April 12 Linville River Trail

Rickmo atop Babel

Today's PHOC hike is led by Angry Ben. The nine participants cluster at Pine Gap Trail parking area in Linville Gorge for a long day of hiking along the river. After a dusty car shuttle, we are headed down to the river.The first 3 miles take us 3 hours to cover. While on point, I managed to lead everyone off trail for a 15-20 minute scramble. I believe the 5th time I mentioned to Ben, "this doesn't look like the trail", he agreed. A quick look at Rickmo's GPS showed we were right on the trail. Finally we had to slide down a rock slide chute one at a time to avoid getting hit by the rocks dislodged behind us. We were about 200 feet off trail but to a GPS it would have looked like we were on trail with the elevation taken out of it.

Lunch was at the base of Babel Tower. Six of our group scrambled up and about Babel and Avatar. The views down river were quite impressive.

Following lunch, we continued down river. We stopped to identify various places, like Devils Hole crossing. With the water up today, nobody was crossing the river. Although we did see several people on the opposite  side near the Spence crossing. The river is very difficult to cross even in low water. Since the Spence Bridge washed out, I bet it doesn't get crossed much. Last fall, our group crossed at Devils Hole and then again at another spot we located further upriver. 

Early flowers were blooming. Trailing Arbutus, Halbred, Common Blue, Sweet White and Early Yellow Violets, Bloodroot, Wake Robins, Star Chickweed, Large Flowered Bellwort and a few others were out today.

We saw no one camping until we were within a half mile or less of Conley Cove. I appears there might be a new trail cut from one of these camps up to Conley Cove Trail but I failed to see it when we headed out. The 1.4 mile hike up Conley Cove took me 45 minutes. The full length of out hike was about 9 miles in 8 hours. That is typical gorge hiking.

Click Beetle

Table Rock?

Returning to Pine Gap, we encountered a rescue operation ongoing in the area of Old Sandy Flats Trailhead. 20-30 vehicles, with a ambulance, rescue vehicles, command post in a trailer and an ATV seemed to indicate the seriousness of the rescue.   

Wake Robins