Linville Gorge - Babel Tower

[flyminion]

After having checked out most of what the Wilson Creek Area has to offer in the past few years, I was going to have to focus on a new area if I wanted new mountain swimming holes less than a four hour drive from Raleigh. Linville Gorge was an obvious next choice, but I’m not very familiar with it, so I wasn’t sure where to start. I had been to Linville Falls (which I believe marks the beginning of the gorge) several times in my youth, but I have never been terribly impressed with it (I’m sure that statement would make waterfall enthusiasts cry blasphemy). It has a pretty epic plunge pool, but the last time I went, which was admittedly 17 years ago, there was a big, ugly “No Swimming” sign there. My brother had done a backpacking trip through the gorge a few years ago, and he told me I would love it because it’s basically just swimming hole after swimming hole. He said it was only doable as a backpacking trip, but I figured there had to be a few trails that were doable as day hikes. Given the expanse of swimming holes along the river, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to find info on any specific one. The only one I knew of for sure was Cathedral Falls, which is an area where a 50-foot waterfall drops in from a side stream between two large rapids in the Linville River. When I started looking up information on how to get to that one, I came across a picture of another swimming hole with a small waterfall and cliffs to jump from. The caption referred to this area as Babel Tower Falls, which is along the peninsula that forms the Babel Tower rock spire. I consulted the map, and the hike here was less than two miles (albeit with an 1100 foot elevation gain), so I decided this would make an ideal first gorge trip. I had reservations about Cathedral Falls, since the shortest way of getting there requires crossing the river (there used to be a log bridge, but it washed away in a flood a few years ago and was never rebuilt). I wasn’t sure how doable that would be, so I figured Babel Tower would give me a chance to assess the river so I could plan accordingly for Cathedral Falls on a future trip. I was concerned about the water levels, being that the Linville River is a slightly larger waterway than the Wilson Creek Area streams. It looked like the water level had spiked a little earlier in the week but was coming down toward the weekend. There was another small spike yesterday (of only about 0.4 feet), and it didn’t look like the water levels had come down much as of this morning, but I had already made my plans. To my surprise, Ty texted me this morning and said he was up for today’s hike, so we met up at the Linville Falls parking area around 11:40 AM and proceeded down to the trailhead via the gravel road that goes along the west rim of the gorge.

Some of the descriptions I had read of the trail made it sound like it was extremely rugged, but it wasn’t too bad in my opinion. It was a pretty steady descent of about 800 feet in a little over a mile. We reached a point where we were walking on exposed rock faces, and the official trail seemed to give out around here. There were several well-worn side paths going to various pinnacles and overlooks.

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We checked out some of the views and headed back to where we had seen the intersection of the Linville Gorge Trail (which follows the river through the gorge) with the Babel Tower Trail. It was easy to get turned around because this was an area where the river snaked around several peninsulas, so you couldn’t necessarily use the location of the river to get your bearings. After getting back on the right path, we went back to the intersection and went upstream on the Linville Gorge Trail for a quarter to a half mile. It steeply descended about 300 feet, and we came to a side trail near what sounded like a large rapid. I figured this was probably it, so we took the side trail and emerged at the swimming hole.

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There was a couple in the water, and they seemed to be trying to fight the current to get back to the upstream end of the swimming hole. They ended up climbing out on the downstream end of the pool and scrambling along the cliffs at the edge. There was a visible circular current, but it looked safe to enter on the river right side because it was shallow, and the current was moving downstream (away from the waterfall) on that side. I waded in, and the current caused me to lose my balance when I got to about thigh deep. Ty thought I had cried out because the water was cold, but it was actually because I was startled to have been knocked off my feet. I floated on my back to the downstream end of the pool. The current was not as swift where the rocks narrowed at the end of the pool. Ty worked his way along the rocks without getting into the water. I said I couldn’t touch the bottom in the narrow area, so he walked all the way to the end of the pool and crossed on the rocks.

After this swimming hole, the river flowed over some rocks into a much broader pool. I wanted to explore a bit downstream, but I wanted my phone for taking pictures, so I went back to get it while Ty sat in the small rapids between the two swimming holes. I neglected to get any pictures of this swimming hole from the upstream end without Ty in them.



When I got back with my phone (sealed in a Ziploc bag inside a Tupperware container for double protection), we worked our way around the edge of the large pool and continued downstream along the rocks.



I had seen what looked like a couple more significant cascades just downstream from here on Google Earth, and I wanted to check them out. We could see a large rock wall in the distance where the river rounded a slight bend, and that was where the potential cascades were located, so it was my goal to get to that area.



Ty decided to turn back when we were almost there, but I kept going so I could get a better view. The cascades ended up being fairly small but swift chutes of water.

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I had to cross the river between the first and second chute, and the current was pretty swift. A middle-aged couple was coming upstream as I was crossing, and it looked like they were also hesitant to cross here. After I got across, it was a pretty easy walk along the rock slabs on the river left. It looked like there might be one more drop on the horizon at the end of a long pool hemmed by a rock wall, so I worked my way to the end of the pool.



