3rd Annual Linville Gorge Trip!!!

“Nylon windsuit and a pvc rain poncho. Those are bare necessities if you want easy to find and cheap.”

“Also, spray the windsuit with sylicon waterproofing and let it dry overnight before using it.”

“ok..got the poncho..I will for sure waterproof the boots tonight..and put a second coat on tomorrow..

Looking forward to meeting you Smokeygirl..”

“Well I am packed and had planned on leaving tommorrow, but.... The weather is causing me to bail out on this one. Call me what you like as long as it is preceeded with Dri. Have fun! And you all know you will see me again! I am still doin the Ark and Fla trip.”

“Jer, I have cash for the gloves and snickers, too, just to be nice. Are you joining us in the Ozarks where we will be dry??

Yo Dri-bear!!

TexWW”

“Come to Arkansas dri-bear. Come on. You know you want to. Mozark said something about a 50% off sale at the pack rat.”

“ooooooooooo, did someone say
S-A-L-E at a gear store?? (Sale is a four letter word, ya know)

Lemme outa here, I'm there!! ;-)

TexWW”

“well, since everyone else is bailng out i guess i might as well stay home too
















NOT!!!!!!!!

see youn's that won't be there some other time hopefully. see youn's that will be there on friday!

linville! linville!”

“Don't know yet! Supposed to start with freezing rain, sleet, snow tomorrow morning here...I may not be able to get out of KY!!! LOL Oh my gosh, I'm a captive in the bluegrass state. Hope to see you guys, but don't worry if I don't show.”

“TX-Will be in Ark. 1-23-02. Ifin I miss You I will Mail em! Got your call and sorry I missed it. I can not git to you all theis weekend. too far to drive in such short notice, you know what I mean. Moz has some details.”

“So who is left?”

“I'll be there - some of my best memories are from hiking in the rain - I am a little concerned about the possibility of snow up on the ridge making it hard to drive out easily but I think I'll take the chance based on what I see today of the weather forecast”

“me for as sure as anyone can be. you never know what could happen to anyone.

spam
steve hiker (maybe)
baume 66
trailbuster
bpbaby (maybe)
carabiner
evergreen
smokyfirl
HOI
goose
skully
super troll
spam's boss


according to what I can tell. who'd i forget?”

“he he. you could never tell i cut and paste that list from the last time i did one could you. same spelling error. sorry smokyfirl, er, i mean smokygirl.”

“Spam's boss is out as of this morning!

HOI there shouldn't be any snow left around the Gorge so I wouldn't sweat that too much and the weatherman that I've been watching from Asheville isn't calling for a freeze either.”

“snow being left is not an issue - the question is weather (grin) there will be new snow or not - my guess is possibly a small amount but not enough to interfer with driving”

“nice play on words.”

“hoi....my first ect trip and one that got me hooked was spent entirely in the rain..........it was quite memorable..we bonded like a pack of wet rats.....it was very kewl...:)”

“it wasn't cool, it was actually quite warm.

;oP”

“No snow in the forcast!!!!!!

Iffin anyone gets lost or wants to call for any reason here's my cell # (828)226-7326”

“i'm feeling a little lonely, spam. can i call?”

“Of course Rad I only charge 20 bucks for the first minute and .99 for every minute after that!”

“ROTFLMAO!!!!”

“at those rates i'll have to take my chances on being lonely and lost.”

“well I'm almost packed -I'm aiming at around noon arrival at the trail head but ... who knows I might be an hour or so either way. See y'all there.”

“i finished packing yesterday. 7 hrs. till lift off. see youns there around noon or so.”

“Guys and Gals I just looked at the forcast for the weekend and there has been some changes. They are now calling for snow and rain tonight as well as Friday,Saturday snow,sleet and freezing rain.Iffin you folks from Virginia and other parts want to come thats up to you but I have been to Linville Gorge many times and I don't recommend it with snow or ice either one, it can be very dangerous.I would rather try and do this trip at another time.If you still plan to go I will be glad to give you my suggestions for a shorter/safer trip.I'm sorry I wish I could control the weather.Please give me a call if you have any questions.

Have a great weekend!!!”

“Same weather in the Ozarks!”

“you up for ramsey's draft HOI?”

“how about the priest from rt. 56 to spy rock and back?”

“come on down to georgia, if'n y'all wants!”

“on spam's warning of peril and danger in the gorge, i will be staying closer to home and doing another section of the AT in virginia. we're supposed to get "heavy snow" tomorrow in the blue ridge here. have fun folks. i'm outta here.”

