Backpack and Beer: Red River Gorge

Showing posts with label Red River Gorge. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

On top of the stairs

9/2 - 9/3/16
Bison Way Trailhead - Red River Gorge
2016 bag nights: 18

The weather forecast for Labor Day weekend was looking fantastic (clear with highs in the low 80s). I mentioned to my wife that instead of staying home this weekend and hosting a pool party, I should be taking the kids camping. She said I should go do a one night trip by myself. No problem.

I have been wanting to try a little more astrophotography and the clear night that was forecast sounded good, so it was just a matter of figuring out where to go that would give me a clear view of the sky. I decided that the Indian Staircase area in the gorge would work, my only fear was there would be a ton of people given a weekend with nice weather. The gorge was packed, but it seemed to be mostly dayhikers when I got to the trailhead after leaving work early on Friday.

Since I was only going a couple of miles, I carried Subway for dinner along with a couple beers (Two Hearted) and my chair (Alite Monarch). It was awesome sitting at the top of the staircase waiting for the sunset.

A great place to hang for the night. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a shooting star from the comfort of the hammock.

It was a nice sunset, but I was hoping for a little bit more color in the clouds. In the end, I was glad the clouds weren't very spectacular since the stars probably would have sucked.

The stars were great, but I did not get many good photos because the trees were in the way. Being at the edge of the cliff line meant that I did not have a lot of room to move for a better angle. In the photo below, the light on the horizon is light pollution from (I think) Slade. I was really surprised at the amount of light coming from the Mountain Parkway area. I was also surprised how many airplanes fly over the gorge. A lot of the photos ended up with a light streak through the middle from an airplane flying through the 20 second exposure.

Pretty sure I will never camp at the top of the staircase again. Three guys came up about 11pm (I was still watching the stars) and then a couple more guys appeared around 1130 after I was in the hammock. Personally, I can't imagine wandering around a cliffline in the middle of the night, but I guess this type of behavior is why people die in the gorge every year.

Woke up as the sky was getting lighter, decided if I was going to get any sunrise photos I needed to drag myself out of the hammock. There were basically no clouds, so it was not an "impressive" sunrise, but the mist in the valley was pretty and it was a nice view for breakfast.

A nice morning walk up on the ridge

Someone had a little too much time on their hands :)

Lots of flowers around a clearing up on the ridge

A nice view of the Indian Staircase ridge from across the valley

A couple more random photos

All in all, a pretty good way to spend approximately 20 hours. I need to do more trips like this in the future.

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Creation Falls

Rock Bridge and Creation Falls
6/27/16

Took the kids on an "adventure", had a great time, nobody cried :)

Thursday, June 2, 2016

Grays Arch Trailhead

Thursday 5/19/16

Parked at the Greys Arch Trailhead, there were only a couple of cars in the lot, much different than the weekend before. I headed off towards Greys Arch and took a couple of the side paths before stopping for a lunch with a view.

Then Greys Arch

Then a beer and a view on Hanson's Point.

Lots of wildflowers along the trails.

Still love the Mountain Laurel

Looks like a coreopsis of some sort

might be "annual fleabane" Erigeron annuus

Yellow Stargrass?

Blackberries

Tree root and sandstone

"spikenard" Aralia racemosa ?

coreopsis?

Blueberries?

Only saw two groups of people. The first group of 6 or so college looking kids made lots of noise before I was 10 minutes down the trail, I just stayed off the trail and they never saw me. The second group was 5 guys from Cleveland that were down backpacking for a couple of days. They had a little bit of info about the area from a friend and were trying to get to the river to swim/jump off of a rock they had heard about. I showed them where they were on my phone and described the trail up to the swinging bridge and jump rock, hopefully they had a good time.

All in all, a great 5 hours in the gorge.

Friday, May 13, 2016

End of Tunnel Road (part 2)

End of Tunnel Road (part 2)

May 11 2016

I had planned on a 3 day backpacking trip earlier in the week, but I wasn't feel well. Woke up Wed morning and decided that it would be a good day for a trip to the Gorge. Without any planning, I decided to go back to the end of Tunnel Ridge Road, but check out the Auxier Ridge and Double Arch Trails. It had been a while since I had done this loop and I forgot what an awesome hike this is, it has big views from the ridges and a great stretch of trail along the creek (Auxier Branch) in between the two ridges, a little something for everyone.

All of the the mountain laurels are starting to flower and the rhododendron had buds. Found lots of other wildflowers, but I have no idea what they are. I am going to try to get back to the gorge in another week or so to see the flowers in full bloom.

Even the moss below the ridgelines had flowers.

Quaker Ladies Bluets

I had lunch and watched the birds glide above the valley between Auxier Ridge and Double Arch. The only person I saw here was a Forest Service Ranger (1st one I've ever seen on the trails).

Double Arch is right below the bird.

There had been a lot of rain the previous couple of days, so all of the depressions in the rock were filled with water. An unusual view of Raven Rock.