Lookout Mountain’s Mountain Beautiful Trail, its formerly wide passage now a slim track covered with poison ivy, treacherous roots and rolling rocks, needs a facelift.

So the American Hiking Society is recruiting volunteers to repair the path, located near the Cravens House in the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park on Lookout Mountain.

“With gas at almost $4 a gallon, why drive to the Smokies when this is right here?” said Jeffrey Hunter, Chattanooga field organizer for the Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition, which assists the American Hiking Society on trail-building projects.

The 3 1/2-mile-long winding trail offers some of the finest views of Chattanooga, Mr. Hunter said. Built in the 1930s, it was neglected in recent decades. After the blizzard of 1993 felled several large trees, the National Park Service found it was unable to cope with repairs.

Meanwhile, visitors and runners carved a more treacherous route to Point Park, the end point of the Mountain Beautiful trail.

A crew of volunteers first tackled the trail repairs on June 7, National Trails Day, with more than 25 people participating, said Carla Hilling, volunteer coordinator for the Southeast regional office of the American Hiking Society.

A second session of work took place last week, she said. Future work sessions are set for Sept. 6 and Oct. 4, Ms. Hilling said.

Workers will chop down trees, add rock stairways, regrade sloping trailbeds and scrape away thousands of poison ivy vines, she said. Volunteers also will remove invasive species such as privet, Southern bush honeysuckle, tree-of-heaven, English ivy and Japanese grass.

Once the trail is repaired, it will connect to the Hardy and Guild trails from St. Elmo and provide a smooth walk to Point Park.

“This trail hasn’t been maintained in 30 years, and a lot of trails around here need to be repaired,” said Bruce Antman, a 55-year-old software engineer who lives near the Cravens House and participated in National Trails Day and last week’s repair session.

“I often wondered how they got maintained,” he said. “Now I’m doing anything I can to help.”

Tish Cole, an East Brainerd mother of seven, raked poison ivy last week, along with her husband Jim and children Kyle, 12, and Mary, 6. The family likes to hike, she said, so lending a hand made sense.

“One day we may come back and hike on that trail,” Mrs. Cole said.

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