Part 1 of a 2 part video on a Hammock Forum’s Hang in Linville Gorge Wilderness area in North Carolina. Jerry Wick got this altogether for us and unfortunately was injured on his first day solo hiking in the gorge. We missed him … but are looking forward to hiking with him this fall!
The Linville Gorge Wilderness Area is sometimes called the Grand Canyon of the East, but the metaphor doesn’t exactly fit because in the real Grand Canyon you aren’t constantly assaulted by the low hanging branches of rhododendron thickets, or crawling under downed trees, or ducking to avoid an overhanging rock face that won’t allow you to walk upright along a narrow slippery rock shelf that is the only passage along a cliff face that rises 150 feet straight up from the Linville River.
Tucked away in a corner of North Carolina’s Pisgah National Forest, between Lake James and Grandfather Mountain, the Linville Gorge Wilderness Area is so rugged that it was spared the clear-cut logging that was inflicted on most of our eastern forests shortly after the turn of the century. US Army Rangers and US Marines do their wilderness training here. Tenderfoots beware: Linville Gorge is no walk in the park.
Well not sure what to say, my video, first part is my words … second part is not. And Clay Kessler … it’s the US Army Green Berets that trained in the gorge back in the 60’s … but none are using it for training in the last several decades.