Kentucky Day 2

Ashley, Mike snd I

9/1/19. 5.8 miles hiking approx 500 driving miles

No real plan today. Going to head back into the Red River Gorge. Ashley says we should go to Cumberland Falls. So we did. It’s a long way from Lexington. I didn’t know but it’s a big tourist area with hotel, camping, cabins, restaurant, pool etc.

We parked put on our backpacks and walked all of 5 minutes to the falls! It was a beauty they call Niagara Falls of the South. Personally I think Rainbow Falls in Gorges State park NC deserves this title but because Cumberland Falls is wider (not Higher) it gets it.

The Falls was beautiful complete with two rainbows. There are a couple of observation areas complete with tons of people! I feel like a bit of a hypocrite though because we try to avoid places like this at all cost! It was very nice but there wasn’t any hiking here so we went back to the car. There is a trail across the river to a Falls. We went by the trail head. No parking of course so we headed to an arch.

We followed the GPS to Natural Arch. It had a 1.5 mile trail. We drove 15 miles to a park and followed the overlook trail. It was short.

There was a trail but we didn’t follow it. Mike picked out Dog Slaughter Falls. We turned around and drove 25 miles back toward Cumberland Falls. The trail head was 3 miles down a dirt road. There were a bunch of cars here. We took off down a nice shaded trail along the river. It was just over a mile to the falls.

We arrive above the falls and can see people down below. A couple of steep switch backs and we are at the falls. I have no idea about the name. I googled it and it said it was rumored to be where people drowned their unwanted pets. 🤦‍♀️ yikes!

This pic below is top view.

There wasn’t to much water. I’ve seen pictures where it’s a wider waterfall.

We took the hike back to the car. I still did not have my arch fix so made the decision to go to Sky Bridge Arch back up in the Red River Gorge. 96 miles!!! It was so worth it!

The road to it goes right past Natural Bridge. Another popular arch with camping, cabins and restaurants. After this the road goes through a one lane tunnel. Crazy. When we reached the other side there were plenty of people waiting to get through.

The road winds up and around for about 10 miles past lots of trailheads. We finally arrive at Sky Bridge trail head. It’s a short walk to the arch. The loop is less than 1 mile. First thing is walking across the arch. I went down first to get a pic of Ashley and Mike above.

They are up in the left corner.

They followed the trail down to me below the arch it was awesome.

We followed the loop back to the parking area. It’s now about 7:30 pm.

Kentucky has over 100 natural arch’s. There is so much more to explore here. We ran out of time mostly due to my poor planning but we still got to see a lot! Kentucky is a beautiful place.

We headed back following the road. We did not go toward the one lane tunnel we went the other direction which goes right past where we turned yesterday to go to Courthouse Rock. It was 70 miles back to Lexington.

Ashley and I had pizza on the brain! We called in at Mad Mushroom in Lexington. We ordered a giant 20 inch pepperoni, antipasto salad and breadsticks. We got back to her house just before 9 pm. Time to eat! It was super good!