[Bristol-Birds] An urban wilderness beyond compare

  Steele Creek Park --  An urban wilderness beyond compare,.



  Many casual visitors to Bristol's Steele Creek Park seldom venture beyond a 
picnic table and shelter.

  Neatly tucked between busy lives and the rush of traffic, this sprawling 
island of urban wilderness is home to arguably the states most biologically 
diverse city park.

        The National Recreation and Park Association's Center for City Park 
Excellence 
        ranks Steele Creek among the 25 largest municipal parks in America.
  The forested ridges and deep stream valleys gently blanket the landscape 
almost from State Street in the downtown to Bristol Motor Speedway. A deceiving 
mile wide, the park is protected by 12 miles of surveyed and marked boundary.  
Hikers and bikers appreciate the vastness of the 25 miles of backwoods trails 
where park visitors never leave the city limits. 

  From a small aircraft one catches a breathtaking look six miles ahead to what 
appears to be an endless ridges dressed in hardwoods -- all Steele Creek Park. 
From the air, you will search below for a tiny bare thumb print known to most 
as Steele Creek Park. This is the intensive use recreation area, snuggled 
against the northside of the forest. 

  Here man has built monuments of ballfields, a golf course, small and large 
parking lots, a renovated lodge, nature center, boat dock, picnic shelters, a 
bandshell and playgrounds.  Don't look away from your aircraft view, you will 
have to search again
  for the spot called Steele Creek.
  Steele Creek Park Lake, a 50-acre impoundment scarcely 30 feet deep in the 
gorge, bisects the park, creating two giant boundaries. The Trinkle Hollow 
Boundary to the northeast and Slagle Creek State Natural Area Boundary to the 
southwest are each special in their own character.  So are the creatures who 
live there.

  Quietly afloat by canoe the paddler enjoys the roar of Steele Creek tumbling 
to its confluence with Mill Creek in the upper Big Bend area. Slowly drifting 
along the beautiful banks you watch the wildlife freeze or scamper. Your canoe 
glides quietly through a long gorge to the distant dam a mile beyond. Graceful 
lower limbs of tall Eastern Hemlock point the way downstream. Keen eyes will 
glimpse the Spiny Softshell Turtles, basking on the downed tree they call home. 
Few naturalists know this species but one 16-year-old park naturalist is an 
expert on the lake's population.

  If you choose to pass up tempting exploration of several inviting deep coves, 
you might now watch ahead for Spotted Sandpipers and other shorebirds feeding 
in the flowing water of the spillway. 

  Hiking down the low waterfalls below the dam, one discovers a diverse 
wetlands. Over the last of two substantial footbridges, visitors may finally 
rest in the cool shade at the mouth of Steele Creek.  

  The strong legs will scamper the new Lake Ridge Trail, just completed with a 
state grant.  Out of Rooster Front, the "eastern access" to Steele Creek Park, 
step across the new, wide, bridge to the trailhead.  The freshly-cut trail take 
you up the ridge.

  Beaver Creek, a large meandering watercourse, greets Steele Creek's last few 
feet of length. The vicinity's largest watershed, Beaver Creek stretches from 
near Abingdon to Boone Lake.  Along much of its route it nearly defines the 
southern boundary of the park. Before the park, almost half a century ago, the 
area was known as Beaver Creek Knobs.

  There is much more to share: fifty years of naturalist exploration and the 
carefully documented records and field note they kept.  You will delight in the 
natural history, and human hisotry, including a time when this was to have been 
the site of Warrior Path State Park.

  You will read of rare animals and rare birds and rare plants. Here was 
discovered the state's only know Northern Shrike, one of Tennessee's most rare 
avian species. The threatened Tennessee Dace breeds along small watercourse. 

  Yes, Black Bear, Wild Turkey, White-tailed Deer, Bobcats, Cave Salamanders, 
neotropical migrants galore, the Bald Eagle, night-herons, hawks, owls, 
wonderful waterfowl and so much more.

  You will enjoy long summer hikes into watersheds that have the least possible 
pollution. Learn about the gated cave -- designed by the world's expert on bat 
caves. 

  You will get a peek into the file drawers, old photos, prowl the shelves of 
exhaustive natural history inventories and meet the people, young and old, who 
have studied every season year in and year out. 

  You will enjoy discovering more about the Steele Creek Park Nature Center 
and, especially, Bristol Bird Club members who conceived it all and proposed 
much of the program.  They planned the vision for the city council and city 
departments, supervised research, mentored young park naturalist for decades, 
furnished the building, built the cabinets and book shelving, helped open the 
doors for the first time and conducted the initial public tour, first park 
public nature walk, and first park public nature programs.

  The park is open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.  For details, call the Nature Center 
at (423) 989-5616.  Stop in to see the public displays and get a detailed 
four-color map of the park which can be carried afield.  The Nature Center 
usually opens around 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the summer and opens at 1 p.m. on 
Sunday.

  Don't keep the secret. Explore your urban wildness beyond the parking lots 
.....

  Wallace Coffey
  Bristol, TN

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