Linville Gorge - Cyclops & Jailhouse

[flyminion]

Today, I hiked back down into Linville Gorge via the Devil’s Hole Trail to tie up some loose ends from my winter scouting trip this past December. I had planned to do this during the Cave Falls excursion three weeks ago, but that trip was cut short by a surprise thunderstorm, so the loose ends were left untied. During the winter trip, I had scouted the section of the river along the Linville Gorge Trail (LGT) from the downstream end of Babel Tower to just upstream of the Devil’s Hole Trail. I didn’t get to one of my points of interest (a rapid named Cyclops, which is about 500 feet upstream of the Devil’s Hole Trail), and I found two others just upstream of Cyclops that looked like they had swimming hole potential. The first was an unnamed pool which I dubbed “Jean Grey” (since I’m an X-Men fan and it’s close to Cyclops). The other was Jailhouse, which looked like it might have a decent jump from a huge ledge boulder jutting out over the pool (by the way, all rapid names in this entry are according to American Whitewater).

I had been eyeing the weather all week, and the forecast for today had held steady with a 4% chance of rain. The water levels in the river spiked to around 400 cfs on Wednesday due to heavy rains, but it had receded below 80 cfs by this morning. However, the forecast was now mostly cloudy with a 15% chance of rain (a classic Blue Ridge bait-and-switch). In the mountains, you can generally multiply the forecasted rain chance by 3 to get the real rain chance. After last time, I was leery of trusting the forecast, so I just stayed at my parents’ house in Abingdon rather than splurging money on a hotel, and it was looking like I had made the right decision.

I got to the trailhead around 12:45 PM, and there were quite a few more cars than last time. The air temperature at the rim of the gorge was only 64 degrees, and the skies were heavily overcast with gray clouds. I had to park along the road a few hundred feet from the trailhead and walk back to it. When I was looking at my GPS earlier, I noticed I had a marker from Allen T. Hyde's book The Linville Gorge and Wilson Creek Hikers Guide: An Introduction labeled as a shortcut trail connecting to the Devil's Hole Trail, and it skipped my mind at first as I was walking up the main connector trail. I did notice a side path right at the beginning (which I think I also noticed on the return hike last time), but I decided to pass it up on the way in and make sure it joined up with the Jonas Ridge Trail. I saw what I thought was the other end of it when I got to the large campsite just before the beginning of the Devil’s Hole Trail, so I decided I would try the shortcut on the way back.

I wasn’t able to make many observations last time because I had to move so quickly to keep up with Chris, so today I was going to go at a more leisurely (for me) pace. The Devil’s Hole Trail was a mile long and got me down to the river in 34 minutes. When the trail nears the river, it flattens(ish) out and follows a rocky stream to its confluence with the river. The main trail continues to a campsite and heads a short distance downstream before passing a scramble trail down to the river and then dead-ending in a second scramble trail. I could smell a campfire coming from the campsite, but instead of going that way, I took a side path that followed the small stream down to the river, as it looked on the GPS like the trail picked up approximately across the river from where the stream fed in. There wasn’t much of a trail here; it was basically just climbing down the path of least resistance through and beside the stream bed.



I was starting to wonder if this was the "official" route. I don’t think the Devil’s Hole Trail officially crosses the river, but I knew from last year’s explorations and from Hyde’s book that there was a connector trail to the LGT on the other side. Crossing here was a bit more of an undertaking that I had predicted.



Every time I would find a line of boulders that went almost all the way across, there would be one gap about six feet wide with a deep swath of fast water rushing through it. I gave up on trying to keep my feet dry and changed into my Vibrams. I could see that wading was also going to be sketchy. I was able to find one line of smaller rocks (some submerged) that connected to a good line of above-water boulders that would get me the rest of the way across, but there were two spots where I had to put one foot down in swift water almost a foot deep in the brink of a small rapid in order to swing my other foot over to a secure rock. If I lost my balance, I would be washed into swift, deeper water with my backpack on. I was able to make it to the line of boulders unscathed and made it the rest of the way across.

