Day after New Years Hike-Linville Gorge

I really meant to update this a week ago but got busy.  On Friday Jan. 2, the family went on a day hike up the East side of Linville Gorge.  We were planning to go up the Shortoff Trail to the overlook into the Gorge from Shortoff Mtn.  Then maybe a short hike to the Chimneys and possibly even to the parking lot at Table Rock.  When we got up Friday morning it was raining and cool in Mooresville.  Looking at the radar, it appeared there was some rain over the Gorge area but was quickly moving east.  After some deliberation, we decided to head up and take our chances.  We left about 9:00 AM and stopped for a few items.  We got to Wolf Pit Road about 11:00 Am and saddled up for the hike up the trail.  The trail is pretty steep but it has lots of switchbacks that help to make it a little less painful.  It took us about 1.5 hours to walk the 2 miles but we stopped often to gaze at the scenery overlooking Lake James.  A few years ago, a wildfire destroyed almost 60% of this area so the trail is almost completely uncovered.  The vegetation is slowly coming back in abundance but the views are fantastic since there is no cover.  I actually walked this with Scouts back in November at night and you could see Morganton and Hickory lights from up on the ridge.  Very cool.  When we got to the summit, I noticed the wind had picked up considerably.  Looking towards the west side of the Gorge, I could see dark clouds brewing.  I decided rather than take the chance, we could start heading back down.  We let the kids get a good look over the edge of Shortoff into  the valley, then turned back down the trail.  The wind was really howling up on top and the clouds (even though they were staying over the west) were looking worse.  We were just starting down a switchback when I noticed the wind had changed direction and was blowing east to west.  The clouds were heading up the west ridge in a northerly direction so we were safe.  But we looked at our time and decided to head back down and go home.  It had been a long holiday and the kids had a lot going on.  Kyle was wrestling the next day and didn't want to tire out his legs.   We stopped at a nice view of the lake and had a lunch.  We saw a black dot way out on lake James that we thought might be a boat.  Turns out after watching it for 15 minutes, it was a big log floating.  I need to invest in binoculars and actually take them on day hikes. It would probably stop a lot of arguing about what something is.  So back to the car and a drive back to the house.  Both kids voted to do this hike again and extend to do the east trail towards the chimneys.