There are several attractions on Lookout Mountain which straddles the Tennessee and Georgia border but the one I was aiming for was Point Park at the summit which would offer the grandest view of downtown and the river from about 2000 feet MSL.
The ascent is a twisty and occasionally harrowing journey up the mountain, often on very narrow surface streets. When you arrive at Point Park, you really can’t miss the building with the castle design at the end of the street marking the location essential to the Union troops eventually laying siege to Chattanooga.
Sadly, you have to pay for parking but it’s not bad at $5 for two hours but it was a bit nerve-wracking that the kiosk never returned a ticket. I guess I shouldn’t have binge-watched those UK videos watching the British fight back against the bailiffs and enforcement agents for parking offences as I was expecting the Traverse to be booted.
Then there’s the next kiosk to get into the park itself which was apparently unmanned and depending on the honour system. That ticket was $10 but as you’ll see…the views are *MORE* than worth it.
And it was worth braving 35 degF air temperatures and 15-20 kt winds that dropped the wind-chill into the single-digits.
Sadly, there was a casualty that was discovered in the camera bags…apparently I’d left a set of alkaline batteries in the Nikon F5’s battery chamber and they’d corroded/leaked and it looks like it may be terminal. So much for the idea of shooting the 17 rolls of film I brought with me. With the seven year-old D810 acting a bit dodgy with the SD cards of late, it was a bit nervy shooting wondering if the cards were going to crap out on me but fortunately all was well and every picture did make it onto the laptop for sifting and posting.
The view is simply stunning and the pictures tell the story better than I can.
