It was a fantastic day today but quite a tiring one. We have now walked 500 miles! It was frosty when we woke up but the sun soon came out and we had blue sky and warm sunshine all day. We left camp at 9:10, there was still a lot of snow on the ground which made the going tough in places, which later turned to slush. Hopefully most of the snow will be gone tomorrow and make for an easier day underfoot. We'd been looking forward to this day as we go over Grayson Highlands which is known for its wild ponies, a bit like Exmoor in the UK.
It was downhill initially then up about 2000ft to Whitetop Mountain and Buzzard Rock where the views were amazing, a very clear day. From there it was down to Elk Garden parking area where just before we passed a load of plastic piping wrapped around trees leading down the hillside tapping sap from them. The pipes lead to a large collecting tank at the bottom. It could have been maple sap but we weren't sure. We also got a bit of trail magic at Elk Garden, there was a carrier bag full of Oatmeal Cream Pie Cookies, so we took one each.
From there we entered Lewis Fork Wilderness, heading gradually uphill again towards Mount Rogers, Virginia's highest peak. The AT doesn't actually go right to the summit, there is a half mile side trail to get to the summit which we didn't take. Just after, we reached Thomas Knob Shelter where we saw our first and only wild pony today, she had a good lick of my palm licking all the salt off. She was a cheeky little mare, in foul we think, just like our dog Bella she recognised the rustling of food packets and came chasing us for food. We apparently just missed a large group of ponies further on past the shelter, team Berlin saw about 15 of them, they weren't there when we went through. We were looking forward to seeing ponies, at least we saw one.
There were lots of rocky outcrops and the trail got very rocky too. We had to go through a rock tunnel called ' Fatmans Squeeze' which was an ice rink, compacted ice all the way through, a bit tricky but passable. Soon after we entered Grayson Highlands State Park, a smallish park, just under 3 miles from the southern to northern boundary. We are staying at Wise Shelter tonight just inside the northern park boundary where we arrived about 5:30. We are sleeping in the shelter as there is not supposed to be any camping in the park but we are a full house again, same 11 as last night, the shelter only sleeps 8 so Trish and Jesse and Mountain Mime are camping. It's not so cold tonight and it was lovely to arrive at the shelter and be able to sit in the sun for a while and air a few items out until it disappeared behind the Mountain.
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