A Year in the Red River Gorge

I have done a lot of day hiking in the Red River Gorge in the last couple of years (about 35 days in the last 15ish months). I owe a lot of inspiration for the following photos and the day hiking to this post about waterfalls in the Red River Gorge on KYWilderness.com. It encouraged me to get way off the trail to see what I could find. I started out posting individual trip reports for each day and then quickly fell behind. It became harder to process photos and then post them as the number of photos started to increase, in other words, I started to procrastinate. I managed to stay on top of backpacking trip reports but always had this huge backlog of day hiking photos to deal with. 

For the last couple of months I have had this post (Ode to Delicate Arch) from BackCountryPost.com as blogging inspiration. I've have never seen Delicate Arch in person (it's in Utah), but I've seen lots of photos. It is a very popular place full of tourists. I read this post a couple years ago and immediately thought of the RRG, very popular, very crowded, full of tourists. But still an amazing place with lots to be grateful for, "the gorge" is a special place.

Note: the vast majority of these photos were taken from non-official or non-existent trails. 

And so, without further ado... 
A Year (plus a little bit more) in the Red River Gorge 

September 2018

The gorge has lots of flowers for most of the year ...

... and there are always creeks somewhere nearby ...

... there are also a lot of different fungi ...

... and animals ...

... and amazing views ...

... more animal life (only seen one of these before) ...

... lots of these floating around...

... along with some other fungi ...

... sometimes there are clouds and fog ...

... but the views are still amazing ...

... and if you know where to look, there is often a waterfall just around the corner ...

... and that is just a couple different day hikes in September. There will be less commentary from now on.

October 2018

Sandstone and time makes for wonderful patterns.

You are going to see this outcropping a couple more times.

January 2019

Frozen puddles sometimes make interesting patterns.

We haven't seen an arch until now, but the gorge is packed with them. I like waterfalls better.

Sometimes the creeks freeze in interesting ways.

February 2019

The next couple photos are from Natural Bridge State Park, right next door to the RRG, and same type of terrain, i.e. views ...

... arches ...

... and waterfalls...

... as well as interesting patterns in the sandstone.

Back to the gorge and more bushwacking to find waterfalls.

This one is right off an official trail (i.e. very easy to get to) ...

... and if it has been raining, you sometimes get a double waterfall.

Back on unofficial trails, this one is about 40 feet tall and the rockhouse is huge with a sand covered floor. It made me laugh out loud when I found it because it is so amazing.

You have to work to find this double waterfall, no trail at all.

March 2019

I caught a glimpse of an otter in a tributary of the Red River a couple years ago, but it disappeared very quickly. This one (and a friend) were in the Red River. The friend disappeared immediately, but this guy stuck around for a bit. I wasn't very close to him, this is zoomed in and then heavily cropped. I wish I saw these more often.

This is a little waterfall that falls through a hole in the rock, not at all like the more common pour over the ledge type.

April 2019

The salamanders usually move too quickly to get a photo, I think the cold water might have slowed him down a bit.

This waterfall involved a lot of bushwacking to get to, but was worth it.

Spring flowers begin to appear ...

... and the butterflies come back.

I found a spot that is covered with trilliums, the whole path is lined with them for about 1/2 mile.

There are also irises to be found.

May 2019

June 2019

I don't usually camp in the gorge (too crowded), but the sunsets can be great.

Mountain Laurel are very pretty if you catch them at the height of bloom time. This was about a week too late.

Grays Arch with my son for perspective, this is an official trail so it is easy to get to.

The gorge is full of rhododendron which makes bushwacking very tedious, but for about a month, the blooms are very pretty.

Umbrella Magnolia flower head. I'm rarely in the gorge at the height of summer so I've never seen them bloom.

July 2019

Sometimes the butterflies clump together in what appears to be a random spot

Some of the creeks have sandy bottoms ...

... with interesting patterns.

This fungus was about the size of my pinky fingernail.

August 2019

September 2019

I only hiked in the gorge once when my sister came to visit and I did not take any photos

October 2019

Fall is coming and the leaves are beginning to change

Grays Arch again

Grays Arch from below

November 2019

December 2019

This time the patterns come from dripping water

A couple of months ago, I was getting pretty tired of the gorge since I have hiked here so often. Putting these photos together has shown me what a great place it is and how lucky I am to have it so close to home.  

1st bike ride

11/15/19

I got a bike (a Surly Bridge Club) about a month ago and finally got a chance to really ride it besides around the neighborhood with the kids.

The weather forecast looked great and I was able to escape from the office, so I headed to the Red River Gorge, specifically Indian Creek Road. This is a longish gravel road that dead ends, so there is not a lot of traffic. I did some hiking here last winter when the road was closed and thought this would be a good first ride.

I ended up riding almost 14 miles with some photo breaks along the way. I find it interesting that I can hike 15 miles and feel fine, but biking, which uses the same muscles, really wore out my legs. By the end, I was happy to be back at the car.

I'm already planning out my next ride.

Mt Rogers NRA

Trailhead: Elk Garden
Nov 1 - 4 (3 nights)
2019 bag nights: 22
animals: wild ponies, turkeys, 1 fox, 1 bear


The weather forecast looked perfect for 3 nights in the Virginia Highlands, but I was a little nervous about "blustery".

