Date: 2003-04-25
From: Lost Mountain Shelter

To: Wise Shelter
Miles today: 17.3
Weather: overcast clouds

No rain yet, and a woodthrush piping. The climb de jour, the ferocious-looking Whitetop Mt, one of VA's biggest, loomed over our shelter site. The profile map looked equally ferocious.I got an early start, though Charlie beat me out. Charlie does endurance biking - once he biked from Boston to Nova Scotia and back in 87 hours. He's a young-looking 64 and the grandfather of 8.5 (one in the oven).Skeemer wasn't long out behind me.The climb up White Top was long but well switched-backed. Before long I was starting up the first of the balds. This area is just stunning for views. Early on the cloud cover was high and kind enough to permit some vista.The info board at Deep Gap and Elk Garden speaks of former denizens: the extinct eastern elk, bison, mountain lions. One notice also warned strongly about tempermental weather shifts and exposure on the balds: "Temperatures can drop suddenly 20 degrees in an hour, and winds can increase 20 mph."The climb to Mt. Rogers wasn't bad either, though there were no views. On the other side of its thick balsam forests, the balds pick up again. Clouds blow across the grassland like smoke. The wind snaps my backack cover, and chills me despite my rain gear. I scan for wild ponies and before long, sure enough, there's a small herd down below. I try a shot but my 2x zoom proves inadequate. The fog is blowing too, blocking my shot. Between them and me is a field of brambles and a rusty barbed wire fence. Well, why not? I am here for the experience. Can't leave without a wild pony encounter, right?I shuck my pack under two twisted trees, and take a sight line, just as I might in a boat. The briars claw at my legs and rain gear - maybe this isn't such a great idea. Don't want to tear my raincoat up here! I use extra care in skinning between the barbed wire.On the other side, I check my sight line. Yikes, it's getting foggy! I can barely see my pair of trees. I consider cutting back, until I seethe ponies moving in the rocky, sheltered hollow below. I clamber down. There's seven, plus a foal. The herd is kept at about 125, the surplus is sold off. I wonder if the rangers aren't selecting for color, there are way more pintos and flaxen-maned sorrels than in the general horsey population. The colors ARE eye-catching. Keep the tourists happy, I guess.As far as equine conformation goes, they weren't much: jug-headed, short-necked and ewed. But did they make me smile? Yes, yes they did. One happy tourist here.The stallion of this group was a black-and-white pinto, with speckles as well as spots. In his band were several pinto mares, two toasted sorrels and a bay. The foal was a pinto too. Just like dad.The stud didn't mind the picture-taking, but the mares were more cautious and shifted around as I angled for my shots. I was lost in their rocky, grassy world, winding up my photos when I noticed that the fog had blown in considerably in the last ten minutes; my trees were long gone In fact, I couldn't even see the fence line.Oooops...I backtracked until the fence came into view, then I lined up some sightlines that had previously lined up with the two trees. As those passed out of view in the thickening fog, I had to take a leap of faith and let those go to keep walking uphill. It was very foggy and damp now. What an idiot!I had my raingear on, but my ultimate survival gear - tent and sleeping bag - were waiting for me, with my pack, on the AT. Wherever THAT was. I tried to keep a cool head. Running in circles in a screaming panic might keep me warm for awhile, but wouldn't win any genius points.Eventually, I saw some twisted trees and beat the briers back towards them. Phew, I found the path! Now, is my pack in front of me, or behind me? I walk back and forth for many minutes, finding nothing, not even sure now which way is north. Get a grip, girl. You are alone on a bald in the cold fog, and you've lost your backpack. And are unsure about which way is north.It's about then that I notice the path I'm on doesn't have blazes. Of any color.Oh crap.Horses. They're always getting me into trouble. My mother warned me.I look down, towards the ponies now though they are fogged from sight, as I walk back and forth on the path. The briars I walked through initially were only 150 yards or so. Think! Try to remember.And then, I see them. THE two twisted trees. Down below