Trace The Natchez Trace This Winter

November 26, 2014
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You can walk through history on the Sunken Trace/NPS

Travel two centuries ago was a water world, where rivers were the highways for exploration and movement across new lands. Thick forests hampered overland travel, but the need for connections between river drainages was keen, and primitive overland trails were created.

The Natchez Trace is one such trail, stretching 444 miles from Natchez, Mississippi, to Nashville, Tennessee. Today, it'™s a unit of the National Park System as the Natchez Trace Parkway, and makes a good tour, even in winter months.

Winter reveals a different world on the Trace, as hardwood leaves drop, opening views into the surrounding landscape. An auto-tour is a wonderful, relaxing way to see the countryside. This is not a high-speed thoroughfare with truck traffic. There are many picnic areas and hiking trails to stretch your legs, and an historian will delight in the stories interpreted along the way.

You'™ll cross eight watersheds and four ecosystems that are home to 1,500 species of plants, 134 species of birds, 70 types of reptiles, and 33 species of mammals. Even in winter you will be able to spot some of these (especially deer) along the way.

In the winter the weather'™s warmer the farther south, of course, but you can drive the whole length of the Parkway, or pick and choose your section according to the temperatures.

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Snow does occasionally fall along the trace, such as the time it fell on the parkway information cabin at Ridgeland, Mississippi/NPS

Don'™t miss the Emerald Mound, a 1,500-year-old Native American ceremonial site at Milepost 10 (ten miles north of Natchez). And, for a true taste of the times, take a tour of Mount Locust, at Milepost 15. 'œIt'™s an old-style plantation home from the late 1700s,' says Natchez Trace Parkway Chief of Interpretation Terry Wildy. 'œIt'™s one of the few structures left from the heyday of the old trade, and the only public one.'

The Trace itself saw so much traffic that the travelers'™ feet wore a sunken corridor through the forest; it'™s an easily visible and walkable corridor in many sites along the Parkway. (There'™s a good example of a sunken trace 41.5 miles north of Natchez.)

Pull your car over and get out on the Trace. Envision yourself in the early 19th century, miles from civilization, with imagined and real threats from robbers, animals, and natives protecting their lands, seemingly behind every tree. You'™ll be walking in the footsteps of Jefferson Davis, James Audubon, Ulysses S. Grant, and General Andrew Jackson.

Take your time and explore one of America'™s unique trails.

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Essential Winter Guide '14

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