I am a little slow posting this trip report but here goes:
I went to Grayson Highlands and Mt. Rogers on 7/30/2010 with my son Davis (11 yo) my brother Jim his son Jackson (13 yo) and his son's friend Jordan (13 yo). Davis & jackson have both been on prior backpacking trips with Jim & I but this was Jordan's first go round.
We drove up from SC and got to the trail head at noon this included an unscheduled return to Greenville 45 min into the trip for Jackson's boots that were left in the front hall... So the 4 hr trip ended up more like 5 1/2 hrs. We started from the Massie Gap trail head in Grayson Highlands SP.
We followed the Rhododendron trail to access the AT and headed south towards Thomas Knob shelter. The first section of this trail was a little more rocky than I had expected but after the first mile or so the trail was much easier. Especially once we hit the AT. The weather was mostly sunny and warm, but after leaving the high 90's in SC the 80ish wheather was a welcome. The scenery through this area was beautiful! Until I read Ashman's recent trip report of his family trip here I had not realized how different this area is to the typical SC / NC mountains that I am used to.
And after about 2 -3 hours we saw our first of the "wild" ponies... He walked right up and was expecting to be fed. We did not feed the ponies but I think from their behavior that they are often spoiled by other visitors... On a side note we ran into a family while in Grayson Highlands that was local and they told us there is an effort underway to reintroduce elk to this area of Virginia. That would be pretty cool.
So after about 3.5 hours we reached Thomas Knob and took about a 45 minute break. We refilled water here. The water source is down the hill behind the shelter a couple hundred yards or so in a corral. Unfortunately the flow from the spring was so small that we could not use the gravity filter. Thankfully we also brought the MSR miniworks pump and with that we pumped and filtered all the water we needed. During our rest Davis climbed the ladder to look at the upper level in the shelter and got a good glimpse of the multitude of mice scurrying away.
Soon after we left TK heading south on the AT the terrain changed and we entered a forested area that was more like the mountains in SC / NC. It was lush and green and we even saw a couple deer. One even stayed around and posed for a picture.
At one point the trail direction became a little confusing. The trail came to a fence and there was a ladder over and a walk thru gate which seemed like the trail continued across and back into a meadow type area but that was actually access to reach the Virginai Highlands Horse trail. Once we took a good look around we found where the AT jogged to the right and up the hill into the woods right before you would cross the fence. We continued on through the woods towards Deep Gap on the AT. At DG we turned right onto the Mount Rogers Trail that goes around the back side of MR. We followed this trail until the intersection with the Lewis Fork Spur Trail. This is where we called it a day and camped at a good site Ashman had recommended in his post. The only problem was lack of an obvious water source. Thankfully we had filled everything at Thomas Knob and had plenty for the night. By now it was getting dark (7:30) so we set up camp, ate dinner, sat around the fire for a couple hours. I had made Jerry Chairs for the group and everyone enjoyed the comfort after a long afternoon of hiking. Unfortunately I did not get any pictures of our camp or the hammock set-ups. Jim's son and his friend slept in a tent. This way I was able to talk Jim into trying a hammock for the first time. I set him up with my WBBB and my DIY diamond tarp. Davis was in his HH Scout and I used my DIY gathered end hammock and a separate bug sock. Our two hammocks shared my Speer Winter Tarp between 3 trees in a triangle. Needless to say after a night in the Blackbird Jim's perspective on camping is changed forever. He is already talking about getting a hammock...
Here is where my story takes a not so interesting turn.... The weather reports for Saturday were calling for 40% chance of afternoon thunderstorms. With that in mind our plan was to make our way up the southside of the Lewis Fork Trial (turn right when the spur hits the LFT) (Ashman and his family went north / left towards the AT & the Old Orchard Shelter ). We wre planning to hit the AT south of Old Orchard via the Pine Mountain trail and the head south on the AT to camp near Little Wison Creek (before Wise Shelter). That way we would be set up and out of the weather when / if the afternoon storms hit.
