Grayson Highlands — August 2018
| Robert and I had an extra week off (Sarah was unable to get away from work). So we drove down to Grayson Highlands State Park, about 6 hours south west of DC on Monday, August 20th. We got there just as the entrance ranger was closing up shop, but in time to pick up their paperwork. |
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Campsite 16 was very nice and the park was less than half full so we had a couple sites on either side of us that were open. And 16, picked out by Robert, had this lovely meadow in the back yard. The morning of the 21st there were breaks in the clouds and it seemed like the drizzle would clear out completely at any moment. That wasn't quite the weather we had, but Tuesday was plenty nice enough to hike the Cabin Creek trail (the park service provides a nice trail map). |
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| It was a beautiful hike next mostly along this pretty creek which met up with the larger Cabin Creek. And the waterfalls were stellar. |
| So enticing Robert decided to take a quick dip in the pools at the bottom of both falls. |
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| The trail continued along next to Cabin Creek for a little ways above the falls before turning into the woods and heading back to the Massie Gap parking lot. A really nice loop. (We called this fern ridge, in honor of fern valley, one of the spots from the Burgundy Center for Wildlife Studies where Robert has spent some time in his Burgundy career.) |
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After the hike, we caught up with the ranger / interpreter who talked about the basics of bouldering. The full-blown bouldering 101 session didn't happen because the boulders were too wet from all the rain. But we were allowed to try climbing the column on the visitor center as it's better protected from the weather. Robert had the excellent idea to start the fire for dinner early that night as the firewood was a bit damp and took a while to catch. In another gift from his Burgundy career, we had Cove Calzones cooked over the fire that night. Very tasty and perfect on a damp evening. |
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| Wednesday started out with the campground's resident pony stopping by the campsite and the meadow behind us. Then we cooked up French toast (notice Robert's excellent flipping technique) before heading for Wilburn Ridge in an on-again, off-again drizzle. |
| This time we ended up off the state park trail map as we got out of the state park. We happened to meet up with another day hiker as our spur trail from the backpackers parking lot hit the AT and he was kind enough to document the moment for us. |
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| The Appalachian Trail took us across the portion of Wilburn Ridge in the state park. We watched the fog and drizzle roll in from the rock outcropping at the top of that part of the ridge. |
| Then we took a bit of Virginia Highlands Horse Trail to cut off a corner of the AT, connected back with the AT at the park boundary, took that the Wilburn Ridge spur and the trail lead up some rocky scrambles to the two higher rock outcroppings. At that point, the weather had taken a turn for the worse. After getting photographic proof that we made it to some rocks in the clouds (you'll have to trust us that it's the highest point on Wilburn Ridge), we made our damp way back down the mountain. |
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We stopped by the (covered) amphitheater on our way to get hot showers and the ranger helped us pick out hiking sticks and clean them up a bit. It would have been very nice to have had those for the morning's hike. After a hot shower (thank you Virginia State Parks) we decided to drive in to Damascus to look for a better map to show off our trip and find some place for linner (really, an early dinner). We got back, toasted a couple marshmallows and headed to bed. |
| Thursday morning, Robert thought we should get in one more short hike. The trail from the Massie Gap parking lot to Big Pinnacle is not too long, but it's pretty steep. No scrambling and sliding like we had done the day before. And, as you can see, the rain blew of over the night. It was truly spectacular! That's Wilburn Ridge and the top outcropping behind us. |
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| Sarah was sorry to have missed the trip. The Thursday pictures may convince her to join us next time. In the bottom right photo you can see the first two Wilburn Ridge outcroppings we crossed on Wednesday (in the fog) on the right side of the picture. The peak, left of center is where the rains really dumped on us. (Which might not be helpful in convincing Sarah to join us next time.) | |
Vacation notes:
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