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Library 
 
 OF THE 
 
 University of NortH Carolina 
 
 This book was presented by 
 
 J X3Vcr»e. rpird'irvcg Co. 
 
 FOR USE ONLY IN 
 
 THE NORTH CAROLINA COLLECTION 
 
Linville Gorge 
 
 A STATE PARK FOR 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 By W. W. Ashe 
 
 Reprinted from PARKS & RECREA 1 ION 
 for January-February, 1923 
 
 -OJL 
 
 
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 ■ 
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2019 with funding from 
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
 
 ■ 
 
 https://archive.org/details/linvillegorgesta03ashe 
 
 
-—Photograph bv Frank Bicknell 
 
 HAWKSBILL OMINOUS — A TURQUOISE HAZE HANGS ABOVE 
 
 LINVILLE GORGE 
 
 Proposed As State Park 
 For North Carolina 
 
 By W. W. Ashe 
 
 Far below a slender thread of sparkling, 
 roaring water, walled in by lofty sandstone 
 cliffs which rise from sloping bouldered 
 bases, dotted with mountain pine with nod¬ 
 ding tips; deep somber hollows, shady with 
 hemlock; high above, sentinel-like, towers 
 Table Rock, cleft in twain in some titanic 
 swell, and Hawksbill ominous; a turquoise 
 haze hangs above; now and then is heard 
 the shrill cry of a raven. This is Linville 
 Gorge. 
 
 Here is a natural park with every ele¬ 
 ment of romantic charm: Ruggedness, 
 crag, cliff, canyon, scar; the allurement of 
 half naked rocks part clothed in verdure; 
 a foothold here and there for a group of 
 stunted wind-torn trees; a ledge on a dizzy 
 escarpment from which droops laurel, in 
 June crimson and purple; a fissure claimed 
 by a clump of mountain azalea flaunting a 
 
 flaming banner in earliest spring under 
 which the snowbird makes its nest; crevices 
 from which the service grows matching in 
 the whiteness of its vernal blooms the 
 patches of snow which still linger huddled 
 in the hollows from the sun. Linville 
 Gorge is grand, virile, stern, with threaten¬ 
 ing precipice and beetling cliff, a rock en¬ 
 compassed glen with lofty barriers. 
 
 A water-worn slit twenty miles long and 
 a quarter of a mile deep through a massive 
 block of white flint-like sandstone. Linville 
 River through past aeons has carved this 
 narrow channel for itself. A temperamen¬ 
 tal little river, placid in its transit through 
 the broad quiet valley within which lies its 
 upper course; but once below the falls 
 which mark its descent to the gorge becom¬ 
 ing tempestuous and partaking of the wild 
 nature of the gorge itself, fall being fol- 
 
 * 
 
 cT 
 
2'Aij 
 
 PARKS & RECREATION 
 
 —Photograph by Frank Bicknell 
 
 RUGGEDNESS, CRAG, CLIFF, CANYON, SCAR; THE ALLUREMENT OF 
 HALF NAKED ROCKS PART CLOTHED IN VERDURE 
 
 lowed by cascade and rapid until when it 
 emerges from the gorge and enters the 
 broad plain below Shortoff Mountain the 
 total descent has been a thousand feet. The 
 eastern wall of the gorge is Shortoff, 
 Hawksbill, Table Rock, and Gingercake 
 Mountains; the western is the long Linville 
 
 Mountain ending in Dodson Mountain at its 
 southern end. 
 
 A park should withdraw from use the 
 least possible amount of wealth producing 
 area. It should embrace the largest amount 
 of recreational opportunity. The basic ele¬ 
 ment should be esthetic: It may be the 
 
NATIONAL, STATE AND PROVINCIAL PARKS 
 
 —Photograph by Frank Bicknell 
 
 AN ESCARPMENT FROM WHICH DROOPS LAUREL, IN JUNE 
 
 CRIMSON AND PURPLE 
 
 quiet monotones of woodland drives; in 
 Linville Gorge it is the grandeur of Nature. 
 There are in the entire Appalachians two 
 other regions which rival it: Grandfather 
 Mountain, its rock-capped summit encircled 
 with forests of spruce and balsam; and a 
 rugged but limited area around Highlands, 
 North Carolina. Most of the mountains in 
 
 the southeastern States are merely hills— 
 amplified, picturesque and charming drowsy 
 vistas—forest-clad, from vale to summit, 
 with here and there a mountain farm, 
 mountains which are capable of producing 
 timber and contributing to the general 
 weal of a section which needs to develop all 
 its resources. ' In a natural or wild park 
 
