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The story below is an excerpt from our May/June 2017 issue. For the rest of this story and more like it subscribe today, log in to read our digital edition or download our FREE iOS app. Thank you!
This easy walk to the park’s signature formation is expandable in many ways, including walks by other formations and past the park’s restaurant and lodge.
It’s the cheeps and chirps of a flock of finches in a feeder box a few yards from my room that awaken me. The bedside alarm won’t go off for at least another hour, but that’s OK. The finches have given me an early start on the day. Early enough to watch the grainy gray atmosphere of twilight retreat.
I’m staying in Hemlock Lodge at Natural Bridge Resort State Park, one of four original state parks that Kentucky opened in 1926. A hearty breakfast of eggs, freshly baked biscuits and made-in-Kentucky sausage gets me headed outdoors, ready to burn some calories.
The day’s objective is the park’s namesake rock formation, reached by one of the state’s oldest continuously used pathways. Constructed by the Lexington and Eastern Railroad a few years before the turn of the 20th century, the Original Trail (once called Trail No. 1) is wide and only .5 mile long, but gains several hundred feet of elevation in that short distance. Several trail shelters (three of which were constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s) and an abundance of lady slippers in the spring provide ample excuses to stop and catch your breath if needed.
Fifteen minutes later I’m standing under the sandstone arch stretching 78 feet across and soaring 65 feet above. As impressive as it is, a woman leans over and, in almost a conspiratorial whisper, says, “I live in Virginia. We have a natural bridge that has a river underneath it, ya know. Technically, you have to have water running under something before it can be called a bridge, ya know.” I’m not sure if she was just really proud of her natural bridge or trying to disparage this one.
