After recommendations from a forum member, my wife and I (halfway) planned a trip to Grayson.
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We got a late start driving on Thursday, and arrived at dark at the Elk garden trailhead (6 on the map)
Things don't usually go smoothly night hiking for us, we use very, very basic headlamps. Luckily my wifes was brighter, so I just followed her with mine on low- enough to see the ground more or less. The terrain lends itself well to hanging opportunities, and luckily we saw a established site before long that worked out fine for the hammocks.
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We followed the AT towards Thomas Knob shelter, taking a quick break at a scenic overlook on the way.
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At the shelter, we asked the 20 or so people there where the spring was, and squeezed past them down a trail to it. Oddly enough, there was no one at the spring, and we took a nice lunch break there, eating our sausage mushroom/cheese dip and nacho's. Yum.
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We made our way to the crest trail, with some nice views along the way, At the crest trail, we luckily lost most of the day hiker crowd. As a trade off though, the trail was very, very rocky. (A. on map)
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We found a nice area to camp close to a spring, early in the day around 3pm. Our feet were getting pretty beat up from all the rocks, so we decided to set up camp. Had a nice dinner of homemade salisbury steak and mashed potatoes that worked out pretty well, although I think I'll up the portion a bit for myself in the future.
We had rain early in the morning, it was forecast to rain most of the day Saturday and basically all day Sunday. I setup porch mode, put away my hammock stuff and made breakfast while my wife slept in.
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It only rained long enough to put our jackets on leaving camp, it wasn't long before the rain stopped and things cleared up really well.
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We made it to "scales" way, way quicker than we had guessed. So we made a new plan to have lunch at (Big Wilson creek, "B" on the map) on the VA horse trail. This trail, while still rocky, was a nice stroll. We enjoyed the side by side hiking for a change on this trip.
This creek had a nice lunch spot (Or tent camp site)- we decided to heat up our trail burgers!
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We pushed along the VA horse trail, gaining elevation at a very gentle grade. We wondered what the switchbacks on the map would be (C.), only to find the easiest switchbacks ever. At the AT trailhead, there were alot of dayhikers. We decided not to go up the AT due to the crowds, and instead stayed on the VA horse trail. This was another easy stroll, and free of people (D.) Once we got to the trailhead for Cabin ridge trail, we opted to try it instead of following the same, rock strewn horse trail. This trail opened back up into a wide, even rockier long, long downhill grade. The only difference, was now there was lots of water and mud as well! We made it to the creek (F.) which I don't recall the name of- and had the option of finding a camp there. It was still pretty early in the day, so we decided to keep going. Was rough, very rocky, very wet and muddy for the next mile or so.
We eventually made it to the bald and trail head, (lots of tents on this bald) and started back down to deep gap. Still pretty rocky, at deep gap, we took Elk garden trail back towards the car. This trail (G.) was all a gradual downhill, and very easy walking.
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The last 1/2 mile had us back out in the pasture, giving us a casual stroll to reflect on the trip.
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A great trip!
I brought waaay too much stuff. I felt like dusting off my ULA Catalyst, and we brought tons of food to try out. I also packed my new MSR whisperlite just to play with. And since my cookpot wasn't filled with a canister or an alcohol stove/fuel, I took a bottle of alcohol to prime the MSR, annd.. Why not, a FF stove as well XD. Luckily the Catalyst carries a little more weight well, so while my pack probably hit 30-35lbs early on, it carried it nicely. I'll appreciate a lighter pack for our next trip!
We hit a new personal best together of about 14.2 miles in a day, which is nice, especially figuring in some of the roughness of the trails.
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