11 May 2017, Thursday
A brief shower during the night provided a gentle test for our new tent. Wglwof passed! (So named because O, stretching in the morning and peering at the upside down and inside out Marmot name printed on the tent fly, noted that the letters spell wglwof from that perspective.) We bake our breakfast of cheddar cheese-bacon jerky potato cakes. Yum! The forecast is for a 90% chance of rain today, but the sun is still shining on this warm, humid morning so we decide to hike to the Whittleton Arch, leaving directly from our campsite. It is a beautiful walk along Whittleton Branch, a small creek that runs through our campground. The air is so moist that my glasses are fogging. Good for the curls, though!
We arrive at the arch, which is more like a rock shelter missing its back wall, but that’s how these arches form after all. We spend quite some time exploring the shelter and arch, taking photos and eventually climbing a steep trail to the top of the arch. G seems to disappear into the dense rhododendron thicket. O and I watch some warblers as we wait for her to reappear. We finally tire of waiting and carefully pick our way back down to the shelter. There, above us, sitting on a rock ledge near the cave’s roof, is G. She found a path from the arch back into the upper part of the shelter.
Back on the floor of the shelter we inspect the small waterfall dripping from the arch above and take time to admire the ferns and insect life along the stream leaving the shelter. We have seen no other hikers all morning!
We return through the steamy woods to our campsite, have a light lunch and decide to drive the scenic route to the Gladie Environmental Center. Along the way the road passes through the Nada Tunnel, a 12 foot by 12 foot single lane tunnel through a ridge (the same ridge we had driven along the day before) which had been cut by the railroad back in the logging days of the 1800’s. O drives Vincent through the narrow tunnel skillfully. The winding road through the Red River Gorge seems barely wide enough for two cars to pass, much less a van and a car. I’m glad O is driving. We arrive at the Gladie Center only to find that it is open Friday through Sunday. Oh well. Tomorrow is supposed to be another rainy day. We will return then.
G decides a little more hiking would be nice before we return to the Rockhouse Cafe for dinner. We are not far from Forest Road 10 so we turn onto that potholed, gravel road to drive 3.6 miles to the trailhead for two short hikes. We wander over to Princess Arch which we are able to inspect from above and below, and then we walk to Chimney Top Rock Lookout with its impressive views of the Red River Gorge. The sky darkens and we can hear the rumbling of thunder growing closer. We return to Vincent just as the skies open.
We drive to Rockhouse Cafe in the rain where we enjoy another good dinner of beer, burritos, salad and veggie burgers. Back at camp we watch our new neighbors set up as we savor our dessert of chocolate mousse.