Balanced Rock Trail to Natural Bridge

On Saturday, October 25th, we visited Natural Bridge State Park in Slade, Kentucky.  The day had a bit of a frustrating start for us, as we left much later than planned and the skies were much more overcast than expected.  Thankfully, the afternoon got better and better as it went along - we made excellent time driving to the park, and once we started our hike, the sun came out and ignited the fall colors on the hillsides.  It's an incredible place at any time of year, but especially during autumn.

In a little more than 2 hours of walking, I managed to snap more than 750 pictures.  No exaggeration.  It is little wonder, then, that our average pace was only about 1 mile per hour.  Our itinerary (retrospectively) was as follows:

2:30 PM - Started the Balanced Rock Trail from Hemlock Lodge to Natural Bridge
4:00 PM - Arrived at Natural Bridge
4:30 PM - Started the Laurel Ridge Trail
4:55 PM - Arrived at Lookout Point
5:15 PM - Due to fading light and evening plans, headed back toward Natural Bridge
5:30 PM - Started the Original Trail from Natural Bridge back to Hemlock Lodge
5:45 PM - Arrived back at Hemlock Lodge

This combination (Balanced Rock - Laurel Ridge - Original Trail) is what I'd recommend for anyone with only 2-3 hours available to spend on the trails, as we had on this particular trip.  You need to be in good enough shape to handle quite a few steps on the Balanced Rock Trail (about 750, we were told).  If you're not, take the Original both ways.  Just know that you'll be missing some truly spectacular sights.  Here are 59 of my photos from our 1.5 hour trek up Balanced Rock.  Some were taken with my Nikon, some with my cell.  All were edited using the VSCO Cam app.