Red River Gorge
After four days of Seattle-like weather, the Jablet, Emmy and I decided to take advantage of the gorgeous day that was yesterday and take our first trip to Red River Gorge. The Gorge, part of the Daniel Boone National Forest, is approximately 75 miles outside of Lexington and is best known as a rock climber’s paradise, but we just went there to hike. After wandering around lost for a while, we finally found the trailhead to Wildcat trail, a 5.4 mile loop trail that descends through the forest down to and around a large stream, and then rapidly ascends back toward the trailhead. A great, semi-strenuous hike that took a little over 3 hours (including a break at the stream); we saw no other people on this hike—exactly what we needed. Readers, if you have any favorite hiking trails in the Gorge, please post them here. Click thumbnails for enlarged images (the leaf looks pretty neat when the full image is viewed, but the file is over 1MB).
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:04 pm
Do you know what the plant pictured above is called? Any information is appreciated. Thanx!
March 7th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
The large leaf in the photo is a type of magnolia. Be sure to visit the Gladie Center on 715. Ranger Don Fig is a wonderful source of information on trails and plant life.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:05 pm
The best trails that I remember in Red River Gorge were:
Auxier Ridge out to Haystack and Courthouse rock - Easy hike with excellent vistas and lots of rockhouses to camp in. Bring water, no streams on ridge.
Cloudsplitter - Strenuous straight up hike to a 360 degree view of the entire gorge. (one of the highest spots in the gorge)
Indian Staircase loop - Medium hike up ancient Indian Staircase worn into side of a cliff. Well worth the battered nerves if your a little anxious at heights, this trail meanders through a valley and then up the staircase. Remember that the natives used to take cattle up the staircase as you are scrambling from rock to rock on the way up. Those were some amazing Cows!! The trail splits before the ascent and the trip over to what I believe was Hidden Arch is also a splendid ridge line. See if you can find the shortcut back to the road, if you go over this way.
Happy hiking.