Backpack and Beer: Douglas Trail

4/20/18 Dayhike in Red River Gorge
7/1 - 7/2/18 Overnight with my 5 year old (2018 bag nights: 13)
8/22/18 Dayhike
Osbourne Bend Trailhead

4/20/18
I started at the Osbourne Bend Trailhead without any solid idea of where I was heading. I was thinking about the Osbourne Bend Trail since I had never hiked it, but there were a lot of cars in the small parking lot and I heard idiots yelling at each other up on the ridge. So, I headed out the Douglas Trail with the idea of checking out the Wall of Denial and Eagles Point and then maybe taking the old fire road to connect with the Osbourne Bend Trail. In the end, that is basically what I did, but I skipped the Wall of Denial.

The wildflowers are appearing which was nice since I was disappointed a couple weeks earlier by the lack of flowers.

I took my time poking around and was surprised when I got near Clifty Creek to run across a solo camper who had a fire going at 11am. I asked if he had been out the night before and he said no, but he had friends meeting him the next day. Seems kind of boring to sit around a campfire by yourself all day, but whatever makes him happy.

In my poking around, I stumbled across this trickle of a waterfall off the trail. I'm going to try to check it out after we get a lot of rain.

I then headed towards Eagles Point. It had been a couple of years since I had climbed to the top to enjoy the view. I passed a group of people up on the ridge who were leaving the overlook and I had it all to myself for about 1/2 hour before I headed to the top of the ridge and the old fire road and then down the Osbourne Bend Trail to my car.

So happy that spring has finally arrived.

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7/1 - 7/2/18
A couple months later the Gorge looks very different. I dropped my oldest off at camp and took my youngest (just turned 5) on her first backpacking trip. I had always thought that the intersection of Clifty Creek and the Red River would make a good kids campsite.

The Red River was very silty, so she was not interested in swimming ...

... but, she had fun playing in the sand and stacking rocks.

Right near the fire ring was an interesting looking log. My kids are obsessed with Greek mythology, so she declared that this was Pegasus. She is holding the head and she said the wings were swept back behind :)

It rained a little bit in the evening, but I had a small tarp, so we were dry for dinner. We read a story and she went to bed while I enjoyed the view.

Evidently there had been a bit of rain further upstream because the river rose quite a bit overnight. She was very disappointed to see her stack of rocks was under water.

We had breakfast and packed up to head back to the car. Along the way we both enjoyed the Rhododendron blooms.

We both had a great time in the woods.

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8/22/18
And another dayhike in the Gorge. This time is has been a couple months since I have hiked here and I decided that this would be a good day to creek hike up Clifty Creek to see what I find. So, back to the Douglas Trail. I ended up going up the creek a little bit, but it was turning into a bit of a bushwack and I had visions of slipping and soaking my camera/lens, so I decided to postpone that for another day.

Starting out, the sky looks a little ugly, but it is not too hot, so hopefully a good hiking day.