504 - Courthouse Rock
Let’s just say this adventure wasn’t pretty.
It all started in the Red River Gorge of Kentucky, on a trail called the Auxiliary Trail. It was a 4.4 mile hike round trip that led out to this famous formation called Courthouse Rock.
Having hung out in Lexington (the horse capital of the world) the past couple weeks, I’ve met all sorts of people that have been absolutely raving about the Red River Gorge. Apparently it’s the Kentucky “thing.” So I figured I’d give it a shot.
Upon pulling up, the first thing that I realized was that it was absolutely hot as balls out. Even walking over to the bathroom at the trailhead got me sweating. Not a good sign. I also took note of the fit couple leaving the trail, completely covered in sweat from head to toe. I asked them how the hike was, and all they said was “very hot.”
Oh joy. We’re in for a fun one today, I thought to myself.
I decided to start the hike three hours before sunset, so I’d have time to scope the place assuming it took me 1-2 hours to get there. I packed a metric fuck ton of water and goldfish. To start off, it was a beautiful trail. An enormous amount of vegetation, trailing the edge of a massive canyon. Or should I say gorge? Who knows.
It wasn’t until about 15 minutes in that I began to notice the flies. At first, I thought it was one fly that was constantly buzzing around my ears. I stubbornly swatted it away. But I slowly realized that I was actually being hunted by dozens of flies, who would relentlessly swarm my ears.
No matter how hard I’d shoo them away, they’d always come back 10-15 seconds later. Just absolutely buzzing my ears off.
It began to get annoying, fast. The deeper into the gorge I went, the more aggressive the flies became. And by the time I got to the viewpoint at the end of the trail, I couldn’t even focus. I was starting to lose my mind.
Just imagine flies constantly landing on your ears, arms, head, feet, everywhere. Every once in a while I’d get a nice gust of wind and they’d disappear, but this lasted no more than 30 seconds. It was like the gorge was mocking me.
I braced myself for the notion that this was my reality for the next couple hours. I still had 90 minutes until sunset, and the entire hike back.
I should take a moment to talk about the view, though. Throw something positive here. It was absolutely gorgeous. Imagine massive bluffs on the edge of a gorge, with one giant rock in the middle of it all. That, my friends, was Courthouse Rock. It was completely surrounded by green vegetation, making it the perfect subject. And I had the perfect plan to get a shot of it at sunset. Assuming I didn’t lose my fucking mind by then.
The plan was to fly my drone and get an angled down shot of it. I figured the juxtaposition of the rock surrounded by trees in the canyon would look great… And since there weren’t many clouds, I figured this angle would do the trick. I would simply have to dodge and burn a bit to make the rock stand out.
I waited and waited. Time melted away like a candlestick as I became one with the flies. I accepted that there was no stopping them, so why even try?
Which leads me to my biggest tip of this adventure. Realizing that external environmental circumstances are often out of your control, and fighting them only makes it worse. At one point I went absolutely apeshit and started running in circles screaming and swatting like a crazy person. It was that bad. Then I realized I had to accept the annoyance and change my mind to think about something stimulating. I had no choice.
After about 30 minutes of meditative hell, a single cloud rolled in front of the sun, and I saw it as a chance to get the rock in some soft lighting. I loaded up the drone, and had a sudden revelation.
I got a new phone a few weeks ago… But I’d never downloaded the DJI app on it. So here I was standing on the edge of a beautiful viewpoint with my dick out, and no app to fly my drone. Fuck.
Noticing one bar of 4G peeking in the corner, I started the download. Estimated completion time: 30 minutes. Right when sunset was going to happen. All I thought to myself was that it better be 30 minutes. I’d sacrificed too much.
I tried to avoid staring at the download on my phone that would go in and out of service. I even tried to get a few shots with my real camera while I waited. But every time I set my phone down and picked up my camera, the download slowed significantly. For some reason it only downloaded fast in my physical hand.
Again, I realized I have no choice but to just stand here.
Eventually the app downloaded, with 5 minutes until sunset. This was gonna be a close call. I loaded up the drone and… the screen stays black. The drone was literally flying in the air, but there’s no camera view on my phone. What? What is going on?
I quickly googled the error and found out that the “new” DJI app update was dysfunctional, and that you’d have to download the previous version if you want it to work until they fixed it. God. Damn. I swatted a fly away from my face in fury and let the moment sink it.
All this for nothing. Nothing.
No. I will not go down like this… I grabbed my normal camera and started shooting any and every angle I could. I ended up with this one layered shot:
“Buggy Layers”
Taken with Sony a7rIII + Zeiss 24-70mm f/4
ISO 500 ~ 67mm ~ f/9 ~ 1/100s
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
A decent, minimalist shot of the gorge layers, but definitely not worth the godforsaken flies. The image didn’t even have Courthouse Rock in it. Believe me I tried, but I couldn’t get an angle that looked decent enough for me to show it off here. The lighting was completely blown out in that direction.
All part of the adventure photography game I told myself, all part of the game.
I walked back in silence, realizing my fatal mistake. Never forget to update drone apps on your phone. Had I not put all my eggs in the drone basket, I could have had a decent shot lined up with my normal camera when the sunset hit. Instead, I was rushed.
On the plus side, I made it back alive, which was nice. It was a 2.2 mile hike back in a dark forest filled with mountain lions and bears, so I got a few jump scares in. At one point I started hearing all these popping sounds, almost like a bear was rubbing a log or a tree. Eventually I realized it was fireworks because I was hiking on the 4th of fucking July. I’m an idiot.
Anyway, happy (late) Independence Day, folks. I got back to my Prius absolutely fucking drenched in sweat. To the point where I had to replace my shirt because it was like I dipped in a pool.
You know what? I think I’m going back to doing more waterfalls. At least at those I can dip my feet in the water to cool down at the end.
The movies weren’t kidding when they talked about the South being so goddamn hot in the summer. But hey, at least I got a decent story out of it.
I’m on a mission to explore as much as humanely possible.
Want to see my progress? Check out the Adventure Map.
*Please note this page contains affiliate links.
