Torrent Falls Climbing and Natural Bridge

Saturday morning, John picked me up early to drive 3 1/2 hours to the Red River Gorge in Kentucky. There is an area called the Torrent Falls Climbing Adventure that has a set up called the via ferratta which is system of reebars (large staple-like pieces of metal drilled into the side of a mountain to assist amateur climbers.) This is a great way to climb without knowing much about it! Ahem, I mean, I'm at expert level and I'm sure you can tell! Haha!

Here is Dave, our instructor, showing us the ropes (heehee):

Here I am at the beginning of our climb:

Look at how relaxed John is compared to me. I attribute it partially to his height but mainly to his athletic ability!

Here we are taking a quick break in a little carve out in the rock:

Here are our feet dangling from the edge with the view of the pond below:

This is at the end of the climb for me. My hands were pretty raw from grabbing the reebar without gloves.
After a break, John wanted to climb to the two bridges that were left on the course. This is the birdwire bridge. As you can see he had some fun with it!

Here we are after our climb in all of our wonderful equipment. We had such a great time!

We set up camp and then went to the Lodge for dinner. I had the Kentucky Hot Brown, a traditional Kentucky dish made of Texas toast, cured ham and turkey, lots of cheese, a tomato and two strips of bacon and then smothered in country gravy. It was delicious, but I was glad that John helped me out with it because it was a heart attack waiting to happen!
The next day John and I hiked to the Natural Bridge. This was only 3/4 of a mile long but I was having hypoglycemia and I'm still recovering from a cold so it took so long to get to the top. I had to stop quite frequently!

Here is Natural Bridge taken from Battleship Rock:

Here are John and I during our trip back to the Lodge. See how pale I look from the hypoglycemia? Not good! John was wonderful because he really helped me in the difficult parts of the hike down. He is so good to me. :)

Here is the start of Devil's Gulch. It is a series of 87 steps made of rock heading down the hill. After the 87 steps there are another 1,000 or so the rest of the way.

After arriving at the Lodge we had lunch before heading back to Oxford. We had a wonderful time communing with nature!