Our plan for the day is to drive the Red River Gorge Scenic Byway and see the viewpoints and hike a few short trails. We started and found the scenic byway with lots of tight curves is a bit narrow....
The drive is beautiful through lush green forests and we detour about four miles up gravel Chimney Top Road to walk out to see Chimney Top Rock across the Gorge. The gorge is not like the southwestern gorges because the entire gorge is filled with trees, so there is not much to see when looking down into the gorge.
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At the Viewpoint for Chimney Top
Rock |
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| Chimney Top Rock |
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| Jack relaxing at the Viewpoint after a 1/4 mile walk with quite a few ups and downs plus excruciatingly high humidity |
From the same trailhead, I walked down to see Princess Arch.
We returned back to the Scenic Byway where our next stop was Whistling Arch.
When I started hiking the short trail to Sky Bridge, a menacing thunder storm threatened and I wavered about returning to the RV or continuing on the path, but I knew I had to get off the barren rock arch. I decided to continue and a bit of thunder and some rain came down, but by then I was below the arch and protected by the rock overhang.
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| Standing atop Sky Bridge with a storm approaching |
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| Storm getting closer |
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| Decision time -- return or continue |
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| Fabulous rock formations walking around Sky Bridge |
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| The Sky Bridge from below |
We tried to stop at the Gladie Center that had exhibits about the geology of the area, but they were experiencing a power failure and we had to abandon finding out more about the fantastic rock formations we were seeing. They are not dramatic Utah red sandstone, but are beautiful in a less dramatic way because they are surrounded by green trees and vegetation.
We returned late afternoon to our creekside campground. The weekend campers cleared out and we miss the kids yelling out "I got one" while catching minnows and crawdads and screeching as they jumped into the swimming hole. What great memories for those kids!
Remember one of our earlier posts about the barns painted black? Well, we have heard differing explanations about "why black" but the most common one is that they used creosote mixed with oil to protect the wood from termites and it was less expensive than paint. Apparently, the dark color was also helpful to build heat to dry the tobacco leaves that used to be the primary crop, but now the barns are painted black as tradition.
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