Started at the Southern trailhead of the TMT, and hiked North, with a pause to check out the old railroad wreckage on the Artifacts trail. Took some short side trips to visit Middle and South Tiger peaks. I used the "Guide to Trails of Tiger Mountain" by William K. Longwell, Jr. as my primary guide (along with a Green Trails map); it is clear from both the guide and the great condition of the trail that thousands of hours of TLC and hard work has been bestowed on the trail by committed volunteers.
It is important to understand (if you've never hiked the South Tiger area) that it has been heavily logged since the first World War, and you're going to be seeing a lot of big tree stumps surrounded by tall, skinny second- and third-growth. If you're a tree-hugger like me, it's pretty depressing to look at all those huge tree stumps and imagine what this area would have looked like if it hadn't been logged. If wholesale devastation of old-growth bothers you, be sure to avoid the South Peak, which has been pretty comprehensively clear-cut over the last hundred years; it is a wasteland.
Sorry if this trip report is a bit of a downer; to be fair the DNR is totally up front about the fact that this area of Tiger is still a "working forest" with timber harvest profits going to finance local school districts and whatnot. In many ways this hike leads you through a sort of "museum of logging", with interesting old locomotive artifacts, a lot of carefully replanted areas, and a few shamelessly devastated areas.
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