“HOI and smokygirl and anyone else coming from afar please acknowledge receipt of my last posting.”

“It was nice meeting you Spam.

The Erwin Overlook was the best for viewing the Linville Falls - perhaps that was the one you were thinking of.

Lessons learned on this trip - alwys check the web the last thing before leaving and don't snack on dried fruit in the car when driving north on I81.”

“HOI , once again I want to appologise to all for this trip not working out but iffin today at Linville is anything like iut is at my house today everyone will be glad to be at home.

Evergreen thanx for making up the signs maybe we will be able to use them in the future and the cake/bread was delicious.

Smokygirl showed up after we all left and waited then did some hiking and called me around 5 pm while having a burger at Louise's.I'm sorry to you Smokygirl for the lack of communication we would have stayed but we were sure that iffin you were coming that you were going to be there before noon. Looking forward to meeting you in the future.

I want to rechedule this trip for sometime in March or April if anyone would be interested please let me know.

bpbaby I hope all is well with your situation at home.”

“Situation is normal, will be ok, thanks for your thoughts. I'm in on a reschedule!!!!”

“hey, got back from an overnighter about 2:30. got back to my car in 8 inches of snow about 11:30. awesome little trip.

linville gorge
march 1-3rd?”

“btw one of the things I liked about the area was that the hemlocks mostly looked healthy - some change from where I usually hike (SNP) where they are mostly dead or very sick with wooly adelgid (sp?) sap sucking insect.”

“I just found out that we also missed GOOSE and Skullcap. They spent the night I think at the Bable Tower trailhead.Sorry guys!

baume 66 that weekend 1-3 March won't work for me because I will be gone to an Army school from 27 Jan thru 27 Feb and iffin I leave 2 days after being gone for 30 days my wife will blow like an ol steam engine...so I reckon I'd better wait at least a week or so! LOL!Iffin someone else wants to go that weekend them by all means plan it!Won't hurt my feelings a bit.”

“how did the new tent work out baume ?”

“How can such a gorgeous day ( friday ) turn into an icy yucky mess..
But not all was lost..I got some great shots of a frosted Grandfather mountain friday afternoon and this morning some awesome ice shots..

I hope everyone made it home ok..

Maybe we can plan for another Gorge trip later on..”

“Dang. That sounds like my kind of weather.”

“HOI- see my tent review thread”

“G00SE and I checked the weather Friday morning and saw the forcast was calling for snow and rain with the Linville area being on the line between the two. Assuming that the weather could go either way or possibly be a mix of the two, we packed our gear accordingly and headed out. I had some ice walkers (thanks TownDawg!) but we were unable to locate a pair of instep crampons or ice walkers for G00SE at any of the gear stores we stopped at along the way. We were a bit concerned by this and hoped for rain. It never once occured to us that you guys would wuss out, er, I mean cancel.

We had gotten a late start due to some snowfall in Kentucky during the night and so we didn't get into Linville Gorge until about 1AM. We had a tiny bit of difficulty locating the not-so-well-marked trailhead (Ahem!)where we didn't recognise a single vehicle. We began to consider the possibility that you had changed the plan.

When we set up camp near the trailhead it was still dry. During the night we could hear raindrops hitting the fly and knew that it had started to rain. In the morning when we got up we got a bit of a surprise. We had to scrape ice off of our pack covers to get into our packs. We broke camp, knocking and scraping ice off of the tent so we could pack it up. We then had to scrape ice off the lock box on the back of the truck to pack everything away. No one else was there and we knew that you guys had whimped on us, er, I mean cancelled the hike. One quick call to bpbaby confirmed this.

Already it had turned to rain and the ice was quickly melting off of everything. We decided to head out to Louise's and get some lunch and try to call Spam. Apparantly the only signal in the area is on the ridge, sorry Spam maybe next time.

From there we headed off to Beech Mountain where we got snowed in yet again. Woohoo, 3 days in a row in two different states!

So where were you guys? Ya buncha snow babies!”

“I was there but after spam hairy-eyeballed my wimpy vehicle and poor excuse for tires I let him talk me into going to see the falls on my way out - CLUCK CLUCK CLUCK”

“Boy, I'm glad I had a class on Saturday and didn't schedule this trip so I wouldn't sound like a wimp backing out and all.










Sounds like a good call Spam.
I hope to make the next one.”

“LOL @ HOI!

Yes BS, it was a very good call indeed.”

“Thanx for your support BS! LOL!”