Linville Falls, NC

Monday, June 28, 2010--Yes, we made it to Linville Falls! We started out from Blowing Rock on NC 221...our first miscalculation. We thought it would be a wider, straighter road than the Blue Ridge Parkway. NOT! It took almost an hour to go 25 miles at a maximum speed of 35 mph, even less on the 90-degree turns around the base of Grandfather Mountain. But we did arrive at the Visitor's Center (which is on the Blue Ridge Parkway, after all) about straight up noon. It was a little warm...unseasonable, the ranger said.

This mile marker was close to the end of our journey to the upper falls overlook. We had hoped to climb on to the next overlook so we could see the famous view of the entire falls coming out of the gorge...but heat, lack of water and recent medication wore us down. We did head down hill to the overlook that was a mere 500 feet away--the whole walk was one mile round trip.


But to start at the beginning. From the visitor's center, a bridge takes you across the Linville River, which is fairly wide at this point.


It is also very muddy here. Norm said he was expecting a sparkling mountain stream, but high meadows must produce muddy runoff during those afternoon showers!


A little farther along, some rapids appear and the forest crowds right to the edge of the water. It is so impene- trable, we wondered how the early explorers, hunters, and trappers (like the William Linville who was killed near here by Indians in 1766 according to legend) ever made it through the brush.

We were thankful for a cool and mostly shaded trail through the woods. It went up hill and then down...we saw lots of rhododendron and mountain laurel along the way, some still in bloom. I'll include those in a separate post about the flowers we have seen in North Carolina. There was poison ivy here, too, but mostly it was trimmed back.

I have gotten a little out of order, but here we are, sitting on a wall above the rapids as the river enters the gorge to head for the lower falls (the ones in most of the postcard pictures.)

This abyss is what was behind us in the picture. The gray granite is worn in amazing patterns here and the water, once wide, is now constricted in this narrow gorge, where it flows with very rapid force.

This photo should have come along a little earlier...it is the path leading to the overlook. It is right beside the signposts that I posted near the top. It was full of roots and small boulders... we told ourselves to be careful because the ace bandage I had in my bag probably wasn't enough to treat a sprained ankle and neither of us could have been easily carried out! Amazingly, we met a lot of people with dogs on leash during this hike. Some had as many as three. The dogs seemed to be enjoying it.

On our return trip I realized this view from the trail was toward the overlook. If you click to enlarge the photo, you can see tiny people in the distance. So this is what the "back side" of the upper falls (the first photo at the top of this post) looks like.

We rested, got water, and then drove back toward Blowing Rock on the Parkway, stopping at almost every overlook to take more photos of the Blue Ridge mountains. I'll put those up next time.