My daughter and I, along with another daddy/daughter pair, have returned from a fantastic trip to Grayson Highlands. A special thank you to TallPaul, Mtn hanger, Rogue, geek81, among others for suggestions and feedback. We planned for and was expecting some nasty, rainy weather Saturday evening and Sunday morning but it fortunately held off. I hope you enjoy the video and the trip report below!
Day 1 (Thursday June 30)
We parked at the overnight backpacker’s lot at Massie Gap and hit the trail at about 6:30. We climbed the Rhododendron Trail to access the AT and passed a wedding party in a horse drawn carriage along the way. We continued along the AT as we rock hopped along the end of Wilburn Ridge before dropping down into a valley to the Wise Shelter. We set up camp (all 4 of us in hammocks) around Wise about 9:00 with a solo section hiker.
Day 2 (Friday July 1)
We broke camp and hit the trail by 9:00 passing over Wilson Creek. This is a great water source and a highly recommended camp area with a great deal of space to accommodate numerous groups of tents or hammocks. We looped around Stone Mountain with a pretty good climb to the bald on top. While taking a snack break on the bald, we were treated to 2 fighter jets flying over completing a very cool bank-n-roll turn. Coming down the bald into Scales was our first encounter of a herd of long horn steer. We continued along the AT until we reached the intersection with the Pine Mountain Trail. We dropped down the Pine Mountain Trail to Lewis Fork Trail and crossed over to pick up Crest Trail. We were in the right place at the right time as a family of horseback riders were coming through. We talked with them for a while and they were so nice enough to let our daughters take a short ride on their horses. We set up camp near a bald on the Crest Trail beside the water source and spent a great afternoon exploring around. We were treated to our first encounter with the ponies here, ate dinner on a rock outcropping overlooking the valley, and experienced a breath-taking sunset from a ridgeline atop Pine Mountain.
Day 3 (Saturday July 2)
We broke camp and hit the trail by 9:00 again with a short, but almost all up hill, hike to the water source at the Crest Trail and Rhododendron Gap Trail intersection. We decided to drop our packs at one of the numerous camp areas around 10:30 and complete a “day hike on our backpacking trip,” as my daughter called it. We passed by Thomas Knob shelter on our way to Mt. Roger’s summit for lunch. We climbed back down to our camp site and discovered that we were camping in a huge long horn steer pasture. After setting up camp, we finished the day with a loop along the AT through Wilburn Ridge to experience “fat man squeeze,” a smaller tunnel area my daughter dubbed “fat boy squeeze,” great bouldering, unimaginable views, even more ponies, and returned to camp along Rhododendron Gap Trail.
Day 4 (Sunday July 3)
We broke camp and started our hike out by about 8:30 along Rhododendron Gap Trail. We changed over to the AT and arrived back at our truck by 10:30. We completed a fantastic 20-mile weekend with our 9-year old daughters who I hope had as good of a time as I did.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by TallPaul
We even had another dad/daughter pair join our camp area Saturday because it was so crowded.
Bookmarks