Yeah that area has great trails and after heavy rain lots of waterfalls. The Narrows are a classic stretch of whitewater but way too short, its a fun one to run laps on. Definitely sketchy though, everything is undercut!
The Rockcastle River is a designated Kentucky Wild River, and it has a very short section of fun class 3/4 whitewater in its narrows. Multiple trails in the area make for numerous no shuttle packraft hike/paddle combinations. This is one of those.
Van Hook Falls
14 mile...
First crux going down Step. This is the bottom of the steep pourover, its not bad just a friction climb. Looked much sketchier my first time looking down from the top.
Second pourover, the real crux of Step. Like @TrailScot said, it's to the left going down canyon. Tough to see unless...
Wow this is fantastic. Strong work!!
Your motivations are similar to mine lately. Losing both parents in the same year has made me less inclined to daydream and much more inclined to get up and go do the big epic trips on the list.
Keep crushing!
Yep, exactly. Great camp and water down there.
We came up the sand slide. I wanted to find a route to the right this time (from the bottom looking up), avoiding the rock scramble on the left since I did it that way coming down in 2016. There really is no easy way up that slide. I’d go up...
We base camped for two nights in May this year in Davis at the cattle trail route. Hiked down Davis, paddled to Fiftymile, up Fifty and back over to Davis via the sandslide and cattle trail.
Davis Gulch is a lot different now than it was when I did a similar trip in 2016. Very overgrown, a...
Both sides of the sand slide go, but yeah that left side (coming down the slide) has a tricky down climb. We went up that back in May with day packs on a Davis/Fiftymile packraft loop. I've come down it before to the right hugging the cliff like you did back in 2016 with a full pack. Id say...
I've been mapping out lots of no shuttle packrafting trips in the southeast over the past few years. If there's a navigable river or creek with a trail system, I've probably got a route for it. One of my favorite places to whitewater kayak back in the day is the Cumberland Plateau in TN/KY. I...
From Grand Junction we headed straight to Escalante for an early dinner at the Escalante Outfitters, and then down Hole in the Rock Road to find a camp at Sooner Rocks for the night. The next day we backpacked overland to the old cattle trail into Davis Gulch where we set up a basecamp for the...
After my week backpacking, car camping and hiking around Cedar Mesa and White Canyon in Bears Ears NM I headed up to the San Rafael Swell for 4 days. I backpacked into Chimney Canyon from Hidden Splendor Mine, drove the backroads exploring the Swell behind the Reef, found amazing car camping...
It was pure luck. I’ve car camped there before, it’s right off highway 95 along White Canyon. I’ve seen it rise close but not between the Ears.
It was surreal.
Here it is on September 12 last year from the same spot..
Part 2 coming soon….
That’s the first one I’ve seen in the GG area but I haven’t done much down there. I know there are plenty to be found. I backpacked Step and Pine canyons, no crowds. Saw one person in Step and one other group at Quail Panel. Glorious.
I took the entire month of May to play in the high desert. I left Kentucky April 29th, my first destination being Cedar Mesa and Bears Ears NM. I backpacked some of the lesser traveled Grand Gulch tributaries. Flowing water and greenery everywhere.
Next stop was back to an old favorite, Long...
Stumbled upon this intact kiva roof with ladder poles after missing the exit route out of the canyon. These are the best mistakes.
I'm sure this one is well known to those who explore the area but I had no idea until I turned the corner.
Major props for taking the packraft and continuously throwing yourself to the whitewater gods. They make the rules. Stunning photography!!
23 days is magic. I did a 23 day trip in April, 2011. 16 of us. All 280 miles to Pearce Ferry. I paddled my whitewater kayak, hand paddled it...
Its been a very dry late summer into fall this year in Kentucky, I've been waiting for rain to bump up the water levels but finally gave up. The question was...will this section of the Cumberland River be runnable at extremely low flows of 200 cubic feet per second? I did a longer trip a few...