12 Things to Do 30 Minutes From Chattanooga That Aren’t the Aquarium
Chattanooga is a great weekend. It is also a weekend that most visitors spend entirely inside a two-mile radius — aquarium, Incline, Rock City, Walnut Street Bridge, home. Meanwhile, thirty minutes west on I-24, there is a county with a hundred-thousand-bat cave, a dam the TVA could not save, a waterfall you can swim under, and the town where nearly every cast iron skillet in America is made.
Marion County is the part of the trip people find out about the second time. Here is what is out there.
1Watch 100,000 Bats Leave a Cave at Sunset
Every evening from spring through early fall, tens of thousands of endangered gray bats stream out of the flooded mouth of Nickajack Cave and out over the lake to hunt. There is a free viewing boardwalk, and guided sunset kayak tours will put you on the water directly in front of it. It is the single most extraordinary free thing to do near Chattanooga, and most locals have never been.
2Tour a Dam That Ghost Hunters Fly In For
Built 1905–1913, it leaked from day one, defeated sixty years of engineering, and was breached by TVA in 1968. The powerhouse still stands. Between the documented construction deaths and the legend of a Cherokee war chief's curse, it has become one of the most investigated paranormal sites in the country — and there is a working marina and distillery attached to it.
3Swim Under a 60-Foot Waterfall
A short, steep half-mile down into the gorge puts you at a wide plunge pool at the base of a sixty-foot drop, deep enough to swim in through the summer. There is a suspension bridge on the loop, a campground at the trailhead, and sport climbing routes on the surrounding walls.
4Stand Where American Cast Iron Is Made
Lodge has been pouring cast iron in South Pittsburg since 1896, and the Lodge Museum of Cast Iron opened in town to tell that story — foundry history, the whole product line, and a factory store that has been selling seconds since 1994. If there is a skillet in your kitchen, there is a decent chance it started here.
5Visit a Holocaust Memorial Built From Six Million Paper Clips
In the late 1990s, students at Whitwell Middle School — a small, almost entirely white rural town — set out to comprehend the number six million by collecting a paper clip for every life lost in the Holocaust. Clips arrived from around the world. The collection is now housed in an authentic German rail car on the school grounds. It became the documentary Paper Clips, and it remains one of the most affecting things in this part of Tennessee.
6Get On Nickajack Lake
The TVA reservoir that backs up behind Nickajack Dam is the quiet alternative to Chickamauga — good bass and crappie fishing, public ramps, marinas, and long stretches of shoreline through the Tennessee River Gorge with nobody on them midweek.
7Hike Into the Tennessee River Gorge
The gorge west of Chattanooga is the deepest river gorge east of the Mississippi, and Marion County holds a good share of its trail miles — Pot Point Loop, the Mullens Creek and Short Creek loops, Snooper's Rock, and the River Gorge and Laurel Point Loop. Real hiking, real overlooks, and a fraction of the foot traffic of the Lookout Mountain trails.
8Take On the Fiery Gizzard Trail
Routinely named one of the best hikes in the country and quietly one of the hardest for its mileage — roughly twelve miles point-to-point through boulder fields, creek crossings and gorge rim. You can taste it in a two-mile out-and-back from Foster Falls, and you should, before you commit to the whole thing.
9Watch People Launch Off a Mountain
The bluffs at the south end of the valley are one of the premier hang gliding regions in the eastern United States. Tandem flights are available for people who want to do it, and there is no charge at all for the equally good option: standing in a field watching gliders come off the mountain.
10Eat Cornbread With 25,000 Other People
The National Cornbread Festival takes over downtown South Pittsburg every spring — cook-off, carnival, craft booths, and a town of about three thousand cheerfully absorbing many times its own population for a weekend. Book lodging early; this one genuinely fills the county.
11Go to a Mill That Has Been Grinding Since the 1800s
A historic water-powered grist mill on the Sequatchie River that hosts a large country fair every fall — traditional crafts, demonstrations, music, and the mill itself running. It is the most photographed building in the county for good reason.
12Drive the Sequatchie Valley
The Sequatchie Valley is a long, straight, improbably scenic trench running northeast between two plateaus — farmland on the floor, escarpment on both sides, and small towns strung along it. It is the drive you take when the plan for the day is "no plan for the day."
Where to Base Yourself
Almost everything on this list sits inside a twenty-five minute triangle between Jasper, Kimball and South Pittsburg. That makes Marion County an unusually efficient place to stay: chain hotels cluster at the I-24 interchange at Kimball, there are cabins and rentals on the lake, and there is camping at Foster Falls and around the county.
It is also, straightforwardly, cheaper than staying downtown — and you are still twenty-five minutes from the Chattanooga riverfront when you want it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Thirty to forty-five minutes west in Marion County you can watch a bat emergence at Nickajack Cave, tour the haunted Hales Bar Dam, swim under 60-foot Foster Falls, visit the Lodge Museum of Cast Iron in South Pittsburg, and see the Children’s Holocaust Memorial in Whitwell.
Most of the county sits 25 to 45 minutes west of downtown Chattanooga along I-24, with the Kimball and Jasper exits about half an hour out.
The Nickajack Cave bat emergence at sunset. There is a public viewing area, it costs nothing, and between roughly late March and early October tens of thousands of gray bats leave the cave at dusk.
Generally yes. Hotels at the Kimball I-24 interchange and cabins and rentals around Nickajack Lake typically run below downtown Chattanooga rates, and you are still about 25 minutes from the riverfront.
Late spring through early fall covers the bat emergence, swimming at Foster Falls and the lake. October adds fall color, Ketner’s Mill Country Fair and ghost tour season. The National Cornbread Festival is in late April.
Jasper, Kimball and South Pittsburg put you within half an hour of every stop on this list — and about 25 minutes from downtown Chattanooga when you want the city.
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