Gallivanting In The Gorge

After a bit of a hiatus I have finally returned to Red River Gorge! It was kind of weird, I sneezed and three months had disappeared. Or something like that. Hadn't meant for that to happen but it sort of worked out. My last visit the 'school's out, family vacation time' crowd was starting to trickle in and nothing is better for ruining a landscape shot than a stray tourist or twenty.

Anyways, my hiatus had given them time to return to from whence they came. Armed with some better maps, I set out to explore the northeastern section of the gorge this time. First up was Gray's Arch.

For the most part, as long as you are 300 feet from any road or official trail you can camp most anywhere in the gorge. For some reason Gray's Arch is the exception to that, you're not allowed to camp within 600 feet of it. There's over 100 arches in Red River Gorge but Gray's is the only one that gets a special prohibition.

Gray's Arch was impressive but I was primarily there to see what was billed as the 'big sky' section of the park. Up until now I'd almost exclusively been shooting with a wide angle lens, while it was good for getting arches in a single frame it left much to be desired in terms of how sharp they were.

Went and hiked the Auxier Ridge trail and finally got frustrated enough I switched to my 50mm prime. The trail runs along the top of a narrow ridge with some amazing views on both sides of you. If you look closely just to the right of center in the shot above you can make out Double Arch.

It may not have been on the same level of big sky as Montana but for Kentucky this is about as good as it gets. Between the ridges and the vegetation, you generally can't see very far in the gorge so this was a welcome change of pace.

Haystack Rock is just barely visible on the center-right of the photo above. Not to be confused with Haystack Rock in Oregon. We humans have a knack for originality when it comes to naming things.

Speaking of which, this is Courthouse Rock. Not to be confused with the one in Arches National Park.

Once the leaves start changing colors I'm going to have to set up camp out here. May have some company with that I'm afraid.

Made a new friend on the hike down from Auxier Ridge. Thought I'd caught just about every sort of lizard that lived in these parts as a kid but I've never seen one that looked quite like that. Most of them are pretty skittish but this one wasn't, took time to pose for me even.

After I was finished with Auxier Ridge I didn't have the light or the energy for the other trail I'd planned for the day. Wasn't quite ready to call it a day still so I hiked back to Hidden Arch. Been to it a couple times already but always with the wide angle, wanted to see how it looked with the 50mm. Plus the trail was right next to my campsite.

Is there any other sort of cliffs? There's hardly a trailhead without one of these signs lurking about. Not sure what difference they make, cliffdiving remains a popular sport in the gorge, especially with folks from the northern side of the Ohio River.

My last day in the gorge I hiked up to Double Arch, on the opposite side of valley from Auxier Ridge. The rock formation in the photo above is where I took several of the previous shots. That knobby rock on the right is Haystack Rock again.

Climbed on top of Double Arch but the view was even more obstructed on top of it. Getting up there proved to be the easy part, getting back down was a bit more touch and go.

Wasn't enough room for the 50mm so I had to break out the wide angle again. Think that should do it for Red River Gorge for now, already plotting my return to catch the leaves changing.