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
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.
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.