238 
 
 PARKS & RECREATION 
 
 —Photograph by Frank Bicknell 
 
 A ROCK-ENCOMPASSED GLEN WITH LOFTY BARRIERS 
 
 there should be an extensive area; the pos¬ 
 sibility of roads and trails; rare scenery; 
 opportunity for varied diversion; accessi¬ 
 bility. There should alike be facilities for 
 the camper, for the casual tourist and the 
 motorist. Linville Gorge and the flanking* 
 mountains combine all these elements of at¬ 
 tractiveness. They offer to the people of 
 North Carolina one of the few opportunities 
 to acquire a reasonably large area with 
 many advantages, and accessible to the 
 family of moderate means that desires to 
 spend a week on a camping trip. North 
 Carolina with its slender urban population 
 heretofore has not felt the need of preserv¬ 
 ing for its people opportunity for outdoor 
 
 life. The urban population is rapidly in¬ 
 creasing. These people, largely men of 
 small means, must be given opportunity for 
 outdoor life—a week or ten days spent on a 
 camping trip. This is a phase of life which 
 is not yet developed in the Southeast as it 
 is already in some other sections.* 
 
 Linville Gorge is a fragment from the 
 Grand Canyon, but with cliffs verdant with 
 foliage in place of gaudy with many-colored 
 rocks. Looking westward from the Lin¬ 
 ville Mountain there is a vista across the 
 broad North Catawaba Valley with the 
 
 *In Texas two years ago, the writer saw 
 hundreds of parties camped along Guada- 
 loupe River, in the plateau of central Texas. 
 
NATIONAL, STATE AND PROVINCIAL PARKS 
 
 239 
 
 distant Black Mountain range for a sky 
 line; on the other side is a yawning chasm. 
 From the ridge to the east of the gorge the 
 outlook on one side embraces the low moun¬ 
 tains which merge into the rolling hills of 
 the Piedmont; on the other is the depth of 
 the gorge, from which at times emerges the 
 faint roar of the river. 
 
 This region is the most accessible out- 
 lyer of the higher Appalachian mountains. 
 An excellent road passes almost at the foot 
 of Dodson Mountain. Up this mountain 
 there is a fair road, and an auto can easily 
 travel the crest of the Linville Mountain 
 for its entire length of twenty miles. By 
 circling the bases of Table Rock and 
 Hawksbill an excellent and highly scenic 
 road can cheaply be constructed along the 
 prevailingly flattened crest of the eastern 
 wall, and by crossing just above the falls 
 such a road would pass entirely around the 
 gorge. 
 
 For the purposes of recreation there are 
 ideal camping sites along the crests of the 
 flat-topped mountains which flank the gorge 
 on either side, while there are many springs 
 short distances below the summits. The 
 sandy soils never become muddy; there are 
 no mosquitoes, no gnats, no black flies. 
 
 Only a few steep and slender paths de¬ 
 scend into the deep bottom of the gorge. 
 With more and better trails, offering freer 
 access to the river the fishing would be un¬ 
 surpassed. There still lurk a few bears; 
 an occasional pheasant drums near the 
 berry thicket; the turkey still haunts the 
 chestnut feeding ground. With a little pro¬ 
 tection they would wonderfully increase. 
 Deer, and perhaps elk, otter and beaver 
 might be introduced. Bald eagles have been 
 
 killed here, and the wide-winged osprey 
 often soars above. The deeper hollows pro¬ 
 tected from hunting furnish unrivalled 
 breeding places for game, the overflow of 
 which would in part replenish outside areas 
 where it could be hunted lawfully.** Some 
 of these most inaccessible hollows could be 
 set aside where timid game might find 
 refuge and breed undisturbed by fires, dogs, 
 or by its most dangerous foes, men. 
 
 The State of New York has purchased 
 and set aside for the use of the people more 
 than two million acres in the Adirondack 
 and Catskill reserves and in the Allegheny 
 State Park. It is due to the workers in the 
 rapidly growing towns of North Carolina 
 that a beginning be made in this respect. 
 
 The ownership by the State of North 
 Carolina of this land of almost negligible 
 value for the production of timber *** 
 should be urged by those who wish to see a 
 State own some of its choicest bits of 
 natural scenery; by those interested in the 
 public ownership of a tract with unsur¬ 
 passed recreational advantages; by sports¬ 
 men desirous of the establishment of breed¬ 
 ing places for the almost vanished game; 
 by those who cater to the tourist since ii 
 rendered approachable there will be added 
 another attraction to the “land of the sky”. 
 
 **The State of Pennsylvania has 28 game 
 refuges, with an aggregate area of some 
 30,000 acres within which the killing of 
 game is prohibited. It is the opinion of 
 the writer that as a result of this game is 
 more abundant, at least in northwestern 
 Pennsylvania than it is at the present time 
 in any portion of western North Carolina. 
 
 ***The enormously valuable water power 
 rights have already been alienated from 
 the fee. 
 
r 
 
 Independent Print,