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flyminion
Yesterday, I decided to take advantage of this year’s Climate Change Christmas to go scouting for swimming holes in Linville Gorge. After my most recent visit in September, I found that the Linville Gorge Trail (LGT) stayed fairly close to the river, but the summer foliage blocked the view and made it difficult to scout for swimming holes. The air temperatures over the Christmas holidays this year have been in the 60’s, even in the mountains, so I figured this would be a good time to look for potential swimming holes to check out next summer. In addition to the unseasonably warm temperatures and the leaves being off the trees, the river is currently near summer flow due to a drought, so it looks about the same right now as it does in summer as far as water levels are concerned (the river yesterday was at 59 cfs/1.08 ft, according to the USGS gauge).On my last visit, I had checked out the section of the river between the Spence Ridge Trail and the Devil’s Hole Trail. My objective for yesterday was to pick up where I left off and check out the section between the Devil’s Hole Trail and Babel Tower. I wasn’t sure if there would be any worthwhile swimming holes here, which was all the more reason to explore it during winter so as not to waste a nice summer day if there weren't any ideal swimming spots. I had marked a few points of interest on Google Earth that I wanted to check out, all but one of which were directly above or below named rapids (all rapid names are according to American Whitewater). The points of interest (starting at Babel Tower and going downstream) were Used to be a Portage, Wheelie, Zoom Flume, Zig Zag, Skylight, Diagonal Chaos, Death Penalty, Adam’s Oof, Jailhouse, Cyclops, and an unnamed spot just upstream of Cyclops that I dubbed “Jean Grey” (since I’m an X-Men fan and it’s close to Cyclops). Of these, I was most interested in checking out Jailhouse. My plan was to hike down from the Babel Tower Trail to the intersection of the LGT, and then follow the LGT downstream as far as Jailhouse, or maybe all the way to the Devil’s Hole Trail depending on how I was doing on time.
I had been staying at my parents’ house in Abingdon for the holidays. My brother Brian and his girlfriend Rachel (who had previously accompanied me on the Harper Creek yellow jacket debacle) were also there, and they decided to accompany me. We were deliberating on whose vehicle to take (Rachel’s truck, Brian’s SUV, or my Camry), and we finally decided on my car since I would be driving. I was previously able to drive all the way to the Babel Tower Trail head in my Camry back in 2017, but this time we ended up having to walk the last mile to the trailhead along the road because we reached a spot where it was impassable to low clearance vehicles. Even some people in medium and high clearance vehicles were turning around, but we probably could have made it if we had taken Rachel’s truck. One person said that it had only gotten this bad in the past couple of months. We hiked down the Babel Tower Trail to the junction with the LGT and followed the LGT downstream. It switchbacked down the Babel Tower ridge and came to the river near Wheelie.
I am covering the rapids in order from upstream to downstream, although we didn’t necessarily check them out in that order (I passed some of them on the way in and checked them out on the way back). These are the maps from American Whitewater showing where the rapids are located: Used to be a Portage to Skylight, Diagonal Chaos to Jailhouse, and Cyclops to Bob’s World (Devil’s Hole Trail comes in at “Classic”). Also, please forgive my commentary in the video clips. I wasn’t sure at the time if I was going to write a trip report, so I was mainly just recording notes-to-self so I wouldn’t forget the details about each spot.
Wheelie
This one was located near where the LGT dropped down to river level. It had a small pool, but I don’t remember if it looked deep. I started trying to scramble upriver to Used to be a Portage. It looked doable, and there were a few people boulder-scrambling downstream from that area, but I blew it off to save time.
Zoom Flume
There was a rectangular pool at the top of the rapid, and it looked like a small portion of it may have been deep enough to swim in. It had a potential jump of about 8-10 feet if the water were deep enough (but the landing would have to be precise, as the pool was pretty narrow). The pool below the rapid looked mostly shallow except possibly right beneath where the rapid fed in, which probably has a strong current. There was a rock ledge perched above the base of the rapid, but any jumps would require a precision landing, if the water were even deep enough. The downstream end of the pool looked mostly shallow, except for an underwater pothole about 4-5 feet in diameter.