Locating and then taking a route to the other side had taken me almost 30 minutes. When I was almost across, I had seen a cairn on one of the boulders, so I assumed the connector trail must be in that vicinity. I found it and climbed up the steep, overgrown path to the LGT. I followed it upstream a short distance to Jean Grey. I could hear Cyclops roaring below, but the trail was high above the river with no apparent side trails. I knew there was one at Jean Grey, so I elected to descend to the river there and walk downstream along the bank.

When I got down to Jean Grey, the pool had an ominous, uninviting look due to the gray cloud cover overhead.



I didn't hear any thunder like last time, but I was really hoping there wouldn’t be any significant rain, as crossing the river at Devil’s Hole in higher water would be problematic. I decided that crossing with my backpack on would be more trouble than it was worth, so I only took my diving mask, snorkel, and phone in a small gym bag. It was fairly easy to work my way the short distance downstream to Cyclops along the bedrock slabs on the river-left.



While doing so, I noticed another hiker downstream on the slabs, apparently at or near the Devil’s Hole crossing. However, he turned around before he got to Cyclops. It was a rapid about four feet high that plunged into a figure-eight shaped punchbowl.



From there, the river opened up into a boulder-strewn pool.

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The sun came out just as I got there, and I immediately regretted leaving my sunglasses with my backpack. However, the river went from looking ominous to inviting in about two seconds (amazing what a difference in perspective some sunshine can make). I got into the pool, and there were spots where the water was over my head, but the water clarity was very poor today (I could only see about 2-3 feet down with my diving mask on), so there was no way to see the bottom without actually swimming down to it, and I didn’t want to do that here because of the current. The water was 68 °F. There were some small cliffs lining the river-right side of the pool, but the water was shallow beneath any potential jumps.



There was about a ten foot cliff above the punchbowl, but the water looked too violent to be swimming around in there, so I didn’t check the depth. Looking down from the boulder above the rapid, it looked like there might be a submerged boulder in there.



I decided to check out the next rapid down. I hadn’t saved it in my GPS, but I thought I remembered it being called Low No Go (it definitely looked like a no-go for kayakers due to the boulder clutter).

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I couldn’t tell if the pool below it was deep enough to be a swimming hole. Even if it was, there were no real vertical elements near potentially deep water, so I didn't bother scoping it out. The sun went back behind the clouds just as I returned to Jean Grey.

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I tried snorkeling the area beneath the potential jumping boulder, but the turbidity plus lack of sunlight made it almost impossible to see anything. From what I could tell, it was probably less than six feet deep on the downstream end of the boulder, but about seven feet on the upstream end and getting to 8-9 feet moving further out into the pool.



When the sun came out again for a moment, I was able to swim down and see the bottom. It was deep enough to jump in the one spot where I swam down (if I jumped out a little), but I couldn’t see if there were any submerged rocks or logs sticking up in the area immediately surrounding that spot. I had swam around in circles enough that I felt there probably weren’t. The sketchiest part would be actually getting up onto the boulder, as one would have to climb the pile of deadfall next to it and commit to jumping up onto it.



It looked a little more doable from the side not pictured, but still too sketchy to try alone. I decided to continue on to Jailhouse, so I swam my stuff back across the river to where I had left my backpack. As I was getting ready to climb back up to the LGT, I saw two guys hiking upstream on the opposite side of the river. I thought they might try to jump off the boulder, and if they did, then I was going to do it. However, they just waved and continued upstream.

I walked a few hundred feet up the LGT before scrambling back down to the river on a side path I had discovered on my winter scouting trip. I waded a short distance upstream to Jailhouse.



I saw the two guys again, but they stopped and turned around before reaching Jailhouse. The water was crystal clear when I was here in winter, but it was going to be difficult to scope the depth today. One of my biggest curiosities was how deep the water was beneath the huge ledge boulder (let’s just call it the Jailhouse Rock, for funsies).

