What is Reflection Riding?

Set on 300 breathtaking acres just 10 minutes from downtown Chattanooga, Reflection Riding is part public park, part nature center, part wild lands, and all outdoor learning. Options for outdoor exploration abound, both on-site and off-site with outreach programs offered to 16 counties. A winding three-mile gravel loop can be walked, run, or bicycled, offering mature hardwood forests, wildflower meadows, and wetlands habitats. Visitors also explore Lookout Creek, with easy access and a canoe put-in. Our 10 miles of trails connect to National Park lands that lead to the top of Lookout Mountain. 

What do people do at Reflection Riding?

Reflection Riding offers science programming for school groups, families, and individuals from moonlit paddles on Lookout Creek to guided nature hikes to hands-on volunteer efforts to remove invasive plants. The native animal area brings visitors face-to-face with critically-endangered red wolves, a bobcat, sandhill cranes, an American Bald Eagle, and more. Visitors can listen to the red wolves howl in unison and imagine what came before us, from Civil War battles to ancient Native American trails.

On any given day, you’ll find trail runners on our property, school groups learning how we protect native red wolves, summer campers learning to paddle, families star-gazing and listening to owl calls while learning to hike at night, and volunteers pulling privet and planting native plants. You might even find a three year old, water bottle full, shoes laced up, walking by the pond to watch the turtles, then disappearing into the woods on foot with her parents for her first hike.

What educational programs does Reflection Riding offer?

Reflection Riding creates outdoor experiences that spark curiosity for the natural world in children and adults, both on-site on our 300 acres of wide-open space and also in classrooms and other locations around the region through our outreach program. On-site, we host three forest kindergartens, the Wauhatchie School’s headquarters, and we offer our own Forest Homeschool, which integrates academics, naturalist skills, and outdoor exploration. We offer education programs and immersive nature-based experiences for small and large groups from across the community as well as a nature playscape open to the community, so children can learn by exploring streams, forest, and wetlands.

What wildlife programs does Reflection Riding have?

Reflection Riding connects people with native wildlife to inspire a lifetime of nature-based values. Our expert staff cares for a collection of non-releasable wildlife representing 21 species and more than 40 individuals, all native to east Tennessee. We care for six of the approximately 260 remaining critically-endangered American Red Wolves, the most endangered canid in the world, and we participate in the Red Wolf Species Survival Plan with 41 partner institutions nationally. We teach people about wildlife, habitats, ecosystems, and the impact human actions have on wildlife, generally while also teaching them to enjoy time outdoors in nature.

What conservation work does Reflection Riding do?

Reflection Riding actively manages our 300-acre landscape to safeguard populations of imperiled plant and animal species. We offer a native plant nursery, open to the public, so people across the region can learn about and care for native plants in their yards and community landscapes. We partner with agencies and local governments to incorporate native plants in their outdoor projects. On-site, we teach habitat restoration workshops, offer a certificate in native plants in partnership with other local organizations, and provide hands-on volunteer opportunities to remove invasive species and restore native plants.