6 Days at Breaks Interstate Park (Kentucky & Virginia) - Day 2

Sunset at Stateline Overlook at Breaks Interstate Park

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This is the third post in a series for this trip. You can view links to the other posts at the bottom of this one.

We had a bit of a slow start after Dustin woke up with a bit of a sore throat that we figured was probably pollen induced (which it did in fact turn out to be). We had previously planned on starting the morning with a longer hike within Breaks Interstate Park but shifted our plans for a shorter option. We decided to check out a bunch of the scenic overlooks to enjoy them and also identify good spots for sunrise and sunset trips in the future. We started first at Towers Overlook, inside the park entrance, and got our first real look at the huge massive rock formation that is left as softer rocks eroded away over time. The Towers, as it is called, jets out from nearby mountains and is almost entirely encircled by the Russell Fork River. The general formation looks a lot like the more well-known Horseshoe Bend in Utah. In fact, both of these canyons are about 1,000 feet deep.

We headed south on State Route 80, which is right outside the park entrance and stopped next at the Mill Rock Point Overlook for a different angle of The Towers and made our way down the mountain to our hiking destination: Camp Branch Trail.

Camp Branch Trail, marked on our Breaks Interstate Park map, is a short downhill hike along a creek to the Russell Fork River. Basically, we had driven about 700 feet down from the overlooks and then hiked the remaining 300 feet in elevation on this trail, serenaded by a number of cheery birds, including the Yellow-throated warbler, Louisiana Waterthrush, and Black-throated green warbler.. While the park map indicates the trail is 0.7 miles and takes 1 hour, we found it to be much faster. We spent just under 40 minutes hiking down and back, and that’s including the 10 minutes we spent standing at the river, enjoying the scenery. The path is an old mule trail from the days of logging in the area

On the way back to the cabin to grab lunch and give the pups some exercise, we stopped at the final overlook we had skipped over previously – Lovers Leap Overlook. And yes, there is a story of a local Native American and his star-crossed lover (from another tribe) who jumped off the cliff rather than be apart. Call me cynical, but I doubt this story is true. Or does that make me less cynical to believe in a world where there aren’t endless lovers leaping into the abyss? As Mark Twain once reportedly said, “There are fifty Lover’s Leaps along the Mississippi from whose summit disappointed Indian girls have jumped.” Here’s an article that highlights just a small number of them.

All-in our morning jaunt – the three overlooks and hike down to the river took about 90 minutes. Everything is very close together and convenient to access!

After lunch we embarked upon a slightly shorter version of the trail we had originally planned for the morning. We combined the Flatwoods Multiuse Loop Trail and Hickory Ridge Trail for a 3.6 mile route that we completed in 1 hour 52 minutes. According to the map, this is expected to take about 2.5 hours. In general, we found that the park trail description was more generous in how much time hikes would take. Sometimes we experience the opposite at other places. In terms of our hiking style, I will say that we’re not ones to rush through a hike but nor are we highly distractable either. We stop to take photos, to discuss plans, and to break out our bird identification and plant identification apps when something piques our interest. In fact, one cool plant we spotted along the way is the mayapple, and we listened to the songs of the Black-throated green warbler, and Carolina Chickadee.

These two trails (Flatwoods Multiuse Loop Trail and Hickory Ridge Trail), as well as the Mountain Home Trail that veers off from the Flatwoods Trail, are all intended for both hiking and mountain biking. Both are considered more challenging for mountain bikers and that is definitely our assessment. We joined Flatwoods at one of multiple access points – at the end of the road near the small pond. A large portion of the Flatwoods Trail was a fire road, and it crossed into the wildlife viewing area. The best visual to follow the route is accessible on the Breaks Interstate Park trail map here.

That first section of the route we created to be a loop was predominantly uphill but a slow incline. Our legs were not yet used to hiking so this felt a bit tiring; however, by the end of the trip when we re-hiked this portion of the trail to access a separate trail, we barely blinked an eye.

An area off of the Flatwoods Trail is marked as a wildlife viewing area and is an open meadow. Breaks Interstate Park has been part of a conservation effort to repopulate once-native elk. Due to hunting and (human-made) habitat loss, elk began to dwindle and the last known elk in Virginia disappeared in 1855. Twenty-two years later and some hours north in Pennsylvania, the last known eastern elk was shot and the population sadly went extinct. In the last few decades, an intentional effort has been made to reintroduce elk to the area. Of course, the eastern elk being extinct are not part of this - these are Rocky Mountain elk. Kentucky introduced 1500 of them in the late 1990s and in 2012, Virginia joined in the effort. The Virginia herd that lives in Breaks Interstate Park is made up of about 250 individuals, and Kentucky boasts a crowd of over 13,000 elk. The population is doing so well that hunting is starting to open up.

Breaks Interstate Park provides Elk Tours on select dates from March through October and says they have 100% success rate at spotting the herd. The tours last roughly 3 hours, cost (a reasonable) $35 per person, and include a picnic meal. Unfortunately, this tour was not offered during our time in the area, but we had hopes of spotting an elk on our own throughout the trip, particularly in this hike with the wildlife viewing area. Alas, we did not! You can read more about the Elk Tours here.

We continued our hike onto the Hickory Ridge Trail, which had gentle switchbacks as it climbed to the ridge, which it followed for a good ways before descending back down the mountain and then meeting up with the Flatwoods Trail again. As would become the norm during our trip, we spotted a total of zero others on these trails and had the spot all to ourselves!

In the evening, we sat on the porch, listened to the pickerel frogs in the lake and the occasional splash in the water as fish surfaced seeking a snack. Several birds flitted from branch to branch and occasionally hovered near the house rafters, and we were able to identify them as harry woodpeckers. I broke out my zoom lens, and we got several photos of the fast-moving woodpeckers dashing all over.