Hinterlands is a guide to unofficial trails in the Red River Gorge region of Kentucky. It features trails which were not included in the Red River Gorge Trail Guide. Many of the unofficial trails are very enjoyable and more than a few are actually better than the official hikes. The Forest Service is telling our customers to not sell this book, so you know it must be good. Perhaps we should apologize to the under-funded and under-staffed (their words, not ours) Forest Service for exposing all sorts of illegal and inappropriate trails that have been developed, while the Forest Service monitors the situation from afar and does  . . . . well, whatever else it does (And a fine job they're doing), but it's not like we created these trails. We're just calling things as we see them, but there's much more to the Red River Gorge than the officials, apparently, want you to see.

Hinterlands turned out to be much more involved than I anticipated and if I had known how many unofficial trails there actually were, I probably would have never started writing. This guide is larger than the Red River Gorge Trail Guide and exposes many "insider" destinations. It also describes many undesirable trails, which can save time for intrepid hikers and lessen unwarranted exploration. Several of the trails are marginally dangerous and others are casual. All have been rated according to quality and difficulty. Elevation profiles are also included, as are GPS coordinates. All of the photos below were taken on trails described in Hinterlands.----Jerrell