Bays Mountain Park facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Bays Mountain Park & Planetarium
Location	Kingsport, Tennessee
Area	3,750 acres (15.2 km2)
Created	1965
Operated by	City of Kingsport
Open	Year Around

Observatory at night, October 2016

Bays Mountain Park is a huge nature park and planetarium in Kingsport, Tennessee. It covers 3,750 acres, which is like having over 2,800 football fields! The park opened in 1971 and is a fantastic place to explore nature. It has a big lake, lots of hiking trails, a special nature center, and even homes for wild animals. It is the largest city-owned park in Tennessee.

Discovering Bays Mountain Park

Bays Mountain Park is a special place for nature lovers. It sits on Bays Mountain and offers many ways to learn and have fun outdoors. The park is home to a 44-acre lake, which was built in 1917. This lake used to be the main source of drinking water for Kingsport. However, as the city grew, it needed more water. By 1944, the city started getting its water from the South Fork of the Holston River instead.

Animals and Nature at the Park

The park has a wonderful nature center where you can learn about local wildlife. You can see many native animals up close in their outdoor habitats. These include cool creatures like bobcats and gray wolves. There is also a special center for raptors, which are birds of prey like hawks and owls. You can also visit the herpetarium to see reptiles and amphibians.

Bays Mountain is famous for its beautiful forests. These forests are full of oak and pine trees. You can find many native plants here, such as sugar maple, tulip poplar, and white oak trees. It is a great place to see nature thriving.

Fun Activities for Everyone

There are so many exciting things to do at Bays Mountain Park!

• You can take an educational pontoon boat ride on the Bays Mountain Reservoir. This ride is called the Barge Ride.
• The park has over 40 miles of hiking trails for you to explore.
• You can try orienteering, which is like a treasure hunt using a map and compass.
• If you love biking, there are great mountain biking trails.
• You can also go camping and fishing in certain areas.
• Visit the Steadman Heritage Farmstead Museum. This museum shows what farm life was like in the 1800s.

In 2017, the park added the Pavilion at Lily Pad Cove. This is a lovely spot for events and special gatherings. To make visiting easier, 75 extra parking spots were added in 2019.

The Wolves of Bays Mountain

Since 1992, Bays Mountain Park has been a home for gray wolves. These amazing animals live in a pack, just like they would in the wild. The current pack has eight wolves. Four of them are male, and four are female. Seven of these wolves arrived at the park in 2014 and 2015. The eighth wolf has been there since 2007, making her the oldest wolf in the park's history.

This park is one of the few places where you can see a real wolf pack in action. You can observe how they interact and behave together. Most other places only have two or three wolves, so seeing a full pack is a special experience.

External links

• Bays Mountain Park website