me. There is no mistake, even through the fog, tho I can see no path. I take another sightline, and another leap of faith, and cut down through the briars.Yes! Another path. And this one with whie blazes. My pack is just where I left it, waiting faithfully. But one dilemma remains - which way to go?The fog is indecipherable. To hell with views, just show me the way to go home...I walk both ways, and thankfully there is a cherry tree blown down in one direction. I would have rembered that. Off I go, that way, and soon exit the Lewis Fork Wilderness.Thomas Knob Shelter is looking pretty good at this point. I get there, and it's snug and well-chinked. It even has a solar composting privy. But the air is very cold up here at 5400 feet, and the wind blows a damp fog thru the door.I check my guidebook and see that Wise Shelter is only 5.1 miles from here. It's downhill too, to 4400 feet or so. Shoot, it had to be warmer a thousand feet lower. And downhill walking? Easy.Heh. Heh.Yes, it was downhill. And rocky. I'd forgotten about the rocks up here. Everyone complains about Pennsylvania rock-walking, but today's ankle-rolling adventures have a place in my heart. Rocks of all sizes. Little marble rocks. Step-sized rocks. Apartment-complex-sized outcrops.It's hard to describe the experience of walking though this rocky, grassy world in the clouds. As you'd turn a corner, there would be more ponies, or a mountainous rock looming in the mist. It is easy to imagine a mountain lion of yore crouching on one of these rocky outcrops.I plan to come back here in better weather, after the thru. This landscape is fantanstic, even in fog. Riding it on horse doesn't give the same scale, either. Walking is the way to go here. Besides, try to get a horse though Fatman's Squeeze, a 25-foot cleft in the rock. The AT runs right through this "cave."The blazes are on rocks, but also up on posts and are fairly easy to follow in the fog, though I must watch carefully. Even if they were hard to spot, the path shows up well in the grassy bits.But it's another story at the stile and fence demarcating Mt. Rogers from Greyson Highlands State Park. I lose the Trail almost immediately, and the grass offers no clue. Usually one could follow the track, clear as a bell, but here it disappears I can see no blazes anywhere in the fog. Maybe they are there in good weather, but it's bad weather that a hiker really needs a little help. For the first time, I was sorry I was hiking alone. Two heads and four eyes are better than just me.Ah well, my mama wasn't here to bail me out. It's find a way out or plan to camp untl clearer weather. I see orange horse trail blazes, and some other color - are those white blazes painted over blue blazes? Or is it blue blazes painted over white? It's a tossup. The paint has bled together in a 50/50 mix. I grind my teeth in frustration. It doesn't have to be so hard!It's geting late. Will I be camping on the bald tonite, despite it being forbidden. Come on, just give me a sign... I walk back and forth on the road, looking closely at every blaze. By now you know how a sore-footed, late-in-the-day hiker hates to take needless steps.At one rock, only an orange blaze is painted. Crap. A trail has split off, and I've missed it. I backtrack yet again. Do I push forward past this orange blaze anyway? I do, knowing it will be an uphill walk if I'm wrong.Near Massie Gap, I stumble upon some faint AT spoor. I take another leap of faith and traveldown the split-off path in the fog, losing sight of the road. Eureka! There is a blaze. And the blazes are sometimes on posts.I must look very carefully, sometimes guessing in the fog, but I wander through a compelling landscape of grass and stone. This area is even more stunning than the land right after Thomas Knob. It is a moonscape of rock, with turf. At one point the AT goes thru a cleft in monstrous boulders, known as Fatman's Squeeze. I must get back here in clear weather.Eventually Wise shelter looms out of the darkening gloom, and Charlie and Skeemer are here. Skeemer said he got confused at the Mt. Rogers/Grayson Highlands junction too. They promise to build a fire as I fall upon my supper. My hiker appetite has kicked in another notch. My feet, however, are taking a beating. They rock-and-rolled 17.3 miles by days end, and throb all night. Puff-Puff and Snappy come in right at dark, and join us. In the night, she is violently sick with the stomach flu.