Seeking Fall Foliage

Red River Gorge State Park

While Caty and I were off on our adventure to Great Basin, Big Bend, White Sands and Albuquerque, Scott headed east, stopping to view the eclipse in Midland Texas before heading to Florida and North Carolina to visit relatives. 

After I got home and spent a few days reorganizing myself, I flew to Cincinnati, Ohio, to meet up with him while he was visiting his friend Will Jones. 

Flying into Cincinnati

I had met Scott at Will's before and blogged about that trip here. 

This time, we did a brief visit to Red River Gorge State Park in the Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky. 

The Red River in Kentucky

The Park features high sandstone cliffs, rock shelters, waterfalls and more than 100 natural bridges along the Red River, which is a designated National Wild and Scenic River. 

We just visited "unnatural" bridges

The Red River Gorge Geological Area harbors a number of plants normally found only in Canada and is home to several endangered plant species including the endemic white-haired goldenrod. 

Evidence of prehistoric occupancy has been found in rock shelters in the Gorge, which protected them from weathering. Sites in the area yielded some of the earliest evidence of the domestication of plants found in the eastern United States. 

A rich environment

With many sandstone cliffs, "the Red" attracts rock climbers from all over the world. The Park has more than 60 miles of hiking and horse trails. We were trying to catch some glorious fall and we did find some pretty vistas. But, it didn’t really deliver the punch Scott was hoping for. 

I enjoyed the peace

This is a common theme as we attempt to photograph fall (of course, when we get home, a little PhotoShop solves the problem). 

Nice fall colors

In the future, we really should go to New England. Still, it was a pleasant day with a good friend. 

Good friend Will

So, I can’t complain.

New River Gorge National Park and Preserve

One of our newer National Parks

The next day, we headed south and stopped to visit New River Gorge National Park and Preserve. I had visited here before it became a National Park many, many years ago when my kids were little and my sister lived in West Virginia. 

Back in 1994

I have always counted it as a “visited” National Park, but now I got to make it official, National Park Passport stamp and all. Well, barely official. 

Scott and me at the Grandview Visitor Center

New River Gorge NP was not on Scott’s original itinerary and he didn’t want to change accommodations to stay closer, so it was really quick drive-by with just one stop at Grandview. 

I walked down to a viewing platform

Caty wants to visit, so I’ll go back some other time and give a full rundown of the Park after that visit. 

Designed to protect and maintain the New River Gorge in southern West Virginia, the Park was established in 1978 as a National River and redesignated in 2020 as New River Gorge National Park and Preserve. 

The Park flanks the river; Map: NPS

The 320-mile-long New River originates in North Carolina, flowing north through Virginia into the West Virginia mountains to the Kanawha River, which then continues to the Ohio River.

The New River

The Park protects 53 miles of the river as it flows through the New River Gorge, a canyon that reaches 1,600 feet at its maximum depth, exposing layers of rock created more than 300 million years ago. Less than 10 percent of the original National River was redesignated as a National Park, where hunting is no longer permitted; the remainder is a National Preserve with little change.

Our stop was to see the New River Gorge Bridge, which spans the Gorge.

It has a single arch 1,700 feet long

The iconic 3,030-foot-long, 876-foot-high bridge is the longest single-span steel-arch bridge in the U.S. and the fifth longest in the world (the other four are in China). It is also the third highest vehicular bridge in the U.S.

An average of 16,200 vehicles cross the bridge each day, making a trip that takes 45 seconds instead of the 45 minutes it used to take to get from one side to the other.

Bridge Day; Photo: The Register-Herald

The bridge has attracted daredevils since its construction. It is now the centerpiece of the annual "Bridge Day," during which hundreds of people, with appropriate equipment, can climb on or jump from the bridge. Bungee jumping has been banned during Bridge Day since 1993. 

Four BASE jumpers have died at the bridge, three of these during Bridge Day festivals.

In 2013, the bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Overcast, but colorful

Scott had had lovely weather before I arrived, but things had taken a turn for the worse. We headed south toward the Great Smoky Mountains hoping for blue skies and red, orange and golden trees (plus, maybe  a Bear or two). We got some of that. 

Fall in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

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Trip date: October 27 - November 5, 2023