Day Four: Fox Creek Southbound to Campsite at 500.4 on the Appalachian Trail

 We were awake before our alarms went off on Monday morning, with enough time to head to a local coffee shop for breakfast.  Better Coffee Co. was right around the corner from our hostel, and it did not disappoint!  Custom coffees and teas were available as well as some delicious donuts made in-house daily.  Check out that maple bacon goodness!

With our bellies warm and full, we headed back to the hostel to do our final packing and clean up.  We were all so ready to get back to the trail!

Today we had a new shuttle driver named Paul.  Paul is a Vietnam Army vet, and an all-around great guy.  He had section hiked many miles of the AT, and had a trail name of "Shaky P" due to his Parkinson's.  We loaded our packs into the back of his truck and then crammed ourselves inside, four across the back, and Amy, aka Barfer, (lovingly named by Bunny since she is prone to car sickness) sat in the front with Paul.

We informed Paul that our plan was to be dropped off at Dickey Gap and hike southbound (SOBO) to the Old Orchard Shelter.  Paul was very hesitant to have us take this route as he thought that the bridge at Fox Creek was out.  He recommended being dropped just south of Fox Creek and continuing SOBO from there.  We definitely didn't want to get eight miles into our hike and have no way to cross Fox Creek, so we took his advice.  This would change our plans for the next three days.  Quickly, we decided that we'd hike into Grayson Highlands State Park from Fox Creek, and camp overnight in the shelter there, and then continue SOBO on Tuesday higher up into the mountains and summit Mount Washington.  Tent camping in not permitted inside the park, so we'd be sleeping in Wise Shelter for the night.  This was higher in elevation than our originally planned Old Orchard Shelter site, but I was hoping that with proper wind blockage we wouldn't be too chilly.  

Finally, we reached the drop off point at Fox Creek.  Paul wished us happy trails and we were ready to go.  We backtracked a tiny bit to check the bridge at Fox Creek and found it fully intact and high above the rushing water.  Oh well, our plans were what they were now.  Time to hike!

Our starting point today sat 1500 feet higher than Marion, and it showed.  A good layer of snow was blanketed over everything here, and it was quite a bit colder.  I knew we'd warm up quickly, and the snow wasn't deep enough to cause any real problems.  Our rhododendron-lined trail was so beautiful with the snow!

I hung out at the back of the pack and took my time hiking through the white wonderland.  The forest was quiet, with just the occasional sound of trickling water as we crossed a little stream here and there.  Mid-morning we got an extra treat when the sun decided to make an appearance, and it was a most-welcomed sight.  We hiked right on by Old Orchard Shelter, and I was a little wistful that we wouldn't be camping in this beautiful place.

Don't let that sun fool you too much, though.  It was still pretty darn cold out there, and we enjoyed the moments when the wind took breaks from blowing its arctic gusts our way.

The sun decided to stick around, and I was loving it.  There is always something so magical about the sunlight filtering down through the trees in the forest, and the snow today made everything sparkle a little.

As we slowly climbed in elevation, the snow became a bit deeper, but still not enough to slow us down.  The trail here still had occasional blowdowns, but you could tell this area had much less damage from Helene than points south.  

Around lunchtime, we came to a gate.  When we passed through to the other side, it was like we had stepped into another world.  It kind of felt like a snow-covered desert high above the mountains!  We dropped our packs and took some time to explore.  The landscape here was so different than the forest we had been hiking through all morning, but as you can see, it was quite frosty up here!  

We couldn't stick around for long-it was so easy to get chilled when we weren't moving!  Once back on trail, we headed back down into the forest.  The beauty continued as we traveled along, crossing streams and trying to keep our feet dry.  Once in a while, we'd come to a fence, intended to keep the ponies from straying too far from Grayson Highlands.  Ponies!  We must be getting close!

Next, we came to The Scales, a large, wide open horse corral in an open meadow.  I could envision this place filled with tents on a summer night, but today it was just really cold with no escape from the wicked winds. There was a bit of cell service here, though, so we took just a moment to touch base with our families.

We climbed up and out of the meadow, and then the trail continued to climb.  Here and there we'd see some horse tracks or droppings, but nothing fresh and definitely no ponies.  The higher we went, the stronger the winds became.  Thankfully, all that climbing kept us warm!  We were all in good spirits as we got closer and closer to Grayson Highlands.

The trail was varied in the next section, wide for a bit, a few boardwalk sections, rocky ground through rhododendrons, bridges (with railings!), built-in steps, and rocky water crossings.

And then we were there!  Just one more bridge and we'd be inside the park.  The ponies were waiting for us, I just knew it.  I was happy to see a good, solid bridge, as the water below was violently raging, and I definitely didn't want to get wet in those icy waters.

Speaking of ice, there was a LOT of it here.  Check out these steps of death!

