8ish miles: Cumberland Falls, Kentucky

On the weekend of April 12, I headed to Kentucky. Jeff had ridden his bike over 500 miles to get from our home to his mom's house and was doing an organized ride in Eastern Kentucky on that Saturday. He recommended I hit up the trails at Cumberland Falls while he did his ride, so that's where I went!

I briefly visited the lodge there to pick up a map and get recommendations on the best trail. Before driving to the trailhead for the Eagle Falls Trail, though, I parked at the falls and had a look around. Accompanying my map was a flyer warning me of recent bear activity, and something large had obviously been in the vicinity of the falls overnight, tipping over all the heavy garbage cans and leaving a mess (mostly fast food wrappers) for someone to clean up. If they're serious about keeping bears from becoming habituated to humans, they need some better garbage cans. I'm sure the worker who showed up just after I did and had to pick up the mess thought the same.

However, the falls were impressive, and it was a great morning to wander around outside.

I headed to the other side of the river to the trailhead to what the lodge worker had said was the best trail in Kentucky. It was the best workout my calves had been through in a while, and as the temps rose, I was glad I didn't have my full pack on. The trail was great, following a cliff above the falls, climbing to an old CCC shelter, looping through a wooded area, and depositing me at the top of a long set of narrow stairs down to the river.

After a somewhat sketchy scramble over a big pile of driftwood and other debris deposited by the river, I could see Eagle Falls. The falls come from a small creek that enters the Cumberland River just below Cumberland Falls. 

The falls were nice, and I could have stayed longer, but I wanted to put in a few more miles. My best views of Cumberland Falls came on the way back to the trailhead. The "Niagara of the South" was pretty impressive!

When I got back to the trailhead, the parking area was full, and it was clear that the nice weekend was bringing a lot of people out. I sat in the parking area for a while getting rehydrated and having some snacks while deciding what trail to do next. Rather than drive to another trailhead, I decided to take the Blue Bend Loop that started just across the highway from where I was. The trail was clearly not as well used as the Eagle Falls Trail, but that was fine by me, and I didn't see any other hikers on it until I got within about 1/2 mile of the end.

After a long, steady uphill, the trail leveled off into a nice ridge walk for a while before eventually dropping back down to the river to join the Sheltowee Trace, a 300+ mile trail running North/South through the Daniel Boone Forest of Kentucky. Ever since a visit to the Red River Gorge, I've become more and more impressed with how pretty Kentucky is. This short (and flat!) little section of the Sheltowee had me considering the trail for a longer trip in the future. It's been getting more and more use (and regular maintenance), but a GPS is still highly recommended for some sections. This section, however, was clearly marked, even though the trail had been recently relocated a but further from the river, presumably to limit maintenance required by regularly flooding right along the bank. 

As the trail looped back toward the main part of the park, I was happy to be in the cool shade of rocky overhangs and relatively dense woods.

I had a short roadwalk to get back to the car, and I wasn't sure I had time for a third trail, so I headed back to London, KY, where Jeff soon rolled in after a 100-mile day on the bike. One of Jeff's friends grabbed me a beer from his cooler while we waited for the rest of their group to roll in, which made a nice end to the hike.