Find the top rated walking trails in Athens, whether you're looking for an easy short walking trail or a long walking trail, you'll find what you're looking for. Click on a walking trail below to find trail descriptions, trail maps, photos, and reviews.
We were looking forward to this ride a long time as reviews rate it highly. For us it was quite the opposite. The trail did have its moments and from the start looked very promising, however those moments were short and far in between. The first of the issues were the trail closures with no notice at trail heads or reroutes. You merely run into a blockage where your only option is to turn around load up your bikes, go a couple of miles to the next bike parking, unload, ride a couple of miles and hit another trail block. Second issue, the trail is poorly marked. We literally spent more time trying to find our way through Chattanooga than riding our bikes. Trail Link helped but what a mess. I can’t imagine riding this trail in peak season as it was, our ride early Feb, 50 deg late morning saw many pedestrian obstacles. Chattanooga is a busy place, a nice city to be sure along with that comes constant traffic noise.
Park by the outdoor barn or the farm center on the map. There’s a dog park nearby. The quarry has beautiful views and is worth the hike.
amazing hike and great views with perfect place for swimming
Very peaceful trail with an occasional visit by deer & turkeys. A really peaceful walk.
The trail is really nice, it just needs to be 2 or 3 times longer. Listed on TrailLink as 7.3 miles, but posted with markers as 5.6.
The map is not very understandable if u r not local. Use Apple maps to locate the actual trail head. This gave us an address that was a super short preserve trail and AllTrails did the same. So load and inload the ebikes on a 93 degree day with no shade was not fun. Finally found the trailhead. I use a dog trailer for my pup so I do not like street riding and had no real idea where to go but went both directions from the park, each way until it was all urban, next to a busy street one way and a lovely neighborhood the other way but to hot to ride too far out of the shade. With the dog, just looking for long shady paths. Would have like to explore mire. Maybe next time in the fall.
The Townsend trail is all paved, wide enough for 2 bikes to pass each other. I take my dog in a trailer behind my ebike. The trail is on both sides of the road. The one on the right side is further away from the road and more hilly. The one on the left side has more road noise, once u get away from the river. It is the side with all the businesses on it so lots for driveway bumps. You can connect to the other side by 2 different bike tunnels so u don’t have to cross the road. We rode on a Thursday so traffic was so so but enough to make up want to ride the other side. Not a very interesting trail but nice enough.
Easy peasant ride. All paved on both sides of the road. Nice spots to stop, shop, eat and drink. Close to Cades Cove and entrance to Smoky Mountains. Worth the visit.
We rode the entire pathway, starting at the northern dam site. This is one of the most enjoyable, varied, and well maintained routes we've ridden! The entire route is well done, with light poles the entire way, elevated sections or bridges thru all types of natural areas (instead of around), and many parks or trailside restrooms. Whether thru parks, alongside the highway, or even past industrial businesses, the trail is landscaped O meadow-scaped), the path is smooth, and
We loved the trail and rode it round trip multiple times to train for our Katy trail tour. We and our bikes got really dusty and dirty, but that wasn’t a big deal. Do be careful at the traffic crossings.
Today 4-17-2025 my husband and I rode the trail from the Wheland Factory parking lot to the Dam. The first part of the trail goes past some industrial areas. As we got further up it goes past townhomes and downtown. Our only complaint was the lack of trail signage to keep you on tract and mileage markers. There were some metal cutouts with numbers indicating the miles and some very small markers in the concrete itself with markings but unless you stopped to read them, there was no way you could have read them as you pedaled by. The trail itself is in good shape and we saw several crews keeping the grounds surrounding the trail trimmed.
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