Backpacking With Wild Ponies at Grayson Highlands, Virginia

Описание: Welcome back to the channel for another amazing episode! This is a trip I've been wanting to do for over a year so I'm very excited to share the experience with you! Grayson Highlands is a very scenic state park in Virginia that the Appalachian Trail runs through. The area is known for its herds of wild ponies that inhabit the area. Along with the horses, backpackers can also see other wildlife in the form of whitetail deer and longhorn cattle.

We knew going into this trip that our weather forecast was abysmal, but we decided to make the six-hour drive from Ohio anyhow. We abandoned our local 80-degree weather in exchange for wind, rain and temperatures in the 40's and 50's. I've postponed trips to Grayson Highlands before due to weather conditions and I wasn't about to do it again.

Upon our arrival, we had decent enough weather to take in some views along the highlands section of the trail and ran into a herd of wild ponies. Day one we covered about nine miles total, including a summit of Mt Rogers, the highest peak in the state of Virginia. We backtracked our way towards an AT shelter and made camp for the night. The last few hours of the day saw the temperature drop about ten degrees and the rain, wind and fog began hammering us.

Upon waking for day two, we realized what sort of weather we were in for. We trekked through the highlands most of day two, but unfortunately our visibility was severely limited. We were lucky enough to stumble upon another herd of wild horses and saw quite a few longhorn cattle along the way. The rain hammered us nonstop for the entire day, I think there was only one 5-10 minute grace period where the rain didn't persist. Bryon, Sara and I were all wearing Frogg Toggs rain gear and it completed wetted out sometime around 1-2pm leaving us drenched the rest of the day.

Our vital gear, shelters, sleep system, base layers etc all remained dry in our packs but we made the decision to not camp the second night and just hike out the four remaining miles day two. I wish we could have stayed a second night, but being so close to the end of the trail and being soaked for hours, we decided to just head home. I can't wait to get back out to this section of the Appalachian Trail in the future when the weather is better. It is a great stretch of trail to hike and I'll be backpacking it again in the future for sure!

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