I'm beginning to put the details together on organizing a trip for Hammockforums that I've led a few times with Meetup.com. I've led multiple trips for the Cincinnati and Louisville Meetup Groups. On this trip you will have the opportunity to see some of the very best that the Red River Gorge has to offer. If you like a variety of geological features such as arches, rock shelters, cliff lines, rock formations and beautiful views, this trip is for you. I've hiked in the Great Smoky Mountains and I've watched a ton of Shug's hiking videos but there isn't anything I've seen on the East Coast that matches the neat things you can experience in the Red River Gorge. I will warn you that if you decide to go on these hikes, you will be scrambling up rock faces and getting close to cliff lines with drops of over 60 feet. There will be ways to opt out of these.

PLAN NUMBER ONE would be to meet on Friday, November 1st at a camping spot near the road that I've stayed at multiple times. There are a few camping spots with fire rings at this area that vary from 100-300 yards from the parking lot. It's a easy flat hike into these spots. It's a nicely wooded area on top of the ridge but there isn't much to see there. There is a stall toilet at the parking lot.

The next day we would pack up camp and drive about 7-8 miles where we would leave half of the vehicles. We'd then pile into the other vehicles and hopefully get to the trailhead by 10-11 am. The first day of the route is about 9-10 miles of backpacking and includes a few elevation changes of about 400 feet. There will breaks along the way and a long (30-45 minute) lunch. We should get into camp by about 6pm to setup camp and then head out to an awesome cliffline point to look out over the gorge while we eat supper and watch the stars come out. Everyone would bring their own meals and there is no water at the campsite. Day 2 would be a 3-4 mile hike out to the dropped off vehicles.

Here's a link to one of my trips that I led with the Cincinnati Backpacking Meetup group.

PLAN NUMBER TWO would be to meet on Friday and setup a base camp at the site that I described in PlAN NUMBER ONE for the weekend. For those who might want to stay a day longer I could take off work and meet on Thursday. We can decide on what kind of food to fix and share.

On Saturday we would then go out for day hiking where I would take us to the best spots in the gorge for about 4-5 hours. If you don't want to join me you can stay at camp or do some day hiking on your own (there are multiple very nice day hikes that will be close to the base camp).


For the backpacking trip, I will limit it to 20 people.

For the base camp trip, I will limit it to 30 people.

If you are interested please sign up here and let me know what kind of trip you'd rather go on. I'll make my decision within a couple of weeks.

I'll update this post with who is going and we'll figure out what food everyone will bring to share.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Chris






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