The Volunteers Who Reopened Radnor Lake Are Now Building a Home for an Eagle

Last winter on the Gainer Ridge Trail, Ranger Paul Schauer and a colleague found two large trees tangled together and leaning over the path. NewsChannel 5 reported that the only safe way to bring them down meant cutting a third tree. "That is an option. I don't know if I love the option, but it is an option," Schauer said. He made the cuts while volunteers watched, and it worked.

That scene from the weeks after Ice Storm Fern says a lot about how Radnor Lake works now. Rangers took the dangerous jobs. Hundreds of unpaid neighbors handled the rest. Nine months on, the same arrangement is finishing the last piece of storm repair, a flighted enclosure at the Barbara J. Mapp Aviary for a bald eagle named Phoenix. The pace of the park's next big project will depend on it too.

Sixty days ahead of the first estimate

Ice Storm Fern hit on January 23, 2026. Friends of Radnor Lake counts seven miles of blocked trail and thousands of downed trees. In early February, Park Manager Steve Ward told NewsChannel 5 he guessed there were about 250 trees down on a single road. He told WKRN that he hadn't seen damage like it since the 2010 flood.

Crews started running chainsaws on January 24. Two or three days after the storm, Ward's first estimate put reopening at May 1. The gates actually opened on Monday, March 2, nearly 60 days early. That happened because park staff worked with Friends of Radnor Lake to organize more than 300 volunteers across nine days of cleanup. One volunteer described crews of 40 to 50 people at a time showing up with their own tools to rake and clear the smaller timber.

Ward also described the debris as a kind of investment in the park's wildlife:

"That's food source and habitat for those birds. Things like small mammals, other things, have new habitats to live in and raise their young. So we'll probably see some population increases with some of our wildlife."

He said that to NewsChannel 5 at the reopening. The station also reported the park's plan to pause recovery work through spring and then turn some of the hardest-hit areas into native grassland that summer, partly to support monarch butterflies. If the Lake Trail looks more open in places than it did a year ago, that's the reason.

The enclosure the storm reached

During the storm, the birds of prey were safe. Staff moved the special-needs birds inside the aviary building and rode out the storm there, as WKRN reported. The buildings came through less well. "The flighted aviary was damaged from the ice storm," Ward told NewsChannel 5 in late September.

The repair also had to happen before a new bird could arrive. An injured female bald eagle named Phoenix, now outside Knoxville, was headed for euthanasia until U.S. wildlife officials reversed the decision. Radnor agreed to take her. She'll share the flighted enclosure with one of the eagles already living there, so it had to be rebuilt first. Volunteers spent months zip-tying netting, digging, and building enrichment perches. "We have to make sure the facility is safe and we can care for this bird at a very high standard," Ward said.

Part of that crew came from Nissan. Radnor Lake received a Nissan Neighbors Grant from the Nissan Foundation to support its volunteer program, and Nissan volunteers helped prepare the enclosure. On September 28, Friends of Radnor Lake said the renovation was nearly done. The enclosure permit still needed approval and some paperwork remained after that. If everything goes as expected, she should arrive by the end of the year.

When she arrives, she gives up her name. Raptors at Radnor are known by number. Friends of Radnor Lake identifies the Golden Eagle as Eagle #1, and a 2017 Friends post refers to the bald eagle that came later as #2. Phoenix will be Eagle Number 3, and her new job is park ambassador. "We want people to come and see them, engage with people on why bald eagles are so important to our ecosystem, their national symbol," Ward said.

Every bird at the aviary is there for the same reason. Each one has an injury that would keep it from surviving in the wild. The center opened in 2015 and carries the name of Barbara J. Mapp, who loved animals and backed animal causes throughout her life. Friends of Radnor Lake describes the foundation in her name as her legacy.

Saturdays at the aviary before she arrives

Tennessee State Parks lists Saturday open houses at the aviary from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on November 7, 14 and 21. The first one is Saturday, November 7. Here's what the state park listing spells out:

• Getting there: The center is a three-quarter-mile hike from the East Parking Area and a mile and a quarter from the West Parking Area at the Walter Criley Visitor Center.
• What you'll see: A self-guided walk along a 550-foot boardwalk past a Great Horned Owl, a Red-tailed Hawk, a Black Vulture, a Golden Eagle and the resident bald eagles. Snakes and turtles live inside the Education Center, which also houses the Ann Tarbell Library.
• Registration: None needed. All ages are welcome.
• Dogs: Not allowed on the boardwalk because they stress the birds. They're welcome inside the Education Center.
• Glove programs: These happen only when visitor numbers let rangers run them. They're skipped when the temperature is below 30 degrees or above 90, so a cold November morning may mean you only walk the boardwalk.

The park's own page warns that marked parking spaces fill quickly. It also lists the EV chargers as temporarily unavailable while upgrades are pending, with no date for when they'll be back. If your Saturday plan counts on topping up a battery at Otter Creek Road, plan for something else.

The trail that needs the most hands

The volunteers who cleared the storm debris and rebuilt the enclosure have another job lined up, and it's the biggest of the three. Friends of Radnor Lake, the Harris family and the State of Tennessee have spent more than 20 years putting together a corridor of land for the Harris Ridge Trail. When it's done, it will run 3.5 miles or more from Otter Creek Road, near the east end of the Lake Trail, to a new trailhead and parking lot at the northwest corner of Old Hickory Boulevard and Franklin Road in Brentwood.

The partners acquired 89 acres between 2011 and 2017. In 2024 they bought the Mantra Tract with help from a federal grant, a family foundation and private donors, which secured the connection to Old Hickory Boulevard. The remaining work, as listed in the project plan, includes trash cleanup, invasive plant removal, trail design and construction, a bridge over Lakemont Drive, a 100-car parking area, and three new staff positions to run the trail.

Friends of Radnor Lake calls it a strenuous trail built to National Trail Standards on a steep ridge, and says it will take many hours of labor. Volunteer projects in 2026 and 2027 include Harris Ridge work. As of the project page's last update in December 2025, the state had not added staff for the trail. Park staff were fitting the work in around their duties to the roughly 2 million people who visit Radnor every year. It's a long-range plan, not something under construction now, and its timeline depends on how many volunteer hours show up.

That volunteer pace showed up again on September 18. Twenty-two volunteers joined park staff on the South Lake and South Cove trails and moved rock by wheelbarrow over a three-hour afternoon shift. The money is coming in too. On October 18, Radnor in the Round brought songwriters including Will Robinson, Phil Vassar, Marv Green, Marcus Hummon, Karen Staley and Keith Thomas to Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory. The event sold out in two weeks and raised $101,748 for Friends of Radnor Lake. That beat both the $100,000 goal for the year and last year's record.

All of this happens on the same few miles of shoreline and ridge. The help that reopened the gates in March also netted a flight cage this summer, and it will be the main labor on Harris Ridge. Once her permit clears, Eagle Number 3 will move into an enclosure built largely by volunteers.

At Custer Rowland, we follow the places that shape daily life in Oak Hill and Forest Hills as closely as we follow the market. If you'd like a clear read on what your home is worth near Radnor Lake, request your home valuation and we'll walk you through it.