Sharp's Ridge is a natural area north of Knoxville, Tennessee's densely populated downtown waterfront and University of Tennessee campus.
Some refer to it as "Urban Wilderness North" as a the northern "bookend" to Urban Wilderness South just across the Tennessee River in South Knoxville.
As an oasis largely free of development, the ridge is an important bird area despite the gauntlet of guy-wires supporting massive communications towers. From hikes with my dog along the existing trails, I will offer my estimate as an amateur ecologist that the forested hillsides are also an important refuge for other species of ground-dwelling plants and wildlife, so I'm not entirely enthusiastic about developing 5.36 miles of trails, especially since trails are sometimes described as "clear cuts through the forest."
An interesting study would be to survey current invasive species prevalence, versus what becomes established following massive soil disturbance (complete with bobcat dozers)
It's also not clear from the photos that there are deterrents to sediment pollution that inevitably arises from this network of trails.
Here's a map which I feel confident in reproducing here (in so far as facts aren't copyrightable).
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