On May 9 - 11, Josh B., Manny A., Juan M., and I went on a 3-day backpacking trip to Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area in Jefferson National Forest. Located in southwestern Virginia, Mt. Rogers is the highest peak in the state, with an elevation of 5729 feet above sea level. The famous Appalachian Trail cuts through the Jefferson National Forest to pass within half mile of Mt. Rogers. An easy side trail takes you from the AT to the summit.

The four of us left Lexington Park on Thursday (May 8) right after work and headed for Grayson Highlands State Park, where we planned to camp that night and then park our vehicles for the weekend. Because of a construction delay on I-81, we arrived at 2 o'clock in the morning. The gate to the campground was locked, we were dead tired, and there were thunders and lightning flashes in the distance. Since the aluminum tent poles act like lightning rods in a thunderstorm, we decided against sleeping in a tent and taking our chances with the storm, instead we spent the night cramped inside our cars.

After a pitiful night of sleep that was much too short and way too uncomfortable, we woke up to a windy and overcast Friday. We made some final preparation to our gear, shouldered our over stuffed backpacks, and started our hike on the short AT Spur Trail (pic 1) that connects Massie Gap parking lot with the Appalachian Trail. The spur trail started out from a pretty thick forest, but as we climbed higher the forest gave way to grassy fields, and we were rewarded with great views of the mountains to the south (pic 2). Once we connected with the southbound AT and hiked further west, the view just kept getting better and better. (pic 3)

No sooner than quarter of a mile on the AT, we encountered the famous wild ponies (pic 4) at Mt. Rogers. These ponies got so used to people over the years, they didn't even raise their heads when we walked past them. When we stopped for a snack break (pic 5) near a herd of them, we literarily had to push one curious pony away with a stick to keep him from getting to our backpacks. I guess a lot of hikers are feeding them (which you're not suppose to do), so they started associate people with food.

The section of the AT we were on runs fairly close to the ridgeline, rise steadily in elevation. Tree covers are few and far in between. The trail was mostly on grassy meadows, offering good vistas along the way. We made our way to the Thomas Knob Shelter and took a little break to have some snack and get water from a spring (pic 6). When everyone was rested and all the water bottles were filled, we moved on. Past the shelter there was the Mt. Rogers Spur Trail, which would take us to the summit of Mt. Rogers. Past the spur trail the AT started to descend into a forested area on the south side of Mt. Rogers. Our original plan was to set up camp in this area and hike to the summit of Mt. Rogers without our heavy backpack. But the slope was pretty steep and the undergrowth was pretty thick in the forest, a suitable campsite was not located until we were far downhill from the spur trail. It would take us a lot of energy to go back up to Mt. Rogers, so we decided to postpone the hike to the summit.

The campsite we picked out was a fairly flat grassy area near the edge of the forest. It wasn't perfectly flat, but it was as good as we can get on the slope of a mountain. The wind was still blowing very hard on the open meadow beyond the forest, but the trees offered us good protection from the wind. We set up two tents and a tarp (pic 7), cooked our camp meals, and soon after sunset we went into our tents for some much needed rest. The next morning I woke up at 6 hoping to photograph the sunrise over the open meadow. But it was foggy and overcast and the same time, I had no chance of seeing the sunrise. Very disappointed, I came back to camp and crawled into our tent to get a little more sleep. It was 9 o'clock before everyone else got up. We cooked breakfast, broke camp, and filled up our water bottles again in a spring. Instead of making a loop trip like we originally planned, we decided to head back the way we came, make it a short and easy day, and hike to the Mt. Rogers summit along the way.

I had almost dismissed the idea of hiking to Mt. Rogers. Seeing from afar how it was covered in trees (pic 8), I correctly guessed that it wouldn't offer any good views. But I'm so glad that I didn't miss the half-mile hike to the summit. As we closed in on the summit, we suddenly entered a damp evergreen (pic 9) forest where everything is covered in a heavy coat of mosses. Everything was so green. It was almost like walking into the temperate rain forest of the Pacific Northwest. We didn't see anything like it anywhere else on this trip. It was definitely a worthwhile hike.

After the hike to Mt. Rogers, we kept a steady pace on the AT until the junction of Virginia Highland Horse Trail. From there we took the horse trail in order to get to another spring for water before finding a campsite for the night. Saturday brought a lot more hikers and backpackers on the trail. As the sun dipped lower in the sky, we found more and more suitable campsites were being taken by other backpackers. When the horse trail again intersected with the AT on top of Wilburn Ridge, there was an open flat meadow where we decided to make our camp (pic 10). The wind was coming in strong from the west, so we camped on the east side of the ridge to give us a little protection from the wind. It would still wrap around the ridge and come at us from our south, but it was not as strong as on the west side of the ridge. Putting up our tents and lighting the stove for cooking was a little tricky in the wind, but the plus was that it kept all the flying insects away (pic 11).

I slept pretty well that night, but the wind never died down, if anything it got a little stronger the next day. We had estimated wind gust up to 30 mph in the morning. When I woke up and saw my tent shaking and bending under the force of the wind, I wondered if this two-and-half pole tent could hold up much longer if the wind got stronger. So I got up, packed up my tent as fast as I could, and only when it was secured in my backpack did I have a couple of granola bars as breakfast. Soon everyone else was all packed up and ready. We put on our backpacks again and hiked the short way back to the Massie Gap parking lot.

We got back to the parking lot just in time. Not 5 minutes after we started the car, the sky opened up and it started pouring. From there it was another 6-hour drive to get back to Lexington Park. But before we even got out of the Jefferson National Forest, I already started planning my next backpacking trip...