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Where The Lake Runneth Over
Written By: Emily Crowell | Issue: 2018/06 - June
The Cliffside Lake Recreation Area, just a short distance from Highlands, has a little bit of everything – hiking, fishing, swimming, picnicking, and camping next door at Van Hook Glade.
I go for the hiking, of course.
On one obnoxiously bright and cheerful spring day my sweetie and I followed the short Cliffside Loop Trail around the lake. I have yet to visit Cliffside when both the lake and the sky are not an almost unreal shade of azure.
The shady trail took us just below the dam, where the lake runneth over to become Skitty Creek again. We passed several people fishing along the lake, all in a good mood despite not seeming to catch much. A sunny footbridge over the requisite clear, gurgly spring provided a prime spot to stop and sip some cold-brewed coffee, and a sunny picnic table not far up the trail provided another perfect spot to stop and eat a snack. A few geese swam languidly in the middle of the lake, and some ducks foraged for food in the murky border zone between water and land.
I was wearing a light jacket that I hadn’t worn in a while, and while we were snacking in the sun I pulled out a piece of paper that I’d shoved in there several months prior on which I had written a Maya Angelou quote: “This is a wonderful day. I’ve never seen this one before.” That just about sums it up.
The Cliffside Loop Trail is short, as are all of the trails at the recreation area. They can be mixed and matched with each other to create as long or as short a hike as you like, and they’re all fairly easy.
From Highlands, take U.S. Highway 64 West (toward Franklin) for 4.2 miles to the brown Cliffside Recreation Area sign on your right. Follow that road for one mile to the self-serve pay area on the right – the day-use fee is $5 per car. Trail maps are also usually available here, but if they run out you can take a photo of the kiosk map with your phone to reference. From there, the road forks, and when I went the left fork was closed so we took the right fork to a perfectly lovely parking area just a short distance from the lake’s swimming area.
