A skull on a post near Mount Rogers.
I woke up pretty early, having slept cold and uncomfortable the night before. Keeping my long underwear was a smart decision, I needed it! I ate my pop tarts and uncharacteristically, I was the last one out of camp. There was some big elevation gains in store for us on that day’s section of trail. The first a climb was about 2500 feet to the top of Mount White Top at 5190 feet. After that we would hike to near the summit of the highest mountain in Virginia, Mount Rogers at 5729 . My fever and upset stomach from the previous day was gone, but my toothbrush was still missing, so I felt gross. A couple of cough drops helped get the toxic, stale morning breath taste out of my mouth. The day started off cold and steady rain moved in after about an hour. When I started the climb up Mount White Top the cold rain forced me to stop and put on my rain gear. The hiking wasn’t too difficult, but the rain was annoying. The peak was on a side trail, but I decided to skip it and just stay on the Appalachian Trail. It was probably the weather, but in situations like this, Pacecar’s voice would pop into my head. “Don’t be a hero.” It was probably rationalizing, but I wasn’t in the mood for extra credit that day. Shortly after the peak of Mount White Top the trail dropped down to a road and a parking lot with bathrooms. By the time I got to the parking lot, the rain had stopped. I sat down and took off my rain gear while I waited for the guys to show up. I must have passed them at some point, they probably went to the top of Mount White Top. Navigator and Vegan joined me a few short minutes later. They said they hadn’t seen Seth in a while. We waited for about 20 minutes, then I started to get worried. It wasn’t a particularly dangerous section of trail, but anything could happen. We started talking about one of us hiking back to find him. The four of us were hiking together, but we were each doing our own hike, so he was free to disappear at any time. He hadn’t said anything about going off on his own, and there were no side trails to civilization in the day’s hike so far. Suddenly he emerged from the trees, but he was walking slowly. We were all relieved. Apparently, he had aggravated a knee injury from earlier in the trail. It was not a dire situation, but he was in a good amount of pain. We had all planned on Hiking 18 miles that day, but with one of our team members hobbled, we decided to stop short and camp just past the peak of Mount Rogers near the Thomas Knob Shelter. From the parking lot to the campsite it was 3.4 miles, of steady climbing. After the road the trail went over some grassy hills and back into the woods. As soon as we entered the woods, something unexpected and confusing happened. I rounded a bend in the trail and I was suddenly greeted by a heard of wild ponies.
Wild ponies on Mount Rogers, VA.
The ponies were walking right down the middle of the trail. It was the last thing I expected to happen, but it was pretty awesome. Apparently they had been introduced to the area a number of years ago, and now they were wild and herds of them roamed all over the mountain. We all stopped and took some pictures. The ponies seemed pretty docile and used to humans. The trail was empty that day, but I assumed Mount Rogers was a pretty popular weekend hike destination. The creatures were probably used to seeing groups of people dressed in bright gore-tex and zip off pants. The guys and I discussed trying to ride one of the ponies down the trail. My fantasy of being some kind of Virginia cowboy on a tiny horse faded quickly when I realized I was kind of scared of them.
A photo of me thinking about bottling up my fear and riding the small horse to Maine.
The trail wound slowly to the top of the mountain with interesting patches of dense forest and epic views at every clearing. The sky started to turn orange as the sun began to set. Approaching the top of Mount Rogers, the trail had unobstructed epic views of the valley below. We found an awesome camp area 1/4 mile or so before the Thomas Knob Shelter. The camp spot was right off the trail and it had protection from the wind and nice flat spots for tents. After setting up our stealth camp, we strolled to the shelter, which was perched right on the edge of the grassy field overlooking the valley. We planned on watching the sunset, but the wind picked up and it got very cold. Then it became unbearable. We scurried back to our campsite and made a huge fire. My dinner that night was two packages of chicken ramen. I thought a lot about Courtney that day. I missed her more and more all the time. It was going to be another cold night in my new sleeping bag, but I had enough layers . We were shooting for 15 miles the next day, but we knew that if Seth’s knee wasn’t better, we would have to stop short.
A view of the summit of Mount Rogers. I loved this open terrain.
Smooth's Appalachian Trail Thru-Hike 