Zig Zag
This one looked like a nice pool that could be deep enough to be a swimming hole, but there were no real vertical elements.
Skylight
The majority of this pool looked shallow, except for the section along a large rock slab where the rapid fed in. I’m guessing this rapid is named Skylight because the slab on the river-left has a hole in it, which drops all the way through the rock to the water below (which I confirmed by throwing a few sticks into it and watching them drop through). If this section were deep, then a jump of about seven feet would be possible. I’m not sure of the diameter of the Skylight, but if it were wide enough to jump through, and if the water were deep underneath it, then a jump of maybe ten feet would be possible through the skylight.
Here is a video of all the rapids from Wheelie to Skylight:
Diagonal Chaos
The pool above Diagonal Chaos looked shallow from the trail and didn’t look to have any vertical elements, although I didn’t look at it up close to see how deep it was. The pool below Diagonal Chaos looked like a legit swimming hole, although it was kind of cluttered with boulders. There was a boulder on the upstream end near where the rapid fed in that looked like it might offer a low jump of about 5 feet, but the landing appeared to be in a strong current. There were some boulders damming the downstream end of the pool, but those also looked only about 5-6 feet high and not completely vertical. There was also a ledge about 6-8 feet above the river, but from my vantage point further up the hill on the same side of the river, I couldn’t see the water directly beneath it. Overall I probably wouldn’t bother with this pool since it appeared to have a combination of boulder-clutter and strong currents.
Blindside & Death Penalty
Behind a campsite was a large pool between the rapids Blindside and Death Penalty. I mistakenly refer to Blindside as Death Penalty several times in the video because I had only saved the latter in my GPS, so I didn’t know the location of Blindside at the time. The scramble trail from the campsite reached the river in the middle of Blindside, and it was not going to be possible to get to the end of the rapid where the big pool was without either getting my feet wet or doing some sketchy scrambling on high, sloped boulders. Accessing the pool from downstream would require somewhat of a bushwhack, which I didn’t try. The pool looked like a legit swimming hole, but the only potential vertical element was an eight-foot boulder at the very upstream end of the pool. I couldn’t see how deep the water was directly beneath the boulder, but it looked like there was a shallow sandbar snaking across the pool. It possibly could have dropped off near the boulder. I scrambled to the top of Blindside to check out what looked like a smaller pool with an overhanging ledge, but when I got a closer look, the pool didn’t look consistently deep enough for jumping to be feasible.
Double Undercut
Double Undercut wasn’t on my agenda, but the trail offered a good overlook view of it. It appeared to have a small pool beneath it.
Adam’s Oof
Adam’s Oof looked like a legit swimming hole from an overlook view where the LGT skirted across an exposed rock, although the pool was potentially cluttered with boulders. I was able to approach it from upstream using a scramble trail from a campsite, but I couldn’t make it all the way past the rapid to the swimming hole with dry feet at river level. From what I could see, though, there didn’t appear to be any good vertical elements even if the water was deep. There was one large boulder just below where the rapid fed in, but it didn’t look vertical enough for jumping when I saw it from certain vantage points. I did note that there was a scramble trail (or a dry, rocky stream bed) a little ways downstream that would allow access from the downstream end of the river.
Jailhouse
Jailhouse was the main rapid on my agenda for today. This one required a bit of a boulder scramble to get to, as the trail adjacent to this area was a dense, impenetrable thicket of Laurel and/or Rhododendron. We slid down a steep trail a few hundred feet downstream that came out near a large, flat boulder in the middle of the river.
We climbed over boulders and walked through herbaceous areas along the river's edge (which may be more of a chore in summer).
