I had never heard of Short Springs State Natural Area – and certainly not Machine Falls – until Kelly Stewart emailed me his fantastic panoramic photograph of Machine Falls dwarfing his friend! What a photo.

(Original photos by Kelly Stewart)

The Short Springs State natural area is a 420-acre area just north of Tullahoma in Coffee County – ruled completely by Mother Nature (and also jointly by TVA, the Tennessee Department of Conservation, and The City of Tullahoma) since being designated a state natural area in 1994.

For those of you who like to have all the info you can possibly have, there’s a Garmin graph of the elevation changes of the 3.5 mile hike at Short Springs on the EveryTrail.com site.

Also in the Short Springs area:
Machine Falls hiking trail – 2 mile loop
Bob Creek Trail
Busby Falls
Rutledge Falls (nearby)

Resources: Short Springs – waterfalls, hiking in Tennessee

• Short Springs State Natural Area – Tennessee
• EveryTrail.com – Short Springs natural area
• Large Short Springs map generated by a Google Maps-based EveryTrail app
• Short Springs – Trails.com
• Tennessee Trails (Murfreesboro) – Short Springs State Natural Area
• Tullahoma official site of local government – Short Springs nature trail
• Outdoors in Tennessee – Short Springs
• Tennessee Vacation – Short Springs
• Wilderness Diary – Short Springs State Natural Area
• Google Earth track – Wilderness Diary (KMZ file download)
• Topographic map of Short Springs

Sunday, August 07, 2011