Winter Backpacking Grayson Highlands State Park // Mount Rogers, Virginia

#backpacking #virginia #appalachiantrail

Recorded Dec 29th 2023 - Jan 1st, 2024

Total distance traveled- ~18.5 miles

Filmed on a LUMIX GH6, Mavic DJI Mini 2 Drone, Go Pro Hero 10, and iPhone 12 Pro.

Narration:

On December 29th, my friend and coworker Kyle and I made the nearly six and a half hour journey from central Kentucky to Southwest Virginia to embark on a winter backpacking trip for the ages. Our destination was the Grayson Highlands, and our setting was an arctic tundra of snow, clouds, and frigid temperatures.

Grayson Highlands is an alpine Eden. The lofty landscape is embellished by airy mountain meadows, gushing trout streams, rhododendron-filled forests, and a conglomeration of high peaks. The extensive 4800-acre State Park provides any nature enthusiast with premier wildlife watching potential within the mountain range that is home to Virginia’s highest peak, Mount Rogers. Habitats within the park range from open meadows and northern hardwoods to sphagnum bogs and Fraser fir groves.

One of the park’s highlights is the band of more than 100 ponies roaming the highlands—including a famous, flaxen-maned stallion named Fabio, renowned for his salon-quality locks. The origin of the equines is somewhat mysterious, but one story suggests the ponies were bred by locals to survive the fickle Appalachian high country with minimal human interference. Inside the park, the herd was introduced by the Forest Service in 1974 to provide a natural landscaping service for the highland balds, which was first cleared by loggers at the end of the 19th century and later grazed by cattle throughout the first half of the 20th century.

The forests here contain a number of mountain meadows or balds. These meadows provide excellent views of the surrounding area and present a striking change in scenery from the surrounding forests. The balds are dominated by large rocky outcroppings clear of vegetation except the occasional windswept tree and low grasses. The most popular trails are over 4,000 feet in elevation, and weather can be 15-20 degrees cooler and wind speeds twice as high as the bottom of the mountain.

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After our summit of Mt. Rogers, we found a campsite before 3 pm, where we would spend the next 15 hours inside our tents to find relief from the assault of wind and spindrift snow blowing across this lofty ridge.
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When we finally crawled out of our tents Sunday morning, the wintry veil enveloping us the day prior had finally dissipated, leaving us with bluebird skies and slightly warmer temperatures for the remainder of the day. By the time we reached the Crest Trail, the vistas had opened up to reveal a crystalline nirvana.
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We decided to make the Wise shelter our abode for our final night on trail, which came as a relief to us when thinking about potentially pitching our frozen tents from the night before. It was a perfect spot to relax inside our down cocoons as the sun set over the treeline with warm food and conversation about our lives, childhoods, and families.
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We brought in the new year Monday morning with the final 3 miles of trail, where the ponies came to send us off the mountain in true Highlands-style. We arrived back at Kyle’s car feeling grateful for the experience, and thankful to be back in the comforts of the developed world.