This looked like it could be a legit swimming hole, but the water appeared to be only 6-7 feet deep in most areas. I walked out on a rock that ended underneath the large ledge boulder, and the water still looked mostly 6-7 feet deep. I climbed up on the ledge boulder, which was about 10 feet above the pool. I could see just upstream on the river-left that the river actually disappeared under one of the other rocks, forming an underwater tunnel (which I would not want to get sucked into). The vantage point from the huge ledge boulder offered a nice winter view of the gorge walls on the western side.
So yeah, I would really need to snorkel Jailhouse to determine if it’s deep enough for jumping, but it would be a pretty solid swimming hole if it is, with plenty of flat boulders for sunbathing to boot.
“Jean Grey”
This looked like a legit swimming hole with a potential jump of maybe 10 feet from a boulder, although when I got closer, it appeared that the boulder may not be as vertical as it had initially appeared. I decided that this pool warranted further exploration in the summer.
We decided to turn around at Jean Grey, as it was starting to get dark by this point. Although Cyclops was only a couple hundred feet downstream, I figured it was close enough to the Devil’s Hole Trail that I can hit it when I come back in the summertime to visit Cave Falls. The ascent back up to the car was pretty brutal (about 1400 feet, plus more elevation gain once we got to the road). I feel like I’ve done higher elevation gains in California with less detriment to my knees and quads, but this one really got me for some reason. Perhaps my legs are used to being in hibernation during winter. It had started getting dark when we got back on top of Babel Tower, and it was almost completely dark when we got back to the road. We stopped in Elizabethton and macked on some Pal’s on the way back.
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Today, in sticking with the Linville Gorge winter exploration theme, I went to Linville Falls with Miranda. She wanted an easy/moderate hike so she could bring her dog, so we only did the overlooks and didn’t hike down to the plunge basin. This was fine with me, since my legs were pretty angry from yesterday. Also, swimming is prohibited at Linville Falls (with signs warning of a $5,000 fine and/or 6 months in jail for violators), so there wasn’t much point in scouting out the plunge basin. The last time I visited Linville Falls was way back in 2000, and as I recall, the plunge basin would be among the most epic swimming holes in the state if swimming were allowed (some people still do it, though).
We first hiked to the upper falls, which is a small twin waterfall above the main falls.
From here, you can see the river enter the “chimney” and drop out of sight. I think the river drops about 40 feet inside the chimney before going over the final drop. I thought I had read somewhere that a new trail had been constructed that allowed visitors to look inside the chimney, but we found no such trail. There was a “Chimney View” overlook, but it was the same view I had seen back in the day:
There was another overlook called Erwin’s View that was far enough to the side that the penultimate drop was partially visible.
Here is a video of all the vantage points of the falls:
There were a few scramble trails from Erwin’s View, but none of them went anywhere interesting. I was hoping to get a view of the confluence with Gulf Branch about a quarter mile downstream of the falls, because it appeared from Google Earth that there could be a swimming hole there, but there were no good views from the established trails. There was a "Gorge View" overlook downstream of the Gulf Branch confluence, but this stretch of the river didn’t look terribly interesting.
After returning to my parents' house in Abingdon, I had Christmas leftovers for dinner.
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In summary, after yesterday’s scouting, I would say the pools that warrant further exploration in the summer are Jean Grey and maybe Jailhouse, both of which are close enough to the Devil’s Hole Trail that they could potentially be tacked onto the end of a Cave Falls expedition. The section of the LGT between Babel Tower and the Devil’s Hole Trail stayed pretty close to river level (usually no more than 50 feet above it), and there were scramble trails that allowed river access near most of my points of interest. On the Babel Tower end of yesterday’s hike, Skylight and the big pool between Blindside and Death Penalty might be worth a closer look, but I probably wouldn’t make a special trip for those, as they are too far upstream to include with Cave Falls.
I didn’t really learn anything new from today’s visit to Linville Falls. From the overlook views, the river does not seem very interesting below the falls, so I probably wouldn’t make a special trip to check out the Gulf Branch confluence downstream of the falls unless I were tacking it onto a Linville Falls plunge basin hike.
