State

This may look to you like mighty rough country over which to travel, hut it was comparatively easy going when compared to some of the cliffs over which Boyd and Billings had to climb. A Trip to the Top of Linville Gorge ll sounds very interesting. Iiut we believe flint you'll iiuieli rnllier read about it than try to make the journey yourself. By c;iMsi:itT i»i. itmivt.s THAT falls you sec yonder is only sixteen feet high; but below the mighty hemlock the plunge is a sheer ninety feet into a rock-bottomed pool of profound depth. Lower down the gorge there are other water-falls— many of them. . . . See how perfectly the rhododendron, the mountain birch, the pine, and the hemlock clothe these strange, sheer cliffs, lending a glamour, a soft allurement to the gigantic cleft, hewn through the vitals of these ancient hills. . . . Here man has never come to stay; only to peer into the abysmal gorge, perhaps, to shudder and to turn away." The above description was the Linville Gorge of Archibald Rutledge in his Oil esse у о/ Bolio. and this was the Linville Gorge above which Boyd Park — a Temple University medical senior who had come South for the summer and I stood in awe, looking longingly at what geologists say is the oldest gorge in the world* We wanted mightily to make a trip through the gorge. We had snow-shoed through the Mackenzie Mountains of north¬ west Canada, turned our binoculars down the Ocanoluftee Valley in the Great Smokies, and flown over the Popocatepetl of central Mexico, but the lonely solitudes of the hemlock-hung Linville Gorge has long challenged adventurous Caro¬ linians. We decided to make the journey. Three full days went into the preliminary plans: light aluminum- framed packs, ropes, and shelter halves came out of the attic; minimum rations were purchased: the county furnished maps — which turned out to be grossly inac¬ curate; and we adopted our usual heavy-duty dress. Case knives, a camera, hatchet and an anthology made up thirty-four pounds for each of us. Late the last afternoon we flew from Morganton over the Linville Mountain spur, west of the Shortoff - Table Rock - Hawksbill- Gingercake range which borders the eastern rim of the canyon, in an attempt to find trails. There were none! On August 17, we noted a “2:35 PM." on our maps and struck out from the delta where the Linville River empties into Lake James towards the magnificent five hundred-fool granite face which gives Shortoff Mountain its name. The steady roaring of the river blended with the incessant wind in the trees, but in the shadow of the Shortoff cliffs the deep sonance was almost deafening. At four o’clock we stripped for a swim in a deep and relatively still pool and later rested on a boulder to look at the disheartening pas¬ sageway — rising two hundred feet for every mile — confronting us. “Loud ramped the white waters of the Linville River up that black tremendous gorge, in affluent rupture storming northward through the lonely mountains," was Rutledge’s esthetic descrip¬ tion. “Esccola” — Cliffy River Linville River was named for a William Linville who was scalped by the Indians in the gorge in 1776, but the Cherokees called the restless stream Esecola, which means "cliffy river." It is plausible that Hernando DeSoto saw the ninety-foot falls as early as 1539; it is probable that Oconostota fell back into the chasm after the Cherokee defeat at Kcowee by the English Colonel Montgomery in 1760. This is country about which many legends are told. Darkness comes early in the gorge. By six-thirty we were searching for a camping spot, and by seven a fire was needed so we could see to erect the tent. The late moon was hardly discernible through the tangled branches. Wc watched an occasional animal stumble across our site, stop momentarily in amazement, and then scurry off through the rhodo¬ dendron. Both of us slept soundly in the enveloping monotones of the gorge. The river is the sole center of at¬ traction with its constant demand¬ ing roar for attention; everything else is subordinated to the restive impatience of these waters to reach the plain below Shortoff. The com¬ pelling intentness soon becomes vexating. We began our first full day with the Esecola early and faced the river of great, granite boulders, crossed by smooth, steep, rock walls with obstinacy. The water THE STATE. October 30. 1048 to