Originally Posted by
korey
Both beautiful places. I've spent nearly every weekend (year round many different types of boats) on or around Cumberland for years. Slowly transitioning over from Dale Hollow over the last decade to where I'm nearly 100% Cumberland now. I've spent exactly two long weekends on Norris, so I can't say I'm the expert, but here is my novice comparison:
Both HUGE, beautiful places. Both deeply sheltered from wind by their geography. Both have easy access to provisions "in town". Both seems to have a "party culture" with a few must see places to raft up and do that. Both have clean water by 4th of July but suffer in the spring from debris - both because of being the first link in a major river chain.
Where they differ is majorly in shoreline development. Norris is covered in REALLY nice houses - most with private docks. We've rented a couple of those hoses now, and that side of it makes for a really nice vacation. On Cumberland, the Corp of Engineers controls generally all the way to the prevailing ridgeline round the lake - near zero private development on the entire lake. The property that we frequent "on" lake Cumberland is more like 500ft above the lake. Walking down the hill is a once a year thing for me (we use a Polaris Ranger 900, and it is working pretty hard with 6 people and a cooler). Either could be seen as "better" but I've come to prefer the "Cumberland way". As the owner of a gnarly wake making machine, it has been tough to figure how to do what I love (make big wakes) on Norris without completely wrecking someone's personal property! On Cumberland, you've got plenty room to do your thing without having to consider many (any) personal docks. Cumberland has the best houseboat rental fleet anywhere, and is dubbed "houseboat Capital of the World for a reason. A houseboat is THE WAY to do Cumberland. There are probably more marina's with restaurants/bars on Norris, which is cool. Cumberland has a few big events a year that we typically avoid that attract the super-power boat crowd and the raft-up/[party crowd. Norris may too, I don't know. We usually schedule our trip to another lake and VRBO thou Cumberland house on those weekends, LOL. Enough rambling, we're about to hit the road for some two wheel action at Barber in Birmingham!
Senior Member
I need to check out Cumberland for sure.
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