Clear Fork (of the Cumberland)

Access shouldn't be an issue on this run. The State of Tennessee owns most of the area on both sides of the river in a 5,038 acre parcel that is part of the North Cumberland Wildlife Management Area. When HWY 25W gets to Travillion Rd, the NCWMA owns both sides of Hickory creek and HWY 25W between Travillion Rd and the town of Morley. Just find a pull-off at HWY 25W along Hickory Creek on NCWMA land and put in there. It will add 1 mile of Hickory Creek to the run, but you won't have 'locals own this' issues. About 1/2 mile after the confluence with Clear Fork, it is NCWMA property again on both sides of the gorge until about 1/4 of a mile above the rock quarry in Highcliff, TN. I wish I could upload a parcel map showing how much NCWMA owns in the area. Privately owned land is the super minority and is limited to Morley, Highcliff, and a handful of pockets, including the community at the end of Travillion Rd. That is it. Everything else in the gorge area is NCWMA land up to the KY state line.

7 of us tried to put onto this stretch of river at the Hwy 90 bridge (near side, not close to the homes) for a paddle and encountered an obvious drug addict walking up the road. At first, he was friendly and made a;6 bit of small talk and walked off. After the drivers went to set shuttle, he came back and spoke with the boaters watching the gear stating that his grandfather owned all the land from 'ridge to ridge' and that we couldn't access the river unless we paid him $5/head and that next time we showed up he'd call 'the law'. Clearly, he's full of it, but we decided not to put on due to concerns for break-ins. Another old man was walking in the area and spoke with us and confirmed the person was a drug addict and offered to let us put onto the river on his property, but we'd already gotten the shuttle cars and were loading back up. We saw a couple other locals at the time we were there and didn't get a great vibe from them either (minus the one nice old man).