Sheltowee Trace- Day 9- Lawful Evil

  You've seen those matrices of character motivations, right? I think at today's beginning we were probably Lawful Evil-- at best Chaotic Good.

We got off to a great start crossing the Red River again- this time on a nice pedestrian bridge.

Started up a 450-foot climb past Balanced Rock.

Uh-oh. Most of the climb is supposed to be up a stairway that goes to the top of the rock cliffs. Actually, this sign was at the other end. The one on this end said "Closed to Thru-Hiking." Now what?

First we tried a volunteer pathway that went along the base of the cliff to the left. It continued for almost a half mile until it ended. There was some scrambling involved, but it seemed promising until it didn't. With the electronic maps we knew exactly where we were and thought if we could get to a saddle point where there was a break in the cliff we could get up to the trail we wanted. But the vegetation got thick and unwelcoming so we abandoned that idea and went all the way back to the stairway.

Then we went back down lower (a hiker never wants to give up elevation gained) and tried to bushwhack the other direction to find the red line on the FarOut map. Well, we got ourselves on the line, but there wasn't even a volunteer trail and it was just going to take us back along the same edge of the cliffs.

Bill read some of the comments in the FarOut app and they all said some variation of "just take the closed trail." So we became evil lawbreakers and went over the barrier. Needed to get up there somehow!

Well, nobody said it was going to be easy! We finally made it to the top. Only took us about 2 miles of hiking and an hour-and-a-half to cover this mile of trail!

But once we were at the top we joined the Sand Gap Trail- an easy ridge walk. This took us over the top of Whites Branch Arch. So we didn't see the arch, but this has to be the top of it, called The Narrows.

That became an ATV trail, but it wasn't all torn up so easy walking. Then we joined roads for the rest of the day and came down off the ridge. Road walks give you a chance to use your imagination. This looked like a horse coming out to meet us.

And we found a big stone frog staring at us with his front feet tucked under him.

One thing that surprised us was how high up in the hiils there was evidence of farming with fences and gates. These goats do seem like a better choice than cows might be.

Another fun find was this praying mantis. I don't think I've ever seen one quite this color, but apparently they can turn gray when molting.

Once we got up to the top of the bluff, the hiking for the rest of the day was easy. We especially liked the Sand Gap Trail part.

Miles walked in 2026: 423.6
Miles hiked on Sheltowee Trace: 96.9

Sheltowee Trace, KY. Natural Bridge TH to Combs Cemetery Rd, and some bushwhacking. 13.4 miles (about 1 mile not ST)

See Day Off- SkyBridge

Day Off- SkyBridge

 Today was a day off... well from long hiking. There wasn't much about it that was restful. More on that momentarily. But we started out on what we thought would be a short, easy trek that Diane could participate in. This is the trail to SkyBridge Arch. It was one of my favorite arches and the loop trail past it is only 0.7 mile.

The trail you see above is actually the top of the arch. Diane made it out to there.

From that point you can see the whole span of the central Red River gorge. This is Revenuer's Rock that we could also see from Hansen's Point when Marie and I were here before.

But Bill and I did the whole loop to go down beside SkyBridge Arch. It's truly spectacular. Yes, the other pictures are up on top of that arch.

Most of the rest of the day was spent playing campground roulette. The primitive campsite I had chosen to go to next turned out to be a little too primitive. Getting down the road to it was so bad that the travel time to use the site (with no amenities) just wasn't worth it. Cell service here is so bad that communications are a real problem. But we now have the next two sites reserved, and perhaps a refund for the snafu when we checked in at the place we are now. We ate one meal out.

Not very restful, but I crossed off several things from the to-do list. The serious rain never materialized, but the weather for the next week looks very good. Tomorrow we walk the trail.

Miles walked in 2026: 411.1

SkyBridge Loop Trail, Red River Gorge, KY. 0.7 mile

See Sheltowee Trace- Day 8- Magical

Sheltowee Trace- Day 8- Magical

 Our first challenge for the day was to cross the Red River. There is a high water route that is longer, but there is so little water it really wasn't any big deal. This was the deepest it got where we chose to cross.

There used to be a nice suspension bridge for the trail, but that got taken out in flooding a few years ago. This is all that's left.

Even though the day was mostly cloudy, there was just enough sunlight in the morning to make a reflection of this big rock where we crossed.

The best news of the day was the temperature. It stayed about 70° all day with a few rain showers. After some weedy bottomland we climbed to the top of our highest hill for the day. There were a few bald rocks like in Minnesota on the way up.