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I tried snorkeling the pool, but the water was too dark and murky to see anything due to the cloud cover. I was getting cold, so I climbed up onto a boulder and ate a cliff bar. Of course the sun popped out as soon as I started eating. I could see that there was going to be a solid five minutes or so of sun, so I grabbed my snorkel and decided to try again. While climbing back down to the river, I saw a muskrat scurry through the boulders next to the pool. As I had guestimated during winter, the water was about seven feet deep beneath the overhanging portion of the Jailhouse Rock on the river right side. In the potential landing zone, the cobblestone bottom was about 6-7 feet down directly below the edge of the rock, but it quickly rose to only 4-5 feet deep where one would realistically land. On the very river-left side of the rock, I found areas where it was maybe 8-9 feet deep, but there were submerged rocks sticking up all around, so I wasn’t going to try jumping. It would require a bright day with good water clarity, where one could actually see all the way to the bottom while standing on top of the rock. I also didn’t like swimming around under it because its overhanging shadow kind of created the illusion of being trapped beneath it.

The sun disappeared yet again, and I was pretty cold by this point, so I lay on the warm rocks for a few minutes to warm up before putting my shirt on and taking the LGT back to the Devil’s Hole crossing. After I crossed the river, I started to make my way upstream to see if I could see to the point where I stopped when venturing down from Cyclops. I wasn’t sure if I could, but looking back at my pictures and GPS track, I actually made it to Low No Go and didn't realize it.



In hindsight, it would have been easier to walk upstream to Cyclops on the river-left and cross at Jean Grey instead of crossing at the Devil's Hole Trail.

I climbed the streambed back up to the Devil’s Hole Trail. Doing that made me hot and slightly sweaty, so I decided I needed to immerse myself in the river before hiking back up to the road. I took the trail past the campsite, where there were about 4-6 guys with their equipment set up and listening to music. I thought I recognized two of them as the guys who had hiked up the river. I took the first scramble trail after the campsite, which dropped down to a rapid called Classic, but I didn’t see any pools here.



I scrambled downstream to where the second scramble trail came down just upstream of the next rapid, Daniel’s Rapid. I remembered from last time there was enough of a pool here to immerse oneself in water, even if it wasn’t exactly a legit swimming hole. It was actually over my head in one spot, though.



After cooling down for a little while, I changed back into my hiking boots and ascended the Devil’s Hole Trail. It wasn’t quite as grueling as last time, since I was able to go at my own pace, but it was still pretty tiring. I vividly remembered the final quarter mile, as it was one of those places where it doesn’t seem possible for the trail to go up any higher, but it somehow finds a way. When I got to the large campsite, I took the shortcut trail back to the road. I don’t know if it was really much shorter, but it was all downhill, so that was a plus. I made it back to the car in about 45 minutes. I was tired, but not basically dead like last time.

I drove the 90 minutes back to Bristol and picked up a Jersey Mike’s sub for tomorrow’s lunch, and then I got Pal’s for dinner.

In summary, Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Jailhouse were all legit swimming holes, but I don’t think any of them would make it into my top picks for the gorge. I would say Cyclops was the most geologically interesting, but the pool was either cluttered with boulders or had strong currents beneath any potential jumps. Jean Grey was not very interesting geologically, but it was easily the best of the three in terms of swimming hole functionality. It was broad, deep, and had a serviceable jump (with the caveat that I was unable to thoroughly scope the depth, and that it might be dangerous to get up onto said jump). Jailhouse had some impressive boulders (which I already knew from my winter scouting), but I wasn’t super into it today. It kind of has a closed-in feel (which I guess is how it gets its name), and it seemed like any potential jumps would require a precision landing, which would be difficult to pull off without being able to see down into the water. Not being able to thoroughly check the depth due to today’s poor water clarity was kind of a bummer. I was so focused on the water receding to swimmable levels after the past week’s rain that I neglected to consider that the silt would take longer to settle. Overall, even though it never rained, it just wasn’t a very nice day for swimming hole exploration.