Five-Star Trails: Chattanooga is a handy guide for area residents, vacationers seeking outdoor fun, and for business travelers with a free afternoon. With a diverse collection of hiking routes, the book offers choices for everyone from solo trekkers to companions to families with either youngsters or oldsters to consider.

This book profiles close-in urban and suburban locations that can satiate scenery-hungry residents and also offers routes of superlative beauty in the adjacent local, state, and national parks. All this adds up to a hiker's nirvana.

Chattanooga is ideally situated to enjoy some of the Southeast's best scenery. To the east and south are two huge tracts of sublime and primitive national forest land -- the Chattahoochee and the Cherokee -- much within an easy drive of Chattanooga. The national forests also offer camping, hunting, fishing, nature study, and more. To the west rises the Cumberland Plateau, with its finest features protected under the umbrella of Tennessee's state park system, centered by the Volunteer State's master path, the Cumberland Plateau. The geologically fascinating Cumberland offers hiking routes along rushing rivers, deep gorges, wild waterfalls, and other rock features.