The apparent drop turned out to be nothing interesting.



At this point, the canyon narrowed, and I decided this would be a good stopping point, as I was ready to go swimming. I worked my way back up the river to the broad pool just beyond the Babel Tower Falls swimming hole. There was another couple there, and they were jumping off the rocks on the river right side. The pool was only deep enough for jumping on the river right side near where the rapids fed in. I climbed out and jumped where I saw the couple jumping. The jump wasn’t very high (3-4 feet), and I hit the bottom about ten feet down. Even though the rapids were not as intense as Babel Tower Falls, there was still a current through here. I went back up to the Babel Tower Falls swimming hole and tried to scope out a good jumping spot with my diving mask. The water was too murky to see very far down, but I found a fairly deep area with no obstacles on the river left side of the constriction at the downstream end of the pool.



I jumped here a few times, but it was only about four feet high, so I walked along the rocks to see if I could find something a little higher. The cliffs were about 6-7 feet near the waterfall, but the water looked too swift in that area. I got back in and tried to work my way along the rocks from in the water. I was trying to see if the rocks were undercut, and they were. I could stick my leg up underneath them and feel the current flowing through, so I was worried that I might get swept under the rocks if I jumped into the water right there. I’ve seen videos of people jumping from the very top (about 20 feet or so), but that may have been a lower flow, or they may have just not have been concerned about the current. Three other people, two guys and a girl in their early-to-mid twenties, showed up and asked about the water depth and current. One of the guys seemed to have a Scandinavian accent. I pointed out the deep spots, and I jumped a few more times from the area I had scoped out. I got out, and Ty and I chilled on the rocks for a few minutes until I was dry (well, Ty had been chilling for a while at this point). We started back up the trail and thought we were going the right way, but then we came to a stream we didn’t remember crossing. There were two young women there, who we had seen briefly at the swimming hole, and they were also talking about how this didn’t look familiar. We turned around and backtracked and found where we had taken a wrong turn. We got back up to the Babel Tower Trail and made the ascent back up to the parking area. I was hot and sweaty, but somehow not as tired as yesterday, even though that was only a 300-foot climb. Ty and I parted ways at this point, as he was going back to Asheville, and I was headed to Morganton.

I was still pretty hot and wanted another refreshing dip, but I had drank all of my water. I stopped at the Marathon station along NC 181 in Jonas Ridge for the second time today (I had to stop on the way up because I almost ran out of gas) to get some water. The cashier saw that I was wearing swimming trunks and asked me where I had gone swimming. I told him I had gone to Babel Tower, but I wasn’t quite satisfied for the day, so I was planning to stop by Upper Creek Falls on the way back. The cashier and the guy working the snack bar both protested that Babel Tower is way better than Upper Creek Falls because Babel Tower has cliffs to jump from, but I had to disagree. Upper Creek Falls has water slides and a rope swing, which I think trump cliffs where any good jumps land in sketchy areas. I did end up stopping by Upper Creek Falls on the way back to Morganton. I was pretty tired from the Babel Tower hike, but the upper swimming hole of Upper Creek Falls is only a half mile hike from the parking lot, and I probably need to train for Havasupai, which is coming up in September, so I decided I might as well go for it. The water at Upper Creek was slightly colder than the Linville River (I would say the river was about 70 whereas Upper Creek was about 65). I slid a few times and swam around for a bit until I was sufficiently cooled off. I only stayed for a few minutes, but it’s always nice to drop in at my quintessential swimming hole. I was intent on getting back to Morganton in time to get pizza because I was pretty hungry. I had actually wanted to eat at the Wisteria Southern Gastropub, since they have steak on their menu (and I am now on a quest to find a good steak in Morganton), but I was under the impression that they were closed on Sundays. I drove past on my way to the pizza place and saw that they were definitely open, so I circled back around the block. They ended up being out of steak, but I’ll let it slide due to the deliciousness of their burger, and their perfect shoestring fries.

In conclusion, I wasn’t blown away by the Babel Tower swimming hole, but it didn’t suck either. Based on today’s experience, I would probably give it a 3.5 out of 5. If the water levels were low enough to open up more jumping opportunities, or possibly sliding opportunities down the waterfall, then I probably would have been more impressed. For future reference, the gage height (according to the USGS website) at the time we were there was about 1.07 feet with a flow of 60 cfs. Slightly lower would have been more ideal for swimming. As far as aesthetics go, the gorge walls made for an impressive backdrop, but the water quality wasn’t as clean and clear as the Wilson Creek Area streams (it was a bit sudsy and yucky-looking in places). I did learn that the river was crossable in most areas at today’s flow, as we crossed it several times while exploring, which is good to know for a future Cathedral Falls hike. Until then, you can find me in the flatlands where the swimming holes are boring and the water is disappointingly warm.