Carrie Stambaugh - Hiking Kentucky: a guide to Kentuckys greatest hiking adventures

An imprint of Rowman & Littlefield

Falcon and FalconGuides are registered trademarks and Make Adventure Your Story is a trademark of Rowman & Littlefield.

Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK

Copyright 2002, 2007, 2016 Rowman & Littlefield

Interior photos: Carrie Stambaugh unless otherwise credited

Excerpt from Kentucky Is My Land reprinted with permission from the Jesse Stuart Foundation.

Maps: Moore Creative Designs Rowman & Littlefield

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Information available

The Library of Congress has cataloged a previous edition as follows:

Brown, Michael H. (Michael Hunt), 1942

Hiking Kentucky : a guide to Kentucky's greatest hiking adventures / Michael W. Brown. 2nd ed.

p. cm.(A Falcon guide)

Summary: From old country roads to dense forest paths, Kentucky boasts more than 1,500 miles of marked and maintained trails. Local hiker Michael Brown describes eighty of the best hikes throughout the state from 1-mile nature hikes to multiday backpacks in this revision of the guidebook.Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7627-3650-8

ISBN-10: 0-7627-3650-X

1. HikingKentuckyGuidebooks. 2. KentuckyGuidebooks. I. Title.

GV199.42.K4B76 2007

796.5109769dc22

2006024509

ISBN 978-1-4930-1256-5 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-4930-1451-4 (e-book)

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

The authors and Rowman & Littlefield assume no liability for accidents happening to, or injuries sustained by, readers who engage in the activities described in this book.

This collection of hikes would not be possible without the incalculable amount of help I received from the individuals who manage and protect Kentucky's diverse landscapes. I consulted dozens of rangers, administrators, receptionists, and information officers along with volunteers and other hikers while writing this book, and all were eager and excited to help. These men and women deserve not only my heartfelt thanks, but also the gratitude of past and future generations of Kentuckians and visitors. In my experience, the state boasts some of the most accessible and well-maintained hiking areas in the country. It is because of these individuals that Kentucky is a paradise for outdoor recreation. My continuing thanks, too, to the men and women of Kentucky, both paid and volunteer, who work tirelessly to maintain and build the state's network of trails.

I also want to thank my husband, Carl Stambaugh, and my parents, Randy and Debbie Kirschner, for being my patient, dedicated hiking partners as I put this book together. Mom and Dad, I will always be grateful to you for instilling in me a love and respect for the outdoors. And to Carl, my love and best friend, thank you for always encouraging me to chase my dreams, even when they involve ticks.

Carrie Stambaugh, 2016

Kentucky is neither southern, northern, eastern, or western,

It is the core of America.

If these United States can be called a body,

Kentucky can be called its heart.

Jesse Stuart, Kentucky Is My Land

My predecessor in writing this book used this Kentucky-centric verse to open his introduction, and I have kept it because it has so much truth and I'm very fond of its author. Kentucky is a widely varied land that fits no convenient classification, whether geographic, political, or otherwise. Stretching from the jagged Appalachians to the flat Mississippi River valley, from industrial plants on the Ohio River to magnolia trees in the Old Confederacy, Kentucky belongs to no one section of the country but is, rather, an intriguing mix of northern, southern, and midwestern. It's also a mix of rural and urban. Of mountains and plains. It is an irony of history but an understandable one that Kentucky was the birthplace of both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, the opposing leaders in the great conflict between two views of America.

Today, Kentuckians living on the state's western edge can drive to St. Louis or Memphis in less than half the time it takes them to visit their fellow Kentuckians in Ashland. Southern Kentuckians who can get to Nashville in less than an hour need more than three to get to the northern Kentucky suburbs of Cincinnati. The purpose of this book is to help hikers and would-be hikers explore this diverse collection of mountains and hollows, ridges and bottomlands, rolling fields and thick forests known as the Bluegrass State.

From the Big Sandy in the east to the Mississippi, from the Ohio in the north to the Tennessee line, Kentucky encompasses 40,395 square miles of land and water. Within these borders are:

• Two national parks, two major federal recreation areas, the Daniel Boone National Forest stretching almost the width of the state, and more than a dozen large US Army Corps of Engineers reservoirs with significant amounts of adjacent land;
• More than 160 state parks, forests, wildlife areas, and nature preserves;
• Scores of additional parcels owned by private groups and local governments and open to public use.

This book is a guide to some of the most scenic of these areas and to eighty specific hikes within them. Kentucky is said to have more than 2,000 miles of maintained, marked trails. I certainly haven't been on all of them, but these eighty trails offer a range of experiences and scenery from overnight backpacks in Kentucky's remote eastern mountains to strolls along the Mississippi River in its farthest western corner.

These hikes cover all regions of Kentucky and, I hope, offer enough variety to satisfy people of all ages, experience, and stamina. They range in length from short loops of less than 2 miles to overnight backpacking trips, the longest of which remains the 31.2-mile excursion through Land Between The Lakes National Recreation Area. I, like Michael Brown, who authored the previous two editions of this guidebook, hope that the hike descriptions in this book will be useful and inspiring to both residents and first-time visitors to Kentucky. The state is full of beautiful landscapes, most of which are free and can easily be accessed from every corner of the commonwealth.