Unfortunately, the weather forecast was way off... We woke to heavy rain at around 8:00. After hanging around and seeing if it would pass we finally desided to break camp and start our hike in the rain. Everyone ate a cereal bar breakfast and hit the trail at 9:30 thinking we would take a break once we refilled water and the rain stopped. Little did we know that lack of water would not be our problem. After about an hour we refilled our water from a small stream running off the rocks above the trail. After hiking for another 1/2 hour the boys were ready to eat a real meal so we found three big flat rocks on the side of the trail to use for seats, draped the tarp over the 5 of us and proceeded to eat our breakfast right there in the mud and rain.Everyone was pretty down about the weather and after conferring with the map we decided the best bet was continue in the rain to get to the Scales area, which is a vehicular access and camping area for horse use. Scales was on our planned route anyway. Once there, if it was still raining our fallback plan would be get a ride around to the other side of the mountain to the car and skip camping with wet gear, no fire, etc... for saturday night. So off we set to reach Scales. All the time it was raining pretty steady at times pouring. At the end of the Lewis Fork Trail we turned right (south) onto the Cliffside Trail. Within a few hundred yards this intersected with The Pine Mountain Trail (no horses allowed). We turned left and followed this for a little over a mile to hit the AT. By the way - all during the day Friday and Saturday (in the rain) we were surrounded by wild blueberries and blackberries and they were in peak ripeness! So we snacked on these both days. The section of the Cliffside trail & the Pine Mountain trail were prolific with berries. Once on the AT we pushed hard in the rain to reach scales by 2:15. We stood under the porch of the restroom shelter and tried to dry off. There weren't any rangers at Scales so we asked a couple guys that were there camping in a 5th wheel camper if they would be willing to drive us to Grayson Highlands. Unfortunately, according to them the access road to Scales leads away from MT Rogers on the north side away fro Grayson Higlands and they estimated the round trip to take Jim to the car and then back to Scales to get us and the gear would take 3 hours. Since that was not an option we started thinking what our options were.
We could either stay on our planned route and camp in the rain or in the Wise Shelter, Camp there at Scales, or we could adjust our route and try and reach the campground at Grayson Highlands via the Scales Trail & the Wilson Trail. Once in the campground it would be easy to get a ride around inside the park to reach the car. The boys were all for pushing on to reach the car. Based on advise from the horse campers we set off up the Scales trail at 3:00 with expectations that we should reach the campground by 5:00. It was really just pouring down rain in buckets at this point. In fact the trail which was a 6' wide horse trail was flooded with about 6" of water. I am not exaggerating when I say the trail looked like a small trout stream!
Un fortunately the Scales trail is not well blazed and sinec we had not originally planned to take this route I had not studied the route prior to our stop at Scales in the rain. Of course this lead to a missed turn & we ended up on Bearpen Trail. At around 5:00 (still thinking we were on Scales and very near the campground) we met two men on horseback coming from the opposite direction. We greeted each other and "knowing" that we had to be close to the campground by now we asked them how much farther? They each got a wierd look, (you know like Uh Oh we have to tell this guy bad news...) and proceeded to tell us they had left the campground on horseback and it was a 2 hour ride from where we were. Then after our hopes were down they added, "by the way we just saw our first black bear ever just right down the trail". This was not what I wanted the boys to hear at this point but obviously we were better off knowing.
After pulling out the map and conferring with the horsemen we figured out exactly where we were and that our best route was to stay on Bearpen until Big Wison Creek and then follow that to the Upchurch Road Trail which would get us to the campground. We also decided that if by 7:30 we were not very near the campground we would start looking for a good site to camp for the night. Fortunately after another 3 rainy miles or so, a knee deep crossing of Big Wilson Creek (now swollen after all the rain), and thankfully zero bears, we reached the campground and got a ride to the car.
We all showered and changed into clean dry clothes we had stashed in the car and started heading for Boone to get dinner and a room for the night. Dinner was great but when we tried to get a room we found that due to a horse show all the hotels were booked. We ended up "camping" an hour farther down the road in Hickory. Here's a shot of the Saturday "campsite":
So we ending up cutting the trip short, but Friday was spectacular! I will also add that the way those three boys handled our challenges and the constant rain on Saturday was amazing. Not once did any of them complain or gripe. They bought in to the plan to reach the car and knew that to do that they had to suck it up and hike in the rain. I am very proud, that experience will be something that they take with them forever.
Final tally by my calculations on the map we travelled 8 miles on Friday in 7.5 hours and stopped to enjoy the sites a little on the way. Saturday we ended up 9.5 hours and just over 10 miles (3 of which were from my navigational goof up...).
I think next time (and all three boys want to go back) we will take the AT to Rhododendron Gap and then turn right on Pine Mountain Trial. This would cut off the Thomas Knob and back side of Mt Rogers portions and give more time to relax on Friday afternoon. We'll see...
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