Ah, the yarrow is in bloom! It's a beautiful day to be out exploring the Red River Gorge and checking out the Sky Bridge with my friend Julie. She's in Lexington visiting from the UAE. Remember that adventure? Abu Dhabi and Dubai? Sun and sand? Not this year. It's back to the US for her this summer and running tests in Minnesota. But, on the bright side, we're getting to explore Kentucky a bit while she's back. |
On tap for the day:
- Sky Bridge (Trail #214), a less than a mile loop across Sky Bridge and jaunt underneath.
- Whistling Arch (Trail #234), 0.20 mile out and back
- Angel Windows (Trail #218), a 0.30 mile out and back
Sky Bridge
Julie's introduction to be the Gorge began with a short walk out to Sky Bridge, surrounded by blooming summer flowers. Which is awesome. Julie loves taking picture of flowers! Ok, ok, I do too. That explains why there are so many of them, but not why I can't identify what they are. The walk out on top of Sky Bridge is easy enough, you'll barely notice when you reach it. We were almost surprised to find ourselves on top of arch when we reached it.
Following the trail on across the bridge and down a rather steep set of curving stairs brings us to the underside of the arch. It was pretty cool. You can walk completely underneath and around the arch. But again, most of the views of the rocks were covered by trees and bushes. Someone was just going to have to deal.
Getting out from under the arch and back to the parking lot was easy enough, there was a nice set of questionable and uneven stairs to climb! Oh, Red River Gorge, how you like to drive me crazy with the uneven stairs!
Whistling Arch Trail Whistling Arch is an easy enough trail, highly traveled and worn. It did make for some nice pictures, however, like this incredible tree growing with its roots exposed. At the time we went, I felt the trail was getting over grown in places and was hard to follow. The arch itself was small and un-impressive compared to Sky Bridge. |
Speaking of trails with stuff blocking the path, Angel Windows was full of fallen tree limbs begging to be climbed over. The ledge if one miss judged the climb however, was a bit steep in places, but that didn't slow us down, much.
The windows were small, but completely accessible from the trail, allowing us to walk underneath and to look through. You could continue a bit farther past the windows to explore a bit, but the trail gets much narrower and hazardous. We went a little farther, but quickly turned back. The sky was beginning to darken and our beautiful day was beginning to look a bit like rain. I didn't want to get caught out on the trail if a thunderstorm rolled through!