I dropped the kids off at school and headed to SW Virginia and the Elk Garden Trailhead. After a 5 hour drive I saw something like below. You can see the trailhead/road in in the middle. Evidently the rainy weather that blew through KY also went through VA. It was interesting driving up to the trailhead because there was a very distinct freeze line in the trees. At the trailhead, all the trees were covered in blown snow, very pretty. The thermometer in my car said 36 degrees.

I started hiking up the Appalachian Trail and soon was into the trees. The sun was melting the snow pretty quickly and the wind was blowing it around a bit, but it was very pretty. I did not take a lot of photos through here because I did not want my camera to get wet from the dripping snow/water.

One stretch of the trail, the sun was hitting the snow covered branches so it looked like they were glowing. The photo doesn't really capture the full effect, but I still like it.

After about 2 hours of easy hiking I was back out of the trees and saw the first ponies. I also had a decision to make. One camp possibility was to stay on Brier Ridge with the ponies and great views even though it was only about 3pm. The other possibility was to keep hiking for a couple hours and hope for views (and finding water up high). I decided to be lazy and hang out with the ponies and wait for sunset.

So I found a nice spot a little out of the wind with easy access to water and then wandered around a bit talking to wild ponies and waited for dinner time and the sunset.

As it got closer to sunset time, I happened to look down the hill and saw a fox who was heading up the hill and then noticed me and immediately froze and then ducked back into the trees. I don't think I have seen a fox while backpacking before.

Waiting for the sunset was worth it, but it started to get cold once the sun went down.

As it got dark, I started hearing voices. A small group had set up camp just over the ridge. I was a little disappointed that my illusion of solitude was destroyed, but they weren't to loud. And then I heard the harmonica and thought I might have to go kill them. Thankfully, it was only a couple notes and then nothing else, so no killing tonight :)

Unfortunately, the moon was almost first quarter and was right over the middle of the Milky Way, so I knew astrophotography wasn't really in the cards. There also weren't any clouds making for awesome sunsets or star trails. So, I took some photos, enjoyed the stars and just to see what happened, left my camera set to take some star trails and crawled into bed to escape the wind.

First quarter moon and the Milky Way

30 minute exposure just to see what happens

I woke up to a beautiful day and a nice sunrise.

Panorama from 5 photos. I'm very glad I stayed here to wake up to this view.

I packed up and headed down the Cabin Ridge Trail to intersect with the VA Highlands Trail and then reconnect with the AT. It wasn't until I got on the AT and close to the state park that I started to run into dayhikers.

I was thinking about lunch as I got up near Wilburn Ridge. I'm not sure why I looked when I did, but all of a sudden I saw a bear cruising up the side of the ridge heading sort of towards me. He obviously did not see me, so I was hopeful for a decent photo, but I had a 21mm lens on my camera. I kneeled down and quickly switched to my longest lens (a 65mm) and hoped the bear would come sort of towards me. Unfortunately, he continued up through the brush and the best photo I got was of his back/butt mixed in the brush. He never noticed I was there and I never figured out why he was in such a hurry.

On to more hiking, I continued on the AT and into the State Park and then past all the day hikers.

Pony on the AT

I continued on the AT and out onto Stone Mountain and another view. This was the night with the "blustery" forecast, but I wanted to see stars again. In retrospect, I should have camped down in the trees and out of the wind. I managed to find a small flat spot sheltered by a large group of rocks, but the wind was blowing a constant 20 MPH and gusts were probably about 40 MPH and the overnight low was about 25 degrees, In other words, it was too cold to enjoy the stars.

I took a couple photos facing north ...

... and then set my camera up for more star trails. I was in bed reading when I realized I had not adjusted the aperture for a 1 hour photo, but it was too windy for me to care.

Still a decent photo.

After sleeping like crap because of the wind, I woke up to another beautiful, but windy, day.

I headed down the trail to the Scales (where they used to weigh cattle) ...

... and then continued on the Crest Trail, where I found more ponies.

It was about 2pm and I had another decision to make for campsites. I could stay near Wilburn Ridge (near where I saw the bear), with easy access to water and great views. Or I could go back to Brier Ridge and the first night's campsite with great views and easy water.

I decided to stay where I was since I was only a couple hours from the trailhead. I could poke around, relax a bit and had a ton of time to find some firewood for my first solo campfire since March. So I read a bit, explored a bit, and generally relaxed a lot and waited for sunset time and stars.

View from my front porch, note the fire on the left near my camp chair that was really being used for the first time this trip.

Nice sunset

Trees reflecting the campfire with the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy on the right

I woke up about a half hour before sunrise, but really did not want to get out of bed. I managed to take a couple photos by sticking my arm/camera out the tent and aiming in an appropriate direction. I'm kind of pleased how well this came out given the half-assed approach :)

I packed up and headed towards the car. Not a many photos today, but I found a shallow creek area with some interesting ice patterns, so one last photo to finish the trip.

In the end, I only hiked about 24 miles over 4 days/3 nights, but other than the wind on the second night, had a great trip. I usually like hiking more, but it was very relaxing to just sit and wait for the sunset and stars. I probably need to do more trips like this in the future.