Red River Gorge Geological Area

The arches are carved from Corbin sandstone, a hard, resistant rock laid down long before the dinosaurs. Over immense stretches of time, wind, rain, and the repeated freezing and thawing of water in cracks pried away the softer, weaker sandstone. Where a harder cap of rock protected the stone beneath it, the erosion left a span standing, and over more than a hundred of these formed across the gorge, from small windows to broad walk-across bridges of stone.

The rock itself is beautiful up close. Groundwater moving through the sandstone over the ages redistributed iron-rich minerals into striking bands and swirls of red, orange, and brown. People have lived among these cliffs for a very long time, too: archaeological evidence in the rock shelters goes back more than twelve thousand years, and the gorge is cited as one of the earliest places in eastern North America where people began to domesticate plants.

In 1962 a devastating flood tore through Clay City, and in its wake officials approved and funded a flood-control dam that would have backed water up and drowned much of the gorge under a reservoir. For a time it looked inevitable. The Sierra Club helped organize the opposition and recruited a powerful ally: Justice William O. Douglas of the United States Supreme Court, a committed conservationist, who came to Kentucky and hiked the gorge to draw the nation's attention to what would be lost.

That famous protest hike, in November 1967, brought Douglas and hundreds of supporters into the canyon and turned a local dispute into a national cause. The fight dragged on for years until Kentucky's governor withdrew state support for the dam in 1975. The door finally closed for good in 1993, when a nineteen-mile stretch of the Red River was designated a National Wild and Scenic River, protecting it permanently. The arches, the cliffs, and the river you can visit today are here because people fought to keep them.

There is far more to see than anyone can manage in a day. Sky Bridge is a large arch you can walk across, reached by a short loop. Gray's Arch is a dramatic span at the end of a longer hike. Princess Arch is a smaller, elegant one that shares a trailhead with Chimney Top Rock, a clifftop overlook with sweeping views over the gorge. Rock Bridge is the only arch in the gorge that spans flowing water, arching over a creek near a waterfall. The most famous arch of all, Natural Bridge, stands in the adjacent state park just to the south.

The gorge has its own front door, and it is unforgettable. Nada Tunnel, a former logging-railroad tunnel bored through the rock between 1910 and 1912, is about nine hundred feet long, one lane wide, and unlit. Drivers take turns easing through the tight, dark passage, and it has earned its nickname as the gateway to the Red River Gorge. The Gladie Visitor Center, on the scenic byway that links these sights, is the place to get oriented, with exhibits on the gorge's geology, wildlife, and human history.

Beyond the hikers and the sightseers, the Red River Gorge is one of the great rock-climbing destinations on earth. The featured sandstone cliffs hold thousands of routes for every level of climber, and on a good weekend the parking lots fill with people from all over the country and the world who have come just to climb here. It is the kind of place where a traveler passing through can watch climbers work a wall high above a trail and feel the pull of the sport even without ever tying in.

The climbing community has given the area its own culture, and it is welcoming to visitors of every kind. Whether you come to hike to an arch, drive the scenic byway, stand on a clifftop overlook, or just ease your car through Nada Tunnel, the gorge rewards the same thing it has always rewarded: slowing down, looking closely, and treating a wild and hard-won place with the care it deserves.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.