Cumberland Trail
300 mi long · in Tennessee · centroid 36 mi from Knoxville
The Cumberland Trail follows the Cumberland Plateau escarpment for 300 planned miles from Cumberland Gap National Historical Park in northern Tennessee to Signal Point near Chattanooga. About 230 miles are currently complete, maintained by the Cumberland Trails Conference. Tennessee's only state-park-system long trail.
- States
- Tennessee
- Length
- 300 mi
- Trail type
- Long-distance trail
- Network
- Regional (rwn)
- Centroid nearest city
- Knoxville, TN · 36 mi · ~1.0 hr drive
- Centroid coords
- 35.8599°, -84.5433°
- Official site
- www.cumberlandtrail.org
- OSM relations
- 1 sub-relations on OpenStreetMap
Termini
Southern terminus: Signal Point, Chattanooga.
Northern terminus: Cumberland Gap National Historical Park.
Plan your hike
Maps + permits: long-distance trails like this often require permits for through-hiking, backcountry camping, or specific sections (especially in National Parks). Check with the maintaining organisation listed above and the relevant land manager before booking travel.
Water + supplies: water sources vary seasonally on most U.S. trails. Carry a filter and consult current trail-condition reports — through-hiker journals (PCT-L, AT Reddit, etc.) and the maintaining organisation publish regular updates.
When to go: hiking seasons vary widely with elevation, latitude, and snowpack. Through-hikers traditionally start the AT in March-April (Springer northbound) and the PCT in late April (Campo northbound). High-elevation western trails (CDT, JMT, Wonderland) generally aren't passable until July.
If you've hiked Cumberland Trail and have current notes (water sources, trail closures, permit changes), tell us at /contact — we update pages as we learn.
Stay nearby
Other trails within 50 miles
Sources
Trail data on this page is compiled from OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), the maintaining organisation's public-facing materials, and Wikipedia (CC BY-SA where excerpts are quoted). Distance, terminus, and descriptive text for nationally-designated trails are hand-curated from federal land-manager websites and trail-association sources. We do not modify the underlying data; this page presents what is already publicly recorded. To suggest corrections, see our methodology page.