Directions:
The driveway is the next right past the FOC/Pinnacles lot (2047 Big Hill Rd./21) east towards Big Hill. Then, the gravel parking lot is the first left.
If you are in the FOC/Pinnacles lot, turn left onto Big Hill Rd./21 and it is the first right.
If you miss the turn, your next place to turn around safely is a dollar store and gas station at the 21/421 intersection about a mile down the road.
Just across the Pinnacle Knob parking lot entrance, you’ll find the college’s native prairie, where visitors are welcome to take a peaceful walk and enjoy the scenery when in season.
Please remember, pets must be kept on a leash for the safety of your pet, others, and wildlife (even trained dogs have instincts to chase and there may be hazards off trail, including copperheads and bears).
The trails are open from dawn until dusk.
Foot traffic only.
View and download the map to have offline while you hike with the free Avenza Map app.
A Working Forest Trail
The Pinnacle Knob trail system extends over seven miles, featuring a “Figure 8” configuration which can be hiked in its entirety or hikers can just take the first loop for a two mile hike. The theme of the trail is that this is a “working forest” where forest management has been taking place since 1908. Along the way, educational signs share fascinating forest management topics and include quotes from the first management plan written for the Berea College Forest by Silas Mason, the college’s first Forester (1907-1917). Silas Mason was perhaps the first forester in American who sought to incorporate multiple use management. His goal was to manage the Berea College Forest not only for sustainable timber production, but also for clean drinking water, recreation and education. His original idea to invite the public into the forest, on old logging roads, to see and learn about a working forest, is honored through this trail which takes visitors through the center of the Berea College Forest where many forest management activities have occurred, and continue to be implemented.
On the Chestnut Loop, visitors can see an American chestnut “Mother Orchard” where sprouts that are carefully tended by the Forestry Department in collaboration with the Kentucky chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation. These restoration efforts aim to help re-introduce American chestnut seedlings genetically suited to Kentucky, back into Kentucky forests; helping to bring back “The Mighty Giant” and restore its proud place in our landscape.
The new trails are wonderfully peaceful, with fewer visitors around. One of the “spur trails” offers a lovely overlook of B-Lake and the Water Plant where water from the College Forest watershed is processed to provide drinking water to Berea and beyond. The Pinnacle Knob is perfect for long hikes or trail running. These paths were once old logging roads and provide a more even terrain compared to the Pinnacles trails…although there are some sections which still entail long uphill hikes to get up to the level stretches.
Just across the driveway from the parking lot entrance, along highway 21, you’ll find the college’s native prairie, where visitors are welcome to take a peaceful walk and enjoy the scenery, when in season.
Contribute to our growing biodiversity database…
If you take photos of wildlife on your hike, if you upload them to iNaturalist, your observations will help us continue learning about our forest and how to better care for it. So far, thanks to citizen scientists like you, we have documented nearly 4,000 species in our project, Biodiversity of the Berea College Forest.
