Backpacking the Collins Loop of Savage Gulf State Park

“I feel like it’s getting late,” I say out loud to myself while looking at the sky and tracking the arc of the sun. My phone tells me it’s 3:30 in the afternoon. I had been hiking since 9:00, heading north along the Collins Rim Trail on the way to my evening’s destination of Sawmill Camp. I am in Savage Gulf State Park in Southern Middle Tennessee, a National Natural Landmark for its virgin forest. It is a beautiful mid-November Monday afternoon. It was cold when I left Nashville before the sunrise, but once the sun rose in the clear blue sky, the temperature has hovered in the upper 50s and lower 60s, which is perfect weather for a strenuous hike with a full pack.

You see, I love to backpack. It is my hobby of choice. You can have golf, video games, and fantasy football. I’ll take a peaceful trail in interesting places accompanied by the sound of running water, birdsong, and darting chipmunks. I love the gear, the gadgets, the empowerment that comes from self-sufficiency, and the novelty of making camp in the wild. But it’s not easy. It’s not that backpacking itself is hard, it’s just hard to go in the first place. There are a ton of logistics involved and, with my growing family, work demands, and my wife’s cancer diagnosis, I realized that I hadn’t gone on a trip in close to 10 years.

A while ago, I noticed that the outdoors was a recurring theme in my dreams. It’s hard to describe, but there are specific places in my mind’s eye that I visit time and again during my REM cycle. Trees, grass, rock, water. I don’t know where these places are in real life. I don’t even know if they exist. But in my dreams, I go there and I think “Oh yeah, this is it! This is that place I need to remember to come back to.” John Muir wrote that the mountains called him. I understand. In the last few months, I have felt the woods calling me.

So, earlier last year I decided it was time for another backpacking trip. Tentatively, I planned on going in September, but when those plans were upended. I decided on November, before the busy holiday (and caroling) season, and before it got too cold. I asked my son, my brother, some friends, and my cousin if they wanted to go with me. None were available. So, driven by a deep need to answer this woodland call and inspired by some YouTube creators, I decided to take the trip solo. It would only be my second time doing so.

Backpacking solo is a very different experience than backpacking with a friend. But this time, for me, it was just what the doctor ordered. I wanted to be alone and I wanted to be quiet. I wanted to have time to think and time to not have to think. I wanted the physical challenge of the trail as well as moments of stillness and rest. This 3-day, 12-mile loop trail would serve up all of that.

Tennessee has wonderful state parks. Established in 2022, Savage Gulf is one our newer ones. But I have hiked the area on four or five previous backpacking trips, back when Savage Gulf was part of the South Cumberland State Recreation Area. The park lies in parts of Grundy and Sequatchie counties between Nashville and Chattanooga.

Today, my route started at the Southern Trailhead, in the doubly named, but still singly small town of Gruettli-Laager. Gruettli was settled first as an intentional attempt to bring the Dutch to the Cumberland Plateau in 1869. Laager, originally known as “Henley’s Switch,” was established as a railroad stopover in 1918. The two communities joined in 1980. If you’re wondering how Tennesseans pronounce this town, we say “GROOT-lee LAY-guhr.” Although Grundy County still has the highest Swiss population in the state, many of the early settlers found the terrain too difficult to farm and too remote to live in, and settled elsewhere. I can’t blame them, but it’s perfect for me and this short trip.

Still, 3:30 was later than I had planned to still be on this trail and only an hour before sunset. I had called the ranger station before my trip, as is my habit. I spoke with Jody. Although not a park ranger, she claimed to know my route. She assured me that five hours was plenty of time to arrive at Sawmill Camp from the South Trailhead. So, I figured that if I started at 9:00, I should be at camp by 2:00, a good two hours before sunset.

However, I made a mistake and missed the turnoff to the Stagecoach Road Trail and stayed on the Collins Rim Trail a mile longer than I needed to. I noticed my mistake when I got to Stagecoach Road Camp. This is an easy turn to miss, at least that’s what I tell myself. And now it was after 2:00 and I was not at camp.

Instead, I was still on the Stagecoach Road Trail, a historic trail that connects the Rim Trail to the Gulf Trail. This mile and a half stretch is a washed-out, rock-strewn road that once allowed horse and buggies to traverse from McMinnville to Chattanooga and was a popular route to the fancy Inn at Beershaba Springs in the mid-1800’s (and now part of Beershaba Springs Assembly). There’s a plaque down there that explains that this road was built by slave labor. Many of the stone retaining walls are still standing. How hard this work must have been.

Although it’s a short section and I was hiking it in the easier, downhill direction, this will be my least favorite part of the hike. The hiking is hard. Imagine large, loose, uneven, and oddly-shaped stones, covered with fallen leaves of the season. Each step is just a bit uncertain. It is slow-going, which tried my patience since I was already running late to my campsite.

I was uneasy, but I calmed myself. “It’s better to get to camp after dark than be careless here and sprain an ankle.” My inner dialogue continued: “I have everything I need on my back. If need be, I can pitch a tent right here on the trail and wait for the sun to come back up.” I accepted the fact that it would get dark on me, but I would be OK. And you know what? I was. Lessons like these are all a part of the experience.

I got to my campsite after dark, but not really late, probably around 5:00 or 6:00. My eyes had adjusted well enough for me to pitch my tent, light my candle lantern, and fire up my stove for some nice, warm, well-earned french onion soup. Too tired to finish it, I curled up in my sleeping bag with an episode of Seinfeld on my Kindle Fire and called it a night well before 8:00.

What a nice surprise to awaken the next morning and see what my campsite actually looked like! I had the remaining soup for breakfast and spent the rest of the day reading, stretching, and napping. It was wonderful. For supper, I hiked .10 of a mile to Schwoon Spring. Jody told me that this was a reliable water source and she was right. It was a great spot to cook and eat before relaxing by my campfire for my second night.

The third day was still gorgeous for my hike along the Gulf Trail back to the trailhead. Later that morning, I came across a family six. It was the first time I’d seen anybody since leaving my car two days before. I stopped and soaked my feet above Horsepound Falls while eating lunch and I arrived safe and sound to my car by the early afternoon.