Star Gap Arch and Beyond

This week the hiking team visited Star Gap Arch and Arch of Triumph, two of the dozens of natural rock arches in Red River Gorge located beyond the official trails. Some arches are more accessible than others and these were along somewhat visible trails among a maze of switchbacks, campsite spurs, and dead ends. Good backcountry skills are required and sometimes so is the occassional cliffside scramble. Some trails go directly over the rock arch following the top of the sandstone ridgeline, while never revealing there is an arch hiding underneath.

View from underneath Star Gap Arch

Couple and their dog resting under Star Gap Arch

We left early in the morning and saw the mountains appear through a thick fog. The fog eventually cleared from the valleys but the clouds stuck around. Sometimes the sun would come out for a bit and the air would immediately warm up only to disappear again as soon as I'd removed my top layer of clothing. Thankfully we kept moving so the chill wasn't too bad.

Star Gap Arch across the valley and through the fog

The trail to Arch of Triumph is a good example of where a hiker could miss an arch. The trail runs along the top of the cliffline, and over the sandstone of the arch. Even from a view further along the trail, the arch can easily be missed. This image shows the Arch of Triumph, which will be even easier to miss once the leaves return to the trees.

The trail looking onto the cliff and easy to miss arch.

Arch of Triumph is only a few feet high.

Sitting in a rock window

In the afternoon, we moved on to another area of the national forest and set out along a rarely used trail. We had to drop down to the very bottom of the valley to reach Black John Arch and Spout. From our approach, the arch looked like a door-sized keyhole in the rock. However, after walking down and through the opening, the arch is revealed and was quite large. The cliffline continues and leads to a rock window named Black John Spout. It was one of the most interesting arches we visited, but sadly we weren't able to linger. I hope to return in a few weeks, but definitely by a different route with less cliff scrambles. I couldn't have made it to the arch without a helpful boost up and down a few cliffs. Thankfully we had a good team that assisted everyone in the difficult sections.

Below Black John Arch