Linville River

Date: Jun 11 2003, 19:14 GMT

From: selmaraid

We got on the upper gorge and it surged close to 3' or so. It was an epic day to say the least. I go back and still can't believe we did it that hight (1.9' being the perfect level). We ran mostly everything except Cathedral (death hole @ high water) and one or two others. Carrying up Connely we ran out of light, our headlamp battery failed, and we resorted to using a roll of TP as a torch. One of my friends dropped his boat and we listened to it bounce to the bottom of the gorge. After the TP torch gave out we abondoned the rest of the boats and resorted to flicking lighters to light the way. We lost the trail and I thought for sure I was going to spend my first night on the river in wet gear. Nobody was very pleased with that thought so luckily we found the trail and made it out at midnight, twelve hours from the time we put on. The next day we hiked in and got the boats and went to the Watauga. I have since avoided the Connely hike out.