Linville Gorge Wilderness: Devil's Hole Trail & Hawksbill Mountain

Winter Adventure in High Country

From atop Hawksbill Mountain: Eamon, William, and myself with the sun setting on the tallest mountain east of the Mississippi, Mount Mitchell

Background: 

This was not my first trek into the Linville Gorge nor my first summit of Hawksbill Mountain, but as I told my friend William on our hike, the Linville Gorge is a place worthy of many adventures.

This time, we parked at the Hawksbill Mountain trailhead off of Table Rock Road, descended nearly 2000 feet the the gorge floor and then back up nearly 3000 to the summit of Hawksbill over the distance of about 7 miles. Needless to say, we did this hike last Friday and now on Monday of the following week, my legs  aren't close to being back to 100%.

A good friend of mine that I went to high school with came to visit over the weekend and join in the fun at the UNCC Snowboard Club annual Beech Mountain trip for college weekend. We decided to fit in some hiking on the way up to High Country and, with our snowboard club friend Will, we set our sights on the Linville Gorge.

Hike Report

As I have written in previous hikes (Hawksbill & Pitch-In/Rock Jock), the Linville Gorge is accessible via two Forest roads that traverse the east and west rims. These Forest Roads are gravel, and can generally be traveled with a vehicle with front wheel drive, though there are some parts (especially on the west rim) that get pretty dicey and all wheel drive is preferable. So, right off of NC 181, we took the first exit for Table Rock and journeyed into the Wilderness area. 

Listening to a mix of Lynyrd Skynyrd and the old Free Rider soundtrack, we started the 10ish mile trip to the Hawksbill trailhead. There is most definitely is something great about taking a forest road anywhere over a relatively long distance. 

About 20 minutes pass and we pass the outward bound school at Table Rock and I figure we are getting close to the Hawksbill trailhead. We finally arrive at about 2pm and it is a cool 40 degrees outside with a bright sun and calm skies. Certainly getting out of the car was a bit cold, but once we got moving it turned out to be great weather to hike in. 

Hawksbill Mountain is a very accessible trail destination due to it's short distance (1.5 miles round trip), but does not get as much attention as nearby Table Rock. The trail starts out fairly mellow as we climb up to the top of the rim and instead of taking a left up to the mountain summit, we hang a right to reach the Devil's Hole trail about a mile North of Hawksbill. 

These frozen ice crystals were everywhere on the trail. 

The Devil's Hole trail descends almost 2000 feet over only a mile down to the Linville River. This is an incredible amount of elevation change, and there are very few switchbacks all the way down. They say every mile in the Linville Gorge is equivalent to 2 miles outside of the Linville Gorge. This is definitely the case as we overshot our time estimate by a lot and ended up getting back to the car right at dark.

Due to the gorge being designated as a Wilderness Area, there are no trail blazes on the trail and virtually no trail structures. This makes for fun hiking with lots of obstacles like downed trees, rock gardens, etc. You must take prudence in following the trail as well as it is very easy to take a spur or game trail in the wrong direction. Many have gotten lost here due to the rugged and unforgiving terrain.

We made it down in about 45 minutes and at the end of the trail was a fairly large camping area. There are numerous camping locations all along the gorge floor on the Linville Gorge trail across the river, it is definitely in my plans to camp here come springtime. 

The Linville River in the gorge is a special place, it feels like you are stepping into another world filled with incredibly old trees, truck sized boulders, caves, cliffs and more. The river can be treacherous and river crossings are very scarce here. From what I understand, there used to be a bridge at the end of the Devil's Hole Trail but has long since been washed out and now there is no clear path across. We ended up finding a way about 100 yards upstream, but it required a leap of faith that would be questionable with a full backpack on. The river is far from the levels of a creek and therefore make finding suitable crossings difficult with water moving fast below.

We ended up hanging out on the big rocks of the Linville River for almost an hour just exploring the old landscape. This place has never been logged due to the rugged terrain and has sparesly been inhabited by any group of people throughout history. We look up at the cliffs of the gorge and imagine Americans hiding in the trees with bow & arrow. Native Americans once inhabited the gorge and is/was said to be a very sacred place in Native American spirituality. John & William Linville, the gorge's namesake, were scalped by the Shawnee here on a hunting expedition.

Old time was flying and we decided we needed to start heading back as the sun was already under the west rim of the gorge. We were not excited about the climb back up from Devil's Hole... at all. We were at roughly 2200 feet in elevation and we would reach 4000 at the summit of Hawksbill. This is over twice the elevation gain of the Pinnacle Trail at Crowder's Mountain. 

But we did it, and in good time, about 45 minutes later we were back at the Devil's Hole trailhead. This side by side of my friend Eamon before and after says it all!

Hiking the rim was amazing by now as we were used to a pretty extreme pitch of the Devil's Hole trail, and in about a mile we reached a split in the trail--to the left we could go down about a mile and get back to the car--or keep going and summit Hawksbill mountain, about 400 more feet of climbing over 0.3 miles.

With a little debate and a little help from the universe choosing the light side of the rock that we flipped, we made no hesitation in hiking up the mountain. At this time, if you are reading this Sean and Thalia, I will let the cat out of the bag! we did not get lost in the Linville Gorge, we just couldn't say no to a sunset over southern Appalachia from one of the most beautiful mountains in North Carolina. But still, they probably won't read this and even if they do check who knows if they have read all of my writing up to this point. My sense of direction is enough not to get THAT lost in the Linville Gorge anyways...sheesh. Well I am really sorry that we were that late to getting to the ski resort with your skis, I really did have good intentions in hauling the gear in our car.

...Anways...

We had no regrets, the sun was setting and it was a beautiful sight to see the sun set over Mount Mitchell in the West. There was also a full snow moon lunar eclipse due east. All of this made for absolutely gorgeous panoramic views of the Wilson Creek Wilderness Study Area to the east, High Country and the Roan Highlands to the North, the Black Mountains to the west and the Pisgah Ridge of the Ranger District to the southwest.

No regrets man

I spy the balds of Roan

Eamon, never on time, always prepared

A great hike Friday and a great day on the slopes Saturday, what a great weekend with great people. I'll miss the Snowboard Club a lot when I graduate in May. 

~Coda~