Frozen Head State Park, State park in Morgan County, Tennessee
Frozen Head State Park is a nature reserve in Morgan County, Tennessee, covering more than 24,000 acres in the Crab Orchard Mountains. The terrain rises from wooded valleys to rocky high elevations, with more than a dozen summits above 3,000 feet (914 meters).
The area served as Cherokee hunting grounds until 1805, when the Third Treaty of Tellico transferred it to the United States. Coal mining and logging shaped the land during the early 1900s, until Tennessee began converting it into a park in stages from the 1970s onward.
The park takes its name from a 3,324-foot (1,013-meter) ridge that remains snowcapped in winter while the surrounding valleys stay green. Hikers encounter old mine shafts and traces of tipples along some of the longer trails, woven into the current route system.
More than 80 miles of marked hiking trails wind through the park, ranging from short woodland paths to full-day climbs to the highest peaks. Campgrounds and designated mountain biking areas offer additional ways to spend several days exploring the terrain.
Every year the park hosts the Barkley Marathons, an ultramarathon through trackless terrain where only twenty runners have finished since 1986. The route passes through dense undergrowth and steep slopes not marked on any map, and the exact rules are revealed only shortly before the start.
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