Cedars of Lebanon State Park, Tennessee - June 20th to 22nd, 2023
Cedars of Lebanon is a nice state park in Tennessee. The park is surrounded by a state forest. Plenty of hiking trails are accessible right from the campground. A peaceful setting that is located just 40 minutes from Nashville.
Tuesday we drove from Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky to Cedars of Lebanon in Tennessee. We were mostly on small roads and highways to get there. As lunchtime approached, Keith noticed a sign indicating the historic downtown of Scottsville was just a little over a mile away. He must have been hungry and a historic downtown sounded like a good place to stop to eat, so he turned off our route.
Scottsville, Kentucky, the birthplace of Dollar General, is a small town with a lovely downtown area. We found a place to park alongside the road near the square. Since the sun peaked out when we arrived, we got out and walked around the square before the rain started up again. After eating lunch inside Red Tail, we went to the Solid Grounds coffee shop for chai lattes and dessert. Keith picked out a cream cheese muffin while Ann chose the Amish cinnamon roll. The cinnamon roll was soft, doughy, and delicious.
Before heading to the campground, we drove over to Biker’s Choice Bicycle Shop in Mt. Juliet. We dropped off both of our e-bikes. Ann needed the tube replaced in her back tire. The slow leak from Sunday had completely deflated the tire by Tuesday. The bike shop didn’t have any of the right bike tubes, but we gave them one of the two we were carrying with us. Keith had a squeak which he believed was an issue with the front brake rotor along with the rear gears not shifting smoothly.
Cedars of Lebanon State Park seemed like a nice park. The camp sites are nicely spaced in the woods. It rained the rest of the evening, so we had to wait to check out the rest of the park.
We spent Wednesday in Nashville. We’ll cover Nashville in our next post.
Thursday we hiked the trails at Cedars of Lebanon State Park. Many of the trails inside the park are short, so we combined a few together to make a longer hike.
After an early lunch at Red Tail, we started hiking right from our camp site. We worked our way over to the Cedar Forest Trail. Along the way, we checked out the Cedar Forest Lodge and admired one of the stone cabins.
As the trail name suggests, the Cedar Forest Trail was mostly through the woods, but it passed through some limestone rock formations and sink holes. Part way through the trail, we crossed the road over to the Visitor Center and the Cedar Glade Trail. The Glade Trail was through the woods, but passed by quite a few small meadows with wildflowers. We thought we would see more butterflies, but the bees were very active. Perhaps the butterflies were waiting for the sun to come out.
After returning to the Cedar Forest Trailhead, we made our way over to the Cedar Run Trail. We had a little trouble finding the trailhead, but in our search, we stumbled across the Jackson Cave. The cave is over a mile long. Park staff lead tours inside Jackson Cave and you must have a permit to enter the cave. From the looks of it at the entrance, it looks like crawling would be involved. We’ll pass.
We think we followed the Cedar Run Trail. Most of it was mowed paths through meadows. However, there were more paths than what was marked on the map. We managed to make a loop and ended back up by the trailhead. The trailhead was at the park road, and we were trying to approach it from the paths through the picnic areas, which is why we missed the signage at the beginning of the trail.
There were a lot of blackberry bushes in the meadows, so Keith picked a handful of them. He only picked the ones that had turned black, but even some of those were not quite ripe and tasted a little bitter. We put them on our ice cream after dinner anyway.
In total, we walked 6.4 miles with an elevation gain of 384 feet in three and a half hours. It was hike number 29 of our 52 Hike Challenge for 2023.
If you’re looking for a wonderful place to stay near Nashville, away from the hustle and bustle of the city, Cedars of Lebanon State Park is your place. You can either stay in the campground or rent one of their cabins. If you’re into spelunking, you might even want to try exploring Jackson Cave while you are there.
Check out our related video: Cedars of Lebanon State Park, Tennessee
(Ann)