Ganier Ridge used to hold its shade past 10 a.m. even in August. The two steepest pitches still have stairs cut into the same spots, the same roots still cross the trail thick as forearms, but the canopy that used to carry hikers through the hottest part of the day has thinned out, and anyone who has walked that climb regularly this summer has noticed. The lake at the bottom hasn't moved. The trail hasn't been rerouted. What changed sits overhead, and most of it changed in about six weeks this past February.
For a lot of Green Hills households, Radnor Lake isn't a destination so much as a habit, five minutes south on Otter Creek Road, close enough to fold into a Tuesday evening or a Saturday morning without planning around it. That familiarity is exactly why this year is worth paying attention to. The park looks close to unchanged in every photo taken from the dam or the observation deck. On the ground, three things happened in the past several months that add up to a genuinely different walk than the one regulars remember from last year, and understanding how they connect says more about the park's actual condition than any single fact on its own.
Six Weeks That Rewrote The Canopy
In early February 2026, an ice storm moved through Middle Tennessee and brought down what park staff described as hundreds of trees on the first day alone, a number that quadrupled by the second as high winds finished off an already icy canopy. Radnor Lake closed to the public indefinitely. Power was knocked out to sections of the park, including the Barbara J. Mapp Aviary Education Center, home to the park's non-releasable birds of prey, and restoring it became one of the early priorities of the cleanup.
"Nature is hard at times," said Park Manager Steve Ward, describing the damage in the days after the storm.
Initial estimates suggested the park might not reopen until March. Instead, the nonprofit Friends of Radnor Lake put out a call for 240 volunteers across six planned workdays, offering tools, meals, and a thank-you shirt in exchange for three-hour shifts hauling debris, clearing downed fence rail, and rehabilitating more than seven miles of trail and over two miles of Otter Creek Road by hand in stretches where machinery couldn't reach. The first documented workday drew 45 volunteers. The next drew 33. Some of the mulch spread on the Lake Trail and Access Trail came through the park's Trees to Trails program, donated by a local tree company. The park reopened at 1 p.m. the following Monday, about 60 days ahead of the original timeline.
The trails are all back, but the shade is not, at least not yet. Hikers on Ganier Ridge and South Cove this summer have been describing a hotter, more exposed climb than the one they remember, which is worth knowing before you plan a midday walk this month. Early morning is doing more work than it used to.
Nine Acres In Brentwood
While that recovery was happening inside the park's existing footprint, a much longer-running project was moving forward on land that isn't inside the boundary yet at all. The Harris Ridge Trail Project is a partnership more than 20 years in the making between Friends of Radnor Lake, the Harris family, and the State of Tennessee, and around the turn of this year it closed on nine additional acres at the busy intersection of Franklin Road and Old Hickory Boulevard in Brentwood, a deal that took roughly $8 million in combined funding to reach. One of the final pieces, a parcel connecting the new acreage to Old Hickory Boulevard known internally as the Mantra Tract, only came up for sale in 2024.
The plan, once built out, is a 2.5 to 3.5-mile one-way trail running from a new trailhead near that Brentwood intersection all the way to the existing trail system inside the park. Ward has described it as a hike that starts at a busy intersection and ends within three miles at one of the quietest spots in the city. Plans call for a roughly one-acre trailhead lot with space for about 100 cars and a pedestrian bridge over Lakemont Drive.
None of that gets built until the new parcel is cleared. Trash, invasive plants, and a handful of dilapidated houses are still slated for removal, work the park's own materials describe as ongoing through this year. And while state officials have voiced hope for a 2026 opening, the project's own page still lists volunteer trail-building work continuing into 2027, so there's no confirmed opening date as of this August. If you walk Radnor Lake from the Green Hills side, you'll likely hear about the new entrance well before you can actually use it.
Here's what that adds up to for anyone walking the park regularly right now:
- Different because of weather, not construction: less shade on Ganier Ridge and South Cove, a direct result of February's storm damage.
- Coming, but not open: a second, larger entrance under construction from the Brentwood side, with cleanup and trail-building still underway and no confirmed 2026 opening.
- Unchanged: the 85-acre lake itself, and the wildlife around it. The same protective instinct that pushed a 2025 road repair project back to avoid disturbing nesting eagles is still the operating rule here.
The Fundraiser Quietly Paying For Both
Neither the storm response nor the ridge expansion happens without money, and a good share of it traces back to an event most Green Hills residents drive past without a second look. The Radnor Lake Art Show has an online continuation running July 27 through August 27 this year, which means there's still time to see it before it closes. Last year's in-person show was the largest in the event's history, with 86 artists showing 267 original paintings inspired by the park. 192 of those paintings sold, generating $112,140 that went directly back into land acquisition, trail work, and the same volunteer infrastructure that cleared Otter Creek Road in February.
That's the thread connecting all three stories. An art show funds the acreage. The acreage needs volunteers to clear it. The volunteers are recruited through the same nonprofit that spent six weeks clearing storm debris earlier this year. Buy a painting this month, and you're funding a trail that likely won't open until next year.
What This Means If You Walk There This Month
None of this shows up on the park's official trail map, which still looks the way it has for years. But the walk itself has moved more in the past six months than it had in the previous several years combined. If you're heading out from Green Hills this August, plan around less shade than you're used to on the ridge sections. If you're curious about the future entrance, the Franklin Road and Old Hickory corner is visible from the road, though there's nothing to walk yet. And if the art show catches your eye before it closes, it's one of the more direct ways a Green Hills household ends up owning a small piece of the park's next chapter.
Green Hills residents who notice a thinner tree line on a familiar trail tend to be the same people who notice small shifts in their own street or block. If you're weighing a move within the neighborhood, or just want a second opinion on what your part of Green Hills is actually worth this year, Stephanie Lowe is happy to talk it through. Schedule a consultation whenever the timing makes sense.
