Went Hiking at Cliffs Of Boone County Today

Actually, I'm not sure if that's "Boone County Cliffs" or "Cliffs of Boone County," but I'm going to pretend that the name of the place we went to today is called "Cliffs of Boone County" because it has a somewhat more "Old World" feel to it ala "Cliffs of Dover."

But I digress.

I went hiking this morning at the Cliffs of Boone County with Andy and the masculine side of his yin-yang set of twins, Xander. (See? Can't you feel that Old World charm seeping through?) If you're from Boone County, you may have long known about this, but for me who is relatively new here (but has been fairly local to here for forever) I only heard about this recently from a friend I used to work with at Barnes & Noble (you know who you are and I saw your beer cans there! For shame; for shame!)

It was nice there. Its a fairly large nature preserve owned by The Nature Conservancy that offers one long, very pleasant "moderate-to-strenuous" hike that nicely illustrates the post-glacial landscape of Northern Kentucky. There are several signs warning you to not leave the trail and other signs telling you to go no farther in a certain direction so as to protect the "fragile landscape," but, for the "rebellious in a comformist sort of way types" who are also conscientious of the landscape, breaking the honor code and crossing the imaginary line that separates what is the trail from what is NOT the trail opens up a far more interesting locale. In several places, less than a hundred feet from the trail lies many interesting rock formations and legitimate cliffs that offer very nice views of the valley below.

Despite Xander's apprehensions of a possible ninja and / or zombie attack, we found the preserve to be well kept and secluded. Both other hikers we saw had dogs in tow despite a website-posted ruling against any dogs or horses in the preserve. The preserve appears to be mostly unregulated though the trails are obviously man-made, signs and benches are posted throughout, and there weren't any real signs of human debris.

The Cliffs of Boone County are approximately six miles west of Burlington, Kentucky. For more information, I recommend either of the below sites:

• Boone County Cliffs State Nature Preserve - NKU
• Boone County Cliffs State Nature Preserve - The Nature Conservancy

Update - Btw, both the top pic and the pic to the right were taken on-site and not just stock photos. More can be seen on my Flickr account.