting the same thing at 5-Points.

  In 2011, our plan is to build with our partners the remaining 4.8 miles of trail that will finish the southern connection to the original State Park.  By that time, we will have updated our "master facilities plan", published for years on the front of our web site (www.lulalake.org), so that we can focus on the next phases of this huge private initiative that lies between two important public parks, Cloudland to the south and the Lookout Mountain Unit of the National Military Park to the north.  It is a goal of the Lula Lake Land Trust to make all of its recreational areas available in the same way that the completed portions of the Cloudland connector trail are, which will depend on our continued success at raising the annual funding to manage these areas well.  In the meantime, please enjoy the lake and falls area and its miles of trails on the first and last Saturday of each month.

  (Bobby Davenport was a founding trustee of the Lula Lake Land Trust.  He is currently its development head, and answers to a diverse board of nine men and women who have each made an exceptional contribution to the work of the Land Trust.  Run and hide when you see him coming down the street - he is going to ask you for your support of Lula Lake)