Day 38
The Grayson highlands are still as unique as the last time.
We woke up before 7 and got back on trail before 8:30. We started our morning off by ascending Virginia's tallest mountain, mount Roger's. Thankfully, since we had just done whitetop the day before and camped between the two, we only had to go up less than 1500 feet of elevation, over 4.5 miles.
On the way up, we again realized just how many people were out and about, enjoying the beautiful weekend. The Grayson highlands are a very unique part of the south. Although there are a plethora of balds, there's really nowhere that looks like the highlands. There are a lot of exposed ridges, grassy Meadows, and stubby trees. It's hard to explain, but Google it if you're curious. There is also a decent herd of "wild" ponies that get managed by the state but are essentially allowed to roam freely in the park. Just like last time, we saw a handful of them during different sections of the day.
The highland section was a good 15 miles of the day, at least. We spent this time ascending and descending different ridges in the park, meandering through mossy forests, and checking out different streams.
One thing though that Walker and I forgot about was how rocky the trail was! All day long we were walking over rocks that weren't uniform, and it really started to take a beating on our feet.
The other thing that didn't help bring the day to a close was that our map application, farout, had the wrong mileage for the day by 2 or 2.5 miles. As I've stated before, we usually have a pretty good idea of what our pace is. If we suspect that we'll be somewhere in a couple hours, you better believe we'll be within a half mile or so of that location when the time comes.
Around 4pm, we only had about 6 miles left. However, if took us until 7:15 to get to camp! We never walk slower than 2 miles per hour, and judging from the fact that we were walking at a really good pace, and reading comments in farout afterwards, we knew the mileage was off.
We could also tell we walked farther due to our extremely sore feet by the time we made it to camp. Can't say we were planning on a 27 to 28 mile day...
Day 38 daily recap:
- Total miles: 27.5?
- From: mile marker 495.2 to 520.9
- From VA 600 to a campsite off of racoon creek trail
- high temp of 65
- low temp (morning) 45
- low temp (evening) 50
- total ascent: 6,371
- total descent: 3,924
We woke up before 7 and got back on trail before 8:30. We started our morning off by ascending Virginia's tallest mountain, mount Roger's. Thankfully, since we had just done whitetop the day before and camped between the two, we only had to go up less than 1500 feet of elevation, over 4.5 miles.
On the way up, we again realized just how many people were out and about, enjoying the beautiful weekend. The Grayson highlands are a very unique part of the south. Although there are a plethora of balds, there's really nowhere that looks like the highlands. There are a lot of exposed ridges, grassy Meadows, and stubby trees. It's hard to explain, but Google it if you're curious. There is also a decent herd of "wild" ponies that get managed by the state but are essentially allowed to roam freely in the park. Just like last time, we saw a handful of them during different sections of the day.
The highland section was a good 15 miles of the day, at least. We spent this time ascending and descending different ridges in the park, meandering through mossy forests, and checking out different streams.
One thing though that Walker and I forgot about was how rocky the trail was! All day long we were walking over rocks that weren't uniform, and it really started to take a beating on our feet.
The other thing that didn't help bring the day to a close was that our map application, farout, had the wrong mileage for the day by 2 or 2.5 miles. As I've stated before, we usually have a pretty good idea of what our pace is. If we suspect that we'll be somewhere in a couple hours, you better believe we'll be within a half mile or so of that location when the time comes.
Around 4pm, we only had about 6 miles left. However, if took us until 7:15 to get to camp! We never walk slower than 2 miles per hour, and judging from the fact that we were walking at a really good pace, and reading comments in farout afterwards, we knew the mileage was off.
We could also tell we walked farther due to our extremely sore feet by the time we made it to camp. Can't say we were planning on a 27 to 28 mile day...
Day 38 daily recap:
- Total miles: 27.5?
- From: mile marker 495.2 to 520.9
- From VA 600 to a campsite off of racoon creek trail
- high temp of 65
- low temp (morning) 45
- low temp (evening) 50
- total ascent: 6,371
- total descent: 3,924
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