Day 39 – 500 miles and Grayson Highlands

Today was a great day! On the agenda is hiking 500 miles of trail, as well as Grayson Highlands. I had a slow, leisurely start to the day, and didn’t leave camp until almost 9am. I should probably start moving faster in the morning, but if I don’t have a strict deadline or anything like that, the motivation doesn’t necessarily appear right away. I know I have enough time to do the miles I plan to do, but it might mean walking later in the evening.

Rejoining the AT and hitting 500 miles!

The morning hike consisted of riding the last 5.5 miles of the Iron Mountain bypass before rejoining the AT, where I was greeted by my old friends, the white llamas. Almost immediately after rejoining the AT, I was greeted with some fairly rocky terrain and an uphill climb toward Mount Rogers.

Rocks everywhere…

That certainly slowed my pace compared to what I’ve been doing for the last week, but I still made good progress. After a few miles, I reached the highest milestone to date: 500 miles!

I would walk…

Grayson Highlands

My first break of the day was around noon, where I stopped for water at the Thomas Knob Shelter. I also took the time to have a quick lunch and it consisted of a packet of chicken with crushed chips on a tortilla, one of my mainstays. After that I continued my hike and approached Grayson Highlands. Before formally entering the State Park, I saw some of the wild ponies grazing in a field.

Wild pony that looks majestic

Shortly after seeing them, I came across Fat Man Squeeze, a narrow crevice between the rocks, which I managed to squeeze through with ease!

Not as tight as one might think

The views in this area were quite impressive, with open sight lines in almost every direction.

Shortly afterward I formally entered Grayson Highlands State Park and was immediately greeted by two ponies resting at the entrance.

At this point in the day, it was quite hot, with the full weight of the sun beating down on me. Walking through the Highlands, I made my way through open fields, dodging hikers and horse droppings alike. Nothing against day hikers, they just added extra traffic to the trail. In fact, I talked to a couple who, upon finding out I was a hiker, gave me a couple of snack bars! As I approached the Grayson Highlands exit, I came across several more ponies, including a foal and his mother.

A foal and its mother

Descending to Trail Magic

The next few kilometers were all downhill, varying between an easy trail and a rocky, more technical trail. Even passing through a meadow and some open terrain. Soon I arrived at Scales, a fenced area used for camping. Here I met some of the hikers I was walking freely with, on some magical trail. Unfortunately, when I got there, he no longer had anything. But I was able to get a shot of gin in a pickle jar (without pickles but with the juice) and some nuts. After hanging out and relaxing a bit, we needed to take off as it was approaching 6 pm and we still had 4.5 miles to reach our tent site for the night. I finished the day of hiking with a descent that was quite rocky and moderately technical at times. But we made excellent time, maintaining a 3 mph pace for the rest of the day. Our tent site was decent, not the flattest spot but close to a stream which was convenient for water and background noise.

Statistics for day 39:

20.3 miles

3,320′ ascent, 4,265′ descent

Cherry tree shelter to stealth site

2DSLC…

Stove use times: 7

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