The very best part of the day was in the early afternoon. There was a narrow gorge along a stream that was just magical! The pictures don't begin to capture it. Our first hint was this view down the trail with the huge rhododendron leaves and the shiny spot at the bottom. That turned out to be a pool of water that when there is more water would be the top of a waterfall!

We continued to wander down along the rock wall with a creek and another rock wall on our right.

I'm always fascinated by the textures of the rocks.

Because the area is mixed sanstone and limestone, very different things can be in the same area. Across the stream we found this huge triangular pillar of limestone.

Bill liked thinking about exploring the caves. A lot of them looked like good bear dens. Others seemed like they could shelter people.

We are taking tomorrow off. That was planned for Thursday, but tomorrow looks like a rain day with good weather after that, so we are going to do errands, real world stuff and blah blah.

Miles hiked in 2026: 410
Sheltowee Trace miles: 85.5

Sheltowee Trace, Kentucky. Red River to Natural Bridge Trailhead, 7.6 official miles, plus 0.4 mile to get back to the bridge from the trailhead for a total of 8.0 for the day.

See Sheltowee Trace- Day 7- Indian Arch

Sheltowee Trace- Day 7- Indian Arch

 Today was gorgeous but tough. We did not get an early start because we had to move campsites.

The trail today was more like what I've been expecting. Except for at one junction we didn't see a trail marker for the first 4 miles. We did see a lot of this, and worse. There was a lot of climbing over and through big fallen trees. My legs are tired. And the one big climb was really steep. These are not complaints per se... I just expect we'll see a lot more of this sort of thing.

This was a gorgeous little break at Gladie Creek.

There are so many beautiful things I want to share, but I'm just too tired to add much more. This was the high point of the day both physically (almost), and emotionally. The trail went right through Indian Arch.

I love the textures on the rocks with minerals, lichen, and the rocks themselves.

Turned out the arch was not all the way up. We climbed a little more to the top of the rock formation, and this was the view across the valley.

A failure in planning was that I didn't realize the parking was on a spur trail. When we found that out in the morning, the sign said it was a quarter mile. Ha! Of course it was 4 tenths.

Tomorrow we enter the Red River Gorge Geological Area.

Miles walked in 2026: 402.5
Miles on the Sheltowee Trace: 77.9

Sheltowee Trace, Kentucky, Corner Ridge TH to Red River Rd, plus a spur. Total 9.9 miles.

See Sheltowee Trace-Day 6- Geology

Sheltowee Trace- Day 6- Geology

 Today was an easy day. Tehnically it was all roads although the middle third had been abandoned as a road and was an ATV trail. The surface in this picture is much better than it was most places. Note the caves.

But what really struck me was the variation in geology. We were walking beside a creek, and suddenly, instead of everything being the sandstone and yellow clay, the creek was pure New York shale. See the little waterfall going over the layers of gray shale?

Of course, we've been seeing both sandstone and limestone cliffs and caves. That didn't seem so odd to me. They are both of a similar geologic age and are often seen together. And yesterday we saw lots of conglomerate. Mostly quartz pebblws caught in a sandstone matrix. Where that has eroded, the white quartz pebbles cover the trail. This was a solid patch that was still cemented in the matrix.

The shelf caves Bill is walking toward above are limestone- gray, more fine textured. But the cave below is a sandstone shelf cave. Water runs over this sometimes and is called Clifton Falls. No water today!

But the shale just seemed totally out of place to me. Especially since we were walking in yellow clay and the gray shale was right beside us. Bill is kind of a geology buff. He likes an app called Rock D. Here is what we walked through today looks like.

This is VERY cool! the yellow is alluvial and has washed down the streams and is youngest. The olive green is Mississipian with shale the deepest- why we only saw it in the lowest (oldest) valley, then mixed sandstone and limestone. The light green is higher ( newer) and is Pennsylvanian.

The first and last thirds of the day were actual road walk. I don't dislike this as much as some people. I like seeing the homes- which varied from poor Appalachia to some nice farms with pretty views. Here's a hilly part of the roadwalk.

The day's biggest challenge was the 94% humidity we started in. I could hardly breathe. But then the humidity dropped a bit (and the temperature went up). We are glad we had a fast hike and finished just at noon.

Miles walked in 2026: 392.6
Sheltowee Trail miles: 68.4

Sheltowee Trace, Kentucky. Co Rd 1274 to Corner Ridge TH. 8.9 miles

See Sheltowee Trace- Day 5- Rocks