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Photo Above: The Cumberland River’s Cumberland Falls, at 70 feet, is touted as “The Niagara of the South.”
©Leonard & Laurie Adkins
Kentucky
State park lodges are some of my favorite destinations. They are invariably situated in scenic locales with miles of hiking trails, yet provide the opportunity for a bit of luxury by sleeping indoors and having someone else prepare meals for you in the restaurant. Some lodges, being made of steel and glass, resemble modern motels, while others bear a striking resemblance to the grand lodges built in national parks during the first half of the 20th century.
I prefer the latter, and Dupont Lodge in Cumberland Falls State Park certainly falls into that category. With a stone block exterior, huge beams of hemlock logs soar over the two-story interior with knotty pine paneling and multiple fireplaces. An extensive terrace overlooks the Cumberland River, as do the restaurant’s picture windows. (Insider tip: Some of the guest rooms are rather small by today’s standards and overlook the parking lot. Others are larger and have a view of the river valley. Be sure to inquire when making reservations.)
I, of course, am not here to spend a lot of time indoors. I’m here to take a walk beside the Cumberland River—and the obvious place to start is its famous waterfall. Cumberland Falls, hailed as the “Niagara of the South,” drops close to 70 feet while spanning the river’s width of more than 120 feet. As if that is not impressive enough, the park’s literature says the waterfall is one of only two locations in the entire world where it is possible to see a moonbow. (The other is supposedly Victoria Falls in Africa, but moonbows have also been reported in California, Arizona, Hawaii, Africa, Iceland and Australia.) Consider yourself lucky if you see one, as the phenomenon happens only on clear nights around the time of a full moon.
It was not nighttime, but very early in the morning when I arrived at the falls, so I was taken aback by the large number of people already there. The park is in somewhat of an isolated part of Kentucky, but the falls are evidently special enough to attract visitors from far and wide.
Although it runs beside the Cumberland River, the Moonbow Trail is not a flat and easy route like Georgia’s Chattooga River Trail. Within a few yards of the falls, it descends a steep set of stairs and continues along with numerous abrupt ups and downs. Sometimes high on the hillside, sometimes going across soft sandy beaches, the pathway comes to a confluence with Dog Slaughter Creek at 2.5 miles. I had originally planned on turning around here, but realized that in just a few hundred yards I could visit a second cascade, Dog Slaughter Falls, where the water drops 20 feet inside a deep and narrow cove. It is well worth the few extra steps, but I’ll caution that it takes a traverse of a rocky trail along a cliff face to reach it.
As I retraced my steps, I contemplated the catfish dinner I was going to have in the lodge’s restaurant and the air conditioned room and soft bed I was going to be able to sleep in that night.
The story above appears in our March/April, 2020 issue. For more subscribe today or log in to the digital edition with your active digital subscription. Thank you for your support!
