[1] The trail starts in northeast Alabama on the Coosa River's Weiss Lake at the Georgia-Alabama state line and ends at Fort Morgan, Alabama, where Mobile Bay meets the Gulf of Mexico.

It comprises sections of the Coosa, Tallapoosa, Alabama, and Mobile rivers.

Extending more than 630 miles, the ASRT is "the nation’s longest one-state river trail," and it was designated as a National Recreation Trail in 2009 by Dirk Kempthorne, then the United States Secretary of the Interior.

[2] It was designated a National Water Trail in 2012 by Kempthorne's successor, Ken Salazar.

[1] Because the trail's route extends through diverse topographic and climatic conditions, paddlers along the trail may encounter a wide and changing variety of flora and fauna.