Confederate Trenches

This is a short diversion from the trail postings. It is also just a short walk from the trail entrance to the Watauga Section near the 421/BR Parkway bridge. Just beyond our entry point to the east side of the road and around the first curve is a wide grassy area adjacent to the road.

It is a good place to park to walk down to the start of this section of the trail if hiking north to south. Over the edge of the drop off there are a series of Confederate Army trenches.

I have looked for them in the summer when the weeds and growth are high. I thought that we would take a look now that we can see the contours and try to better determine their location. The second low ridge is the down side of the trench. You can barely see the depth in this picture, but they are about 5 feet deep.

In this photo Gary stands so there is some "to human" scale on the upper end.

Here I strike a pose as if holding a long rifle defending my position in the high ground. We spent a good hour or so studying the angles and lay of the four trenches we could get to. From each of the trenches, it is obvious the strategic alignment they held for protecting the ridge and the entrance at the Deep Gap from the Piedmont invasions.

Though this is not part of the trail, it is an interesting sidebar that I hope to explore and learn more about in the future.