WARTSBURG, Tenn. - Not many hiking trails have their own weekly radio show.

But Tennessee's still-growing Cumberland Trail does, Sunday nights on Knoxville radio station WDVX-FM, complete with bluegrass music.

The north-south cross-state trail is Tennessee's 53rd state park and its only linear park.

The trail has a fancy name: the Justin P. Wilson Cumberland Trail State Park. It was established in 1998.

It was named after the former commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, a former deputy governor, present state controller and law professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

Wilson was a major proponent of developing the Cumberland Trail, along with volunteers from the grass-roots Cumberland Trail Conference that is building the trail at the ground level.

When completed, it will stretch 300 miles through 11 Tennessee counties from its northern terminus at Cumberland Gap National Historic Park, where Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia come together. It will run south to Signal Point, a federal historic site outside Chattanooga. About 170 miles are complete, said Tony Hook, general manager of the trail conference, and it will take another eight to 10 years to complete.

The trail runs on ridges and through gorges on the eastern edge of the Cumberland Plateau, a wild, rugged and sparsely populated region that is higher than the surrounding countryside.

I drove past some of the big signs along Interstate 40 in north-central Tennessee for the park and hopped off to investigate a section atop Black Mountain, where 12 miles of trails are open.

Finding the trailhead eight miles from the exit atop 2,800-foot Black Mountain was not an easy task. A few more signs would have helped.

It was socked in thick fog, clouds and rain. Seeing 10 feet down the trail was impossible. That stunning view of Grassy Cove and its limestone sink valley was obliterated.

So, instead, I headed to Wartburg and Frozen Head State Park and Natural Area, a 24,000-acre wild tract where hikers can access seven miles of the trail. Another 13 miles are still undeveloped.

The trail crosses Bird Mountain and descends into the Emory River Gorge. It marks a shift from ridge-top hiking to watershed hiking.

You can hop on the Cumberland Trail at the Bird Mountain Trailhead at the north side of the Big Cove Campground. It's a 1,682-foot climb to top Bird Mountain.

Frozen Head - a state park and a natural area - gets its unusual name from the appearance of the 3,324-foot mountain in winter, when there's no snow in the valleys below.

The often-overlooked park, known for its spectacular wildflowers, is popular with hikers and backpackers, with more than 60 miles of trails that pass by waterfalls, rock shelters and giant mountaintop cap rocks.

The park is in the Crab Orchard Mountains, part of the Cumberland Mountains in northeastern Tennessee tucked between Wartsburg and Petros in Morgan County.

The area features the highest mountains in Tennessee west of the Blue Ridge. On clear days from atop Frozen Head, and its fire tower, you can view the Cumberland Plateau, the Tennessee River Valley and the Great Smoky Mountains.

The park's terrain varies from 1,340 feet to in excess of 3,000 feet. It features 14 peaks that top 3,000 feet.

One short hike at Frozen Head will take you to picturesque Emory Gap Falls, a 25-foot-high waterfall on Emory Gap Branch. The stream drops over a sandstone lip atop a deeper layer of softer shale. The result is a rock-filled amphitheater on the southeast slope of Bird Mountain.

On the nearby North Prong of Flat Fork Creek is pretty DeBord Falls, where the stream drops 12 feet into a hemlock-shaded ravine.

You can make a great 5.7-mile loop on the North Old Mac and South Old Mac trails that flank Old Mac Mountain.

The park's Lookout Tower Trail at 6.9 miles is open to horses and mountain bikes.

Anglers will find rainbow trout in the streams.

The park, which has 144 species of wildflowers, is the site of highly popular wildflower weekends on the second and third weekends in April. It is also known for the diversity of large trees, including cherry, walnut, oak, sassafras, poplar and beech.

The state of Tennessee acquired much of the park land in 1894 for the Brushy Mountain State Prison that just recently closed.

Coal was mined by the convicts and trees were harvested to provide timber for the mines.

The area was heavily logged from 1911 to 1925 by the Emory River Lumber Co. A major forest fire swept through in 1952, when the park land was part of Morgan State Forest.

The land became Frozen Head State Park in 1970, and most of the state park acreage was designated a state natural area in 1988.

Frozen Head has 20 primitive campsites in the Big Cove area, plus two group camping sites. It has a playground, picnicking, nature programs, amphitheater and visitor center-gift shop.

North of the park lies the Emory River Valley, an 8,000-acre wild tract acquired by the state in late 2007. The state owns part of the land and has conservation easements from two private companies on the rest.

That is part of a public-private partnership plan called Connecting the Cumberland that intends to preserve 127,000 acres.

To get to Frozen Head, go east from Wartburg for two miles on Highway 62. Turn left and head north on Flat Fork Road. Go past the prison for four miles to the park entrance.

For information, write to Frozen Head State Natural Area, 964 Flat Fork Road, Wartburg, TN 37887, 423-346-3318. Or you can contact Tennessee State parks, 401 Church St., 7th Floor, Nashville, TN 37243, 888-867-2757 or 615-532-0001. You can also check out http://www.tnstateparks.com.

The Cumberland Trail was first envisioned by Tennessee trail advocates in 1965.

The effort by the state and the Tennessee Trail Association got under way in the early 1970s. By 1986, about 100 miles of trails were built, mostly on private land.

What was being built was an unpolished backpacking trail. It was known then as the Cumberland State Scenic Trail. It featured a "rocky and rough primitive tread." It was very steep in places, with slopes in excess of 30 percent.

Money problems hit Tennessee, the trail-building efforts stopped and sections of trails reverted back to Mother Nature. Only two sections remained open.

In the late 1990s, the state got involved again and grass-roots support grew. The Cumberland Trail Conference was formed in 1997. Its volunteers have put in 196,000 hours building the trail in the last 10-plus years, Hook said.

Two of the prettiest sections are the Rock-Possum-Soddy gorges area near Chattanooga, with 35 miles of trail open, and the Frozen Head area with its seven miles, he said.

The Cumberland Trail in Tennessee is a key link in a developing trail called the Great Eastern Trail, sometimes called the Western Appalachian Alternative.

As envisioned in 2001, it would stretch 1,700 miles from the Alabama-Florida border north to New York's Finger Lakes region. It is seen as a less-crowded alternative to the Appalachian National Scenic Trail. It is being pushed by the American Hiking Society and others.

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