Red River Gorge - Natural Bridge, Kentucky

I wonder what percentage of the population think that they have to travel to far away places to find marvelous and exciting things?  I'm not picking on people from Kentucky, but I'm using Kentucky because that's where we're going to be visiting in this blog. Nevertheless, I wonder how many Kentuckians know that they have one of the world's longest and largest cave complexes. (and it wasn't created by a coal company!) I wonder how many know that Kentucky has more than its fair share of a natural phenomena called a natural bridge.

In this post I want to take you to two of nature's beauty spots in Daniel Boone National Forest - Red River Gorge Geological Area and Natural Bridge State Park.

It all started the week of Thanksgiving, 2014.  Pamela and I had been trying for some time to get our children together for a Thanksgiving weekend.  At first we wanted to take them camping. Then we were willing to settle for a weekend anywhere.  Have you ever tried to get seven grown children, their spouses and their children together in one place?  Have you heard the saying "its like herding cats"?  We final admitted defeat.  We did have a lovely Thanksgiving with my daughter, Deirdre, and her husband, Henry, along with close friends from India, Plebita and Aseem, and their daughter. But we weren't going to waste a perfectly good, albeit cold, long weekend. Making our decision well in advance . . . . at least 48 hours (LOL) . . . . we uncovered Willy, who had already been winterized, and headed to eastern Kentucky.

We stayed at a campground called Lago Linda Hideaway about 15 miles south of Natural Bridge State Park.  It was only $20/night for a site with water and electricity. Well, the water was frozen, but that didn't bother us. The place was remote and beautiful.  We were probably the only people there who were not rock climbers. Until I talked to some of them I didn't realize that this area was a premier climbing area.

Now here's where I'm going to insert a Verizon ad.  We had suffered for most of 2014 with AT&T phones.  In Montana and the Rocky Mts. people around us with Verizon were sending photos and texts home while we couldn't get a signal with AT&T.  I had had that same experience in Shawnee National Wilderness and on my running trips to the Ozarks and Badlands.  I had taken a Verizon phone with me to the Badlands and had both Verizon and AT&T side-by-side. Verizon was the only one that would get a signal. In any case, I switched to Verizon as soon as we got home from Glacier and Pamela switched when her AT&T contract ran out in November. Here in Daniel Boone National Forest, 30 miles from the nearest cross-roads that had a name, we had a good signal.

Back to our story.  Lago Linda Hideaway is owned by a lovely lady named Linda. We had a very nice visit with her on Saturday morning (11/29). She is a widow running a hard business in an extremely remote part of eastern Kentucky, but she loves it.  She and her husband had purchased several hundred acres of forest.  He was a geologist. She is a business woman. She really enjoys the climbers who will flood a meadow behind the office with tents in the spring and early fall. She handles them like a mother, and they obviously respond.  Everything about her campground was nice. If you want to get away where you can see the stars at night, go camp at Lago Linda.

Red River Gorge Geological area has dozens of gorges, natural bridges and other magnificent natural phenomena. It was quite a bit colder than predicted.  Our first night there we actually turned on the furnace in Willy. (The first time we ever used it.) The temperature dropped into the high 20s. Thankfully we are seasoned trekkers and were prepared, as you can see from our picture. We decided to start with the Auxier Ridge Trail to Haystack Rock.  It was a 5-6 mile trek along a narrow ridge. At times you could literally stand there and look down into deep ravines on each side of you. It was a nice, well-marked trail.  Of course, there wasn't much chance of getting off the trail and lost. If you got off the trail the fall would be your greatest concern!  Pamela was a bit disappointed because she really wanted me to see the deep forest, but I assured her that I was adequately impressed and thoroughly enjoyed getting to see the great gorges.

We met several nice people on the trail. One was a family from Brazil who had recently moved to Kentucky. We took their picture and they took ours. Meeting people from around the world seems to be a habit of ours when we're in the wilderness (ref. my FB post of 1/8/2015).

