Backpacking Red River Gorge Kentucky Pt.1

Another fall backpacking adventure! Join Sara and I for three days and two nights in the always beautiful Red River Gorge, KY. I decided to edit this three-day trip into two different episodes. Part one will show us starting off at the trailhead for Rockbridge Trail. Day one featured some beautiful geology, which is the main draw for the Red River Gorge experience. Less than a mile in we were able to see the amazing natural rock bridge sprawled out over the creek. The first couple of miles of this trail are pretty busy as it is close to a trailhead. If you merge onto Swift Camp Creek Trail the hiking traffic drops down to almost nonexistent after the rock bridge. That leads me to Swift Camp Creek Trail. If I'm being honest, this was my least favorite trail I've ever done in Daniel Boone National Forest. There are definitely some cool rock formations to check out, but the trail itself is sort of a nightmare. The overall elevation gain and loss isn't bad, but the elevation changes are very steep in most spots. The trail is very awkward because it follows the sides of hills most of the way, rather than walking on a ridge or in a valley. You feel like you're walking sideways the majority of the time. Combine this with the moist, fallen leaves walking over slippery roots and loose rocks and you end up with a very technical trail and don't cover much ground. We ended up finding a site overlooking Swift Camp Creek and posted up there for the evening. We didn't record much footage day one as we moved much slower than anticipated and showed up at camp about 30 minutes before dark. We did record some gear talk over breakfast in the morning. I mainly showed off my new BRS titanium stove that I'm field testing as an ultralight upgrade over my old AOTU stove. We also discussed the pros and cons of having a one container cooking system. Our day two hike started off by finishing the last few miles of the Swift Camp Creek Trail. The two main highlights of the day were the Angel Windows Arch and Whistling Arch. I've never seen these two arches before and they were super cool! Episode one ends with us eating lunch overlooking the valley atop Whistling Arch.