After just a short time, we arrived at Wise Shelter.  Now we had a dilemma.  It was 2:30pm.  Should we stay here at the shelter at 4400 feet this early in the afternoon?  Maybe drop our gear and go in search of ponies to fill the time?  Or should we continue our hike to some campsites four miles further south at another 1000 feet higher in elevation?  Or should we backtrack out of the park and set up our tents instead of sleeping in this shelter?  We decided to backtrack and check out the options for tent camping out of the park.  What we found was rocky ground with no tree coverage.  It seemed like a less-than-ideal spot to set up camp.  We made our way back to the shelter, paused for a few moments, and then decided to continue hiking south.  Our reasons for this included not sitting around at Wise Shelter and freezing while waiting for darkness, we would potentially be warmer sleeping in our tents rather than the open-air shelter-even at higher elevation, and we really wanted to try to find the ponies on this blue-sky day.  We continued hiking.

For nearly two miles we hiked within the park, still not seeing any ponies.  I was beginning to feel pressure as I had promised we'd see ponies.  With 150 of them inside the park, you'd think you'd see them everywhere, but that was not the case.  We came to a point where the AT met a horse trail marked with orange blazes.  This seemed vaguely familiar to me when I had last been to the park.  We stood there for a moment, deciding if we should venture off trail in search of the ponies or just continue on our way.  

At that moment, a man with a screaming little girl on his shoulders came bolting down the path.  The little girl was clearly quite cold, and he was hustling back to his car.  "Did you happen to see the ponies down there?" I called.  He said, "Oh yeah, they're down there!"  And we took off.  We didn't have much time to spare, but we came to see the ponies and we were going to see the ponies!

We took the orange spur trail down and around a corner and there, in the distance, ponies!  We hustled closer, dropped our packs, and went to get a closer look.  These are wild, feral ponies, brought into the park in the 1970's to keep vegetation under control, but they are clearly mostly comfortable around people.  Some of them were even following us around!  With their thick winter coats, they were not bothered by the stiff wind and low temperatures at this elevation.  It was so fun to get up close and personal with them!

Then, we had to get serious.  We had at least two more miles to hike and about two hours to get where we were going.  Surely that would be enough time, right?

As soon as we left the park, the trail not only turned upward, but also turned to ice.  It was a slow go, and when we came out atop a small mountain, it felt like we were walking on the moon.  The temperature here had to be single digits, if not lower.  And the wind!  THE WIND!  At times the wind would knock me sideways and cause me to lose my balance.  This was no joke!

And then the trail would duck into some rocks and instead of just wind, there would be ice, too.  We all had ice spikes with us, but we were all getting quite cold at this point, and stopping for any reason seemed absurd.  Just another mile and we'd start looking for a campsite.  And it was a slow mile.  It was getting colder by the minute and there was just so much ice.  Flat surfaces had a thick coating of ice, and the trail had a sort of frozen icy mud thing going on that when you stepped on it, your foot would sink several inches down.  There were no even footings. We continued climbing and climbing and we were getting colder and colder.  I hoped when we were back below tree line we'd have some shelter from the relentless wind.  I have climbed a 14er in Colorado in wintertime and let me tell you, this was very comparable to that.

During the struggle, we came to a trail highlight called Fatman Squeeze. This is a fun little rock formation where you can squeeze between huge boulders with your pack on.  Except it wasn't that fun today.  The ice here was as bad as ever, making Fatman Squeeze quite treacherous.  Check out that thick ice underfoot!

I kept wondering when, exactly, we'd drop back below tree line.  It seemed that we had been climbing forever. I also kept wondering if this was possibly the dumbest thing I had ever done.  We were miles from anywhere, no other footprints were on the trail, we were less than a mile from the highest point in Virginia, and we were going to be camping in subzero temperatures.  There was no turning back, though, so on we went.

Finally, gloriously, with less than half an hour until darkness would fall, we were hiking through pine trees.  I knew there were many campsites between here and Mount Rogers, but we needed one to hold four tents.  I ducked in between some trees to find a flat opening.  There were two fire pits and room for all of our tents.  Would this work?  We quickly agreed that it would and got busy.  The last of the light was slowly leaving us and we tried to hurry to get our tents set up.  My fingers and toes were frozen, making everything slower and more difficult.  The ground was also quite frozen, making the setting of tent stakes a chore.  At least all the struggling and rushing around was keeping my body warm!  Amy and Kara had decided that they would share a tent to keep a bit warmer, and Chelsea, Misty and I all set up our own.  Once the tents were up, we set about boiling water.  Except in the excitement for searching for ponies and ice climbing the last few hours, most of us had forgotten to fill any of our water bottles.  Most of us had just enough for our evening meals, but Kara had filled up at the hostel that morning and had been carrying three liters of water all day.  She shared some of her water with the other girls and I chose to melt some snow to boil water for my Nalgene bottle.  A hot water bottle in your sleeping bag can really warm things up in cold conditions!  It took forever, but finally I had enough boiling snow water to fill my bottle.  I stuck it down into my sleeping bag and then, while I was boiling my water for dinner, I pulled out the rest of the clothes I had with me and put them on.  I was wearing three pairs of pants, socks with down booties, two shirts, a vest, a puffy coat and my raincoat, along with a hat, two hoods, a buff to cover my face, and mittens.  I ate dinner laying in my sleeping bag, and as soon as I was finished, I cinched everything tightly down around me.  I knew I wasn't going to freeze to death, and we all had enough gear and clothing to get through the night, but I also knew I probably wasn't going to sleep at an elevation of 5400 feet and in below zero temperatures.  It was going to be a very long night.

Total miles: 13.5

Total elevation gain: 4272 feet