Here goes a safety note: On almost every picture you see of us trekking you will notice the bright red straps of my backpack. You don't need to be many miles out in the wilderness to need help or get stranded. The backpack contains a large first-aide kit, full survival pack, a Resqlink device (GPS and satellite rescue communications), two compasses and topographic maps, and 4 liters of water. It weighs about 25 pounds, but I don't go trekking without it. In fact, it lives in the back seat of the truck.  Get out and enjoy the wilderness, but be safe.

 When we drove to the trailhead for the Auxier Ridge Trail the road crossed above this tunnel. You can't see the tunnel from the road or vise versa. Believe me, having seen it on my topo map, I tried.  At this point the tunnel is like the entrance to the geological area.

After hiking the Auxier Ridge Trail we had some lunch and took a road that went around the Red River Gorge area. Because it gets dark so soon in November and even sooner in the mountains in November, we didn't do any more long treks but stopped frequently to admire streams, outcroppings, etc. Our only exception was the 1.5 mile to Whistling Arch, one of the dozens of natural arches or bridges in the park.  If you have followed my blogs you will remember my visit to the natural bridge in western Kentucky during the spring of 2014. Kentucky seems to have more than their fair share of these marvelous and gorgeous natural phenomena. Lucky Kentucky.

On Sunday we decided that we wanted to hike up to the famous Natural Bridge before returning home. It was only about a 1.5 mile hike.  We decided to take the long way up, which requires more climbing but which goes by such natural marvels as the Balancing Stone (above).

I'm not generally one for stairs on trails. When I'm running they slow me down. When I'm trekking, they hurt my arthritis. However, in this case I was glad to make an exception. Otherwise we'd have had to get out the climbing gear. But it was well worth the effort.

 Above and below are pictures of the famous Natural Bridge, from which the park gets its name. These pictures do not do it justice but even in winter when the foliage is at a minimum there is no way to get a good picture of the entire expanse. You've just got to go see it for yourself.  Again the park service - in this case the Kentucky park service - has provided means for people with physical limitations to see this marvel of nature.

 Below are a couple of pictures of the marvelous rock formations we saw.  I actually have almost 100 pictures, but I thought you'd not want to look at all of them.   I'm not going to take the time to tell you the geological history of the area.  That's partially because I'm being lazy, but mostly because I want you to look it up for yourself so that you are enticed to go see first hand.

 If we didn't need to get Pamela home for school on Monday, we'd have spent all day on this 1.5 mile of trail studying and admiring these formations.

 Oh, I know people who follow me on FaceBook know, but I don't think I mentioned on my blog that Pamela is a biology professor. She is also a geology "nut" . . . . saying that in the best possible context. When we travel we have books for every State that tell the geological history and information about what we are seeing. I'm a topographic map "nut".  I always have both paper and electronic topographic maps with me which I have studied.

The Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier (ref. Glacier blog 1/8/15) is 50 miles long - about 30 miles from closure to closure (i.e. the gates they close when traffic is not allowed). We are probably the only people who have taken over 3 hours to drive from closure to closure.  We stopped at every pull-out on the road. Pamela would pull out her books and give me a lecture on the geology of the area and what we were seeing, and I would pull out my maps and identify all of the peaks and geological features. We're quite the pair and I'm sure people think we're a bit wacky. Maybe we are.  We're in love with nature and the wilderness. If we took that long in a truck, you can imagine how long we could have spent on this trail.  As it was, we didn't come off the trail until after noon but we were happy.

The moral of the story is, you don't have to go far from home to find, explore and admire the miracles and wonders of nature.  If you can get to southeastern Kentucky in a few hours, I would highly recommend Red River Gorge and Natural Bridge in the Daniel Boone National Forest even if you only have a weekend.  Obviously a longer stay is desirable, but if you're looking for a wonderful and exciting weekend - instead of sitting in front of the boob-tube - here's a great destination. There are comfortable accommodations at the State Park lodge if you don't want to camp.