Last weekend, thanks to
Andy's expert guide service, I was able to do my 3rd hike in Linville Gorge.
My two prior hikes in that area were both very challenging, with tough
hiking, climbing over boulders, sliding down fallen trees, etc. The payoff
on both was incredible views ... long range ones (Rock Jock Trail) as well as
up close and personal of a narrow side canyon with several surprise waterfalls
(Henson Creek).
But I was getting a
little discouraged, thinking that the only way to hike in Linville Gorge was to
blow your quads on a body-exhausting hike that also required good knowledge of
the area to navigate these "sort of there" trails. Both the
above mentioned hikes had trails that were very hard to find, and once on them,
very tough to navigate. I'm pretty good at wayfinding .. but on both of those hikes, it was definitely helpful to
have another person around who knew the area better than I did.
Well, the hike
last weekend provided a totally different Linville Gorge experience:
Trails that were easy to follow (OK ... we did lose the trail at one
point, but more on that later), no scaling of massive boulders, no climbing up
and over downed trees, no rhodo hell.
And you'd think
that trade off would be less superb views.
Just
the opposite.
Saturday's hike
was one of the most awe-inspiring, gorgeous hikes I've been on. I don't
know how many times the word "WOW" was said thru the hike, but at one
point, I told Andy we were going to have to find another word to say besides
WOW!! Some of the areas we were exploring struck me as deeply spiritual
in how they left me feeling.
The real kicker
was that I even put off looking at my photos for over a day, simply because I
wanted to remember everything just the way it was, not the way my (sometimes
less than perfect camera) captured it.
The good news is
that my photos do a pretty good job reflecting what all we saw, and the areas
of the gorge that really inspired me.
The total mileage
was 7.0 miles, and elevation gain/loss was quite mild/moderate at only 700
feet. Most of this out and back hike was along the Mountains to Sea Trail
as it followed the east rim of Linville Gorge going by Little Table Rock and
Table Rock, and then south towards an area called the "Amphitheater".
But we spent most of our day exploring, as evidenced by the 8 hours it
took us to do these 7 miles. This area was full of "nooks and
crannies", lots of rock formations, narrow fingers of sheer vertical rock
walls that extend out towards the gorge, and the
ravines and narrow gorges that run between these and head steeply down towards
the Linville River.
The day was
perfect weatherwise ... unless you were interested in
perfect photography! Pure sunshine all day long, with
only an occasional cloud seen way off towards the horizon. And of
course, most of our views were to the south: ie:
right into the sun!! Being the non-photographer, sun-worshipper that I
am, I loved it!! The photos are reflective of the day, with lots
of harsh shadows and shots taken facing the sun, with most of the sky washed
out, but hey ... the tradeoff was getting to bask in sunshine all day long as
we wandered around on these rocky points. However, in some cases, the
bright sunlight was a bonus as it highlighted the detail and texture of the
various rocky pinnacles and formations that intrigued me for the entire day.
Andy's goal was to
turn off MTS trail onto the trail that goes along a section called the "North
Carolina Wall" ... an area where the terrain drops almost vertically away,
down towards the Linville River. While the MTS trail is blazed, my 3
trips to Linville Gorge have found very few other trails that are marked or
blazed.
This trail along the
“NC Wall is no
exception. But, as we came to one spot, Andy found the side trail
that took us west towards the "Wall" section. It was really
weird to be walking along more or less level to gently sloping terrain, and
then suddenly have NOTHING but a sheer drop off a few feet further on!!
We ate lunch soon
after reaching this section, and spent our first bit of exploratory time
checking out the northern section of this area.
We took the next 2
hours covering only 0.4 mile, going out onto one rocky "finger wall"
after another, seeing how close we were comfortable getting towards the drop
off edge, peering down into one rocky ravine after another, seeing a different
view with every stop.
So much of the
"awesomeness" of this hike was the various rocky formations that were
RIGHT beneath us, way further down in elevation, and yet right up against this
"wall". At one point, we looked down to see two sheer,
vertical, rocky pinnacles way below us, standing like sentinels. The vastness
of the open gorge and vertical distances is deceiving, but these pinnacles had
to have been a couple hundred feet high or so, at least the second one whose
base was further down in elevation than the first one. The photos in the
flickr set show these rocky pinnacles, and the taller
of the two has a full grown tree on its top surface to give you some sort of
perspective.
Andy said this NC
Wall "trail" extends all the way along this vertical drop off and
comes right out at the lower edge of a rocky point on the northern edge of
"The Amphitheater". This was our goal for the day.
Unfortunately, at
one point we lost the "trail" (which at this point is mainly just a
rocky path thru the light undergrowth that covers this area). It's the
type of trail that when you're on it, it is pretty easy to follow, but once you
get off it, not so easy to find again.
We headed uphill
for a ways looking for it, back down again towards the
"drop off", without any luck.
So we just headed
straight up the ridge to pick up the MTS trail again, which would then bring us
to the trail down to the Amphitheater's lookout point.
After 4-5 hours of
easy, flat, rocky trail walking, the 0.2 mile/200 foot elevation bushwhack was
much tougher than it should have been. But, we came out on MTS trail at
the top of the ridge. Then, after only about 500 feet of hiking
along the MTS trail, we came to the turn off that would takes us back DOWN
those 200 feet in elevation to the Amphitheater. We laughed when we
realized how close we had been to the trail DOWN, as we were huffing and
puffing to get UP that same terrain!!
Heading down this
trail, Andy found the place where he had hoped to have us come out from the
"NC Wall" trail. Ahead of us was "The Amphitheater",
a curved, vertical rocky wall area that is bounded by two fingers that jut out
and help form a (sort of) open bowl/amphitheater shape. We passed two
rock climbers who had spent the day doing climbs in this area.
This area was yet
another spot where "the land fell away" beneath us, with the river
and the opposite side of the gorge in full, gorgeous view.
It was already
3:30pm by this point, and we knew we'd be running out of daylight within 2
hours, so we spent much less time here than either of us would have liked.
We headed back
along the MTS trail. On our hike in, we had decided to hike to the top
of Table Rock and Little Table Rock on the way back, but given the short amount
of daylight left, we skipped Table Rock, and only did a very quick out and back
to Little Table Rock, getting back to the cars within about 15 or 20 minutes of
when we would have needed to break out the flashlights!!
Definitely an area to which I plan to return ... so
much to see and enjoy and explore!!
Photos (43) here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nc_hiker/sets/72157632113900771/with/8225225238/
43 photos are a bit more
than I usually post, but hey ... that's narrowed down from over THREE TIMES
that many that I actually shot!!
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