Huh, so not Sunday night? I had called into the GFRD office on the first of this month, and the lady I spoke with issued the permit for Sunday and Monday nights (no holiday on Mon). Which is weird in either case, but we should be fine- we start that Saturday, so it was the first night that I was concerned about camping outside the wilderness area.
I'm not as concerned about the above now- the group and I have been debating a couple of new routes: half of the group has not backpacked before (camped yes, hiked yes, just not hiked & camped), and none of us have been to the gorge before. The Linville Gorge forums have been extremely useful- we're now thinking of scrapping the original route (basically a variant of the ITAYG) seeing that it's likely more than we can take and still be happy about it.
We're sticking to the rim, with the possibility of going down Spence, crossing (if the river allows and we feel okay about that), then going up Conley and finishing on the RockJock. Keeps us away from the rougher sections of the LGT, and keeps us completely off the madness that would have been trying the PinchIn and Lead Mine trails in potentially wet conditions. Does preserve them views though, and the option to get a look at (or camp at) the Cathedral Falls
We'll have multiple cars, so a shuttle or even pick up and move between basecamps is easily doable and yield a LOT more flexibility should we find that we need a backup plan.
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