The Warner Parks

Today was one of those beautiful fall days--one of bright sunshine, blue skies, and a pleasant temperature in the mid 60s.  You know what we did--we took to the trails of our favorite local park.  We put a couple loops together in Percy Warner Park today to make a 7-mile hike.

There are actually two Warner Parks--Percy and Edwin Warner.  Because they are located side-by-side, they are often referred to as the Warner Parks.  Together they include almost 2700 acres of forested land and meadows and offer hiking trails, horse trails, scenic roadway, an equestrian center, an educational/visitor center, softball fields, picnic shelters, and a dog exercise park.  All this within the city limits of Nashville.

The hiking trails are generally in loops with connector trails accessing the loops.  The enthusiastic hiker could put the loops together and create a 12 mile hike.  There are also about 18 miles of horse trail within the parks.  Horse and hiking trails are separate and although bicycles are not allowed on either of these trails, there is an extensive paved road system, some of which is closed to motorized vehicles, which is very popular with bicyclists.

View of Nashville from Lea's summit

For our hike today, we parked at the Deep Well parking area and took the connector trail to access the Warner Woods loop.  We made a quick side trip a few yards along the road to Lea’s Summit, a grassy knoll offering a fantastic view of everything between there and downtown Nashville--a distance of about 9 miles as the crow flies.  Lea’s Summit is one of our favorite lunch break places along the trail.  We went there first today so only stopped briefly for the view and a couple photos.

Visitor Center

Continuing around the loop, our next stop was at the terraced stairway which is the official Belle Meade entrance.  From our vantage point high on the hill just off the trail, we could see straight down the stairway and on out Belle Meade Blvd.  Back on the trail, we continued on around this smaller loop to the connector trail and joined the larger Mossy Ridge loop trail.  Mossy Ridge is the most strenuous of all the trails at Warner Parks.  Over its length of 4.5 miles there are several hills to climb.

Back at the truck by early afternoon, we were both pretty tired, but glad we had taken advantage of this gorgeous fall day to get outside and enjoy the weather.