Linville Gorge - Cyclops & Jailhouse

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.

( Click here for the full trip report with pictures and videos )

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.