Date: 2011-05-11
From: Damascus, VA

To: Thomas Knob Shelter Area
Miles today: 5.5
Weather: overcast clouds

Got up this morning at The Place after a surprisingly restful night and went to breakfast with Buffalo Bobby, Trolley Stop, Middlebury, Lone Star and a few others. Put laundry in across the street then hit the gas station for their blueberry pancake hiker special breakfast. It was actually pretty good and quite filling. Middlebury and I then got real coffee at MoJo's and finished laundry. Back at The Place, I moved my stuff to a lower bunk then got talking with Cruiser about what to do for the next couple of days. We decided that since he had a car and we were both wanting to see a little of the Grayson Highlands we should go do a 1 night campout in the Thomas Knob area. An hour later we were packed and loaded into Cruiser's truck, along with 6 other hikers who wanted a drop off at the Elk Garden trailhead so they could walk the AT downhill back to town. After a quick lunch stop at Subway, we were out of town.After dropping the others at Elk Garden, Cruiser and I went on to the Massie Gap trailhead and parked there. We then hiked up blue blazes to intersect the AT in Grayson Highlands State Park. We crossed the AT and stayed on blue blazes, heading back towards an area of good campsites about a half mile north of Thomas Knob Shelter. The blue blazes wound up and down along the crest of several rock spine ridges with some interesting sections of hand over hand scrambling up and down over rock outcrops. All the while there were great views in all directions, especially from the crest of the rock spines.We ran into half a dozen small groups of the famous "wild" ponies of the Grayson Highlands. Of course they aren't really "wild". They are privately owned, grazed in fenced pastures, provided supplemental hay during snowy winters, and are actually quite tame. A number of ponies walked over to us and tried to pick our pockets for handouts. They were probably the hoodlum teenagers of the group! The ponies look fairly good size from a distance, but up close, they are actually quite small, basically Shetland sized ponies. A number of small foals were running around and one appeared still pretty unsteady on his feet, maybe only hours old. They are a wide range of colors and patterns, often with long flowing manes and tails that blow and sway in the mountain winds.The leaves here have just barely begun to pop, and the blueberry bushes have just begun to bloom. Spring comes much later here at 5,500 feet than in the valley bottoms far below.I regularly stopped for pictures along the way and remembered how much the views here reminded me of mountain views in Colorado and Montana. Yet, here we are in southwestern Virginia on a ridgeline barely over 5,000 feet high. This is truly one of the most unusual landscapes on the AT.Cruiser and I chose a campsite about a half mile north of Thomas Knob Shelter and made camp. We walked over to the shelter to get water and visit with the folks who were there. We passed several hikers we knew along the way who were headed north for a few more miles before returning to Damascus by Friday for Trail Days.The day ended as it had begun, with rumbles of thunder, flashes of close lightning and periods of rain. But, another visit to the beautiful Grayson Highlands has been wonderful!