At lunch, our probably-hungover waiter lamented the fact that it was perfect hiking weather and that he'd decided to pick up an extra shift (sorry, man, but I don't think you would have been hiking even if you had been free). He then left us with the advice, "Be careful out there. Don't want an Amber Alert." If I wasn't confident about journeying into the middle of the woods without a set plan before, I was now.

As we exited onto the Mountain Parkway, reminiscing about our Eastern Kentucky roots and the coincidence of having all three been to Dewey Dam Park, I pulled up the Gorge trail map to pick our route. If you know me, I'm not a map person at all. I could get lost driving across the road (in fact, I did once get turned around driving from LCA, my high school, to Lexington Green, which you can see from LCA). Nevertheless, I followed the winding gravel roads and highways until I found two short trails that we could complete in less than two and a half hours, before the sun set: Princess Arch and Chimney Top Rock.

It was probably my fault that we got lost. Every time I've been to the Gorge, I've taken the same exit as Natural Bridge, Exit 33 at Slade, Kentucky. However, after a number of three-point turns, it was soon very clear that we could not get to our destination on that exit and found our way back onto the Mountain Parkway, en route for Exit 40 at Pine Ridge.

The roads kept getting smaller and smaller. After the Mountain Parkway, it became a two-lane highway. After that, a skinnier paved road without a yellow line. And finally, a gravel road that kicked up dust and was filled with potholes, Kayla and Kari's green Ford Focus clinging to the side of the cliff.

The last time I went to the Gorge, on a gorgeously warm day just a few weeks ago, it was an anomaly in winter. This time, it was clear that spring is (mostly) here to stay. Unlike the eerily empty campgrounds of February, where we were close to the only people on our trail, there were backpackers, puppies, and backcountry campers peppering the forest. On the cliffs, we saw brave individuals on solitary crags in the distance, tents like eagle nests on the bluffs.