The Appalachian Trail

Happy Camper

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Mount Rogers

Among other, less positive, obvious challenges, my Summer 2020 has been the year of the Great Outdoors.

So many times this summer my end-of-the-day shower water ran dirty as I washed away the muddy mountain bike ride off my shins or the garden clay off my feet.

I love it.

In addition to more mountain biking and gardening than ever, my Summer has been full of walks, hikes, and lots of camping.

I’ve slept in a tent every single Saturday except for one since the first week of July! And I’ll be back in “the plastic palace” this weekend as well. That’s 9 out of 10 weekends 🙂

Most of these camping trips were of the “car” variety; everything but the kitchen sink thrown in the truck, sleeping with real sheets and blankets, french press coffee in the morning…

Last weekend was a proper “backpacking” trip to Grayson Highlands, a place I’ve wanted to visit for most of the 10 years I’ve lived in Virginia.

Our plan was to do a 20 mile loop over three days, two nights. The weather had other ideas so we scraped the first night and the loop, instead hiking in and out 4 miles and skipping the torrential rain of Friday night.

Grayson Highlands

The Mount Rogers/Grayson Highlands area is the most diverse landscape in Virginia I’ve ever experienced.

Within those few miles we saw everything from wild ponies to moss covered Spruce forest and the highest point in Virginia to huge rock outcroppings and sweeping vistas.

The ponies were brought to the area and released in the mid 1970’s for the purpose of keeping the brush down. The herd has thrived and we saw about a dozen over the two days, including the two who tromped right through our campsite while we were falling asleep!

We camped at Thomas Knob, after breakfast on Sunday we walked less than a mile up the trail to reach the highest point in Virginia, the top of Mount Rogers at 5,729 feet above sea level.

Mount Rogers

The “peak” is heavily forested so a little undramatic as a summit but the woods around the very top are gorgeous and so unique for the Mid-Atlantic. The damp Spruce forest looks so much like the Pacific Northwest!

Mount Rogers

The logistics of visiting Grayson Highlands/Mount Rogers:

  • Backpackers can pack at either Grayson Highlands State Park or the Elk Garden trailhead to explore the area. You must pay to park in the Backpackers Lot at the park and reservations are highly recommended, it fills up. I cannot speak to the Elk Garden trail because we parked at the Park, however I can say that the way we did it, which takes you through the Wilburn Ridge area, is absolutely stunning. Plus, your car will ostensibly be a bit more secure because the Park is patrolled as opposed to Elk Garden, which is parking on the side of a public road.
  • If you want to explore the area but car camp instead, Grayson Highlands State Park has two car/RV campgrounds. There are tons of trails around there and from what I experienced, you only need to walk a mile or two to get to an area the ponies frequent.
  • The Appalachian Trail runs right through the area (we were on it most of the time), so the mileage is virtually unlimited if you want to go further afield, pun intended.
  • We camped on Thomas Knob, which is on the white blazed Appalachian Trail. There is an AT shelter there, a pivy, and a spring (we brought a water filter to refill our bottles). There are about a dozen well-established campsites spanning the mile or so of the knob, most of them are north of the shelter (before you arrive at it when coming from the Park) but there are a few nice ones just past the shelter. Knowing that the Backpackers Parking Lot was full, we were very pleasantly surprised to have our pick of sites and only see/hear a few other campers.

This happy camper is going to go get her hands in the dirt 🙂

Never Have I Ever

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Never had I ever walked on The Appalachian Trail for three days with my bed, kitchen, closet, and pantry on my back, so that’s exactly what I did to fulfill my birthday ritual.

This five-year-old ritual is simple; complete a physical first, feat, or challenge in my birth month.  As I wrote last year, I love celebrating my life with what makes me feel that most alive; moving!

I grew up car camping and have slept in a tent for over a week at a time.  About once a summer I go backpacking, carrying all my supplies (who am I kidding, Tate’s pack is always twice as big and three times as heavy as mine!) for a night on the trail.  But I’d  never done more than one night, moving along the trail by day and setting up a new camp by night.

We had planned to take advantage of the long weekend stay out for three nights, in which case we’d still be on the trail at this moment, but we made good time (and hiked our asses off) and were back at the car at 4pm yesterday (Sunday) with our beds, a shower, and home projects luring us back to town.

Friday night we started hiking at dusk and arrived at our site by twilight, just a mile or two later.

Oliver and Natasha joined us for the first night, which meant that we were able to leave our car at our destination.

We woke up on The Priest to the most magnificent views of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

I could have sat there for days…

But there was hiking to do.

Saturday was a big day.  We covered over 13 miles of mountainous terrain, stopping along the way to swim in a river, forage for service berries, pick nettle greens to add to our dinner, and take in the views.

Damn straight that bottle of wine was worth it’s weight. 🙂

Stinging nettle greens are more than edible, they are tasty and nutritious.  They are high in iron, protein (compared to other greens), B vitamins, and vitamin A.  And they will sting the shit out of you if your not careful.  We picked them by wrapping a plastic bag around our hands and grabbing them.  As soon as they are soaked or cooked the sting is gone.

We gently boiled them then separated out the leaves, stems, and ‘broth’.  The leaves were eaten with mushroom couscous and canned salmon, the broth was drunk, and the leaves tossed aside (they’re edible but not as palatable).  The leaves are similar to spinach or kale.

If I were to ever backpack for longer than a few days I would study edible plants along the way.  Getting calories on the trail isn’t challenging but getting fresh food is, it’s often heavy and, of course, perishable.  I was confident in my ability to identify sassafras leaves (which I munched along the trail), the nettles, and service berries but I’m sure that there were many edible goodies all around us.

(I don’t support foraging unless you are confident in your ability to correctly i.d. plants.  Duh)

Sunday’s trail section was pleasantly shaded and quiet…until we arrived at Humpback Rocks, which as always was packed with hikers taking in the view.

We’d covered over 25 miles in less than 48 hours.  We were a little sore, definitely sweaty, and not smelling so pretty, but I still managed a leap of Faith. 🙂

In case you are interested in backpacking in the area, here’s what we did.

The whole route is on The Appalachian Trail.

Friday-parked at Crabtree Meadows and hiked to The Priest summit (~1.5 miles gently uphill)

Saturday-hiked down The Priest (4.5 miles downhill), crossed the road and the Tye River (swimming!), hiked up Three Ridges and partway down to Maupin Field Shelter (8.8 miles uphill then gentle down) (~13.5 challenging miles for the day)

Sunday-hiked Maupin-Humpback Rocks Visitor Center (mile marker 6 on the Blue Ridge Parkway) this section of trail was great, it does cross the road a few times but there are also gorgeous views and it’s not busy at all (~12 miles of gentle up and down)