Chuck and his boys and I took a hike in the Grayson Highlands, on the Blue Ridge, in Virginia.  Here are some links for information about the area.

http://sherpaguides.com/virginia/mountains/blue_ridge/grayson_highlands.html

A map and elevation profile of our hike appears below.

On Sunday, we drove there, about a 4 hour drive, and hiked from the parking lot, over Wilburn Ridge, to the Thompson Knob shelter on the Appalachian Trial.  There we ate dinner, and then hiked back the AT to an area where we tented.

We found lots of blueberries, and stopped wherever we did to pick and eat them.  We also picked a baggie full for mixing with dessert.

When we arrived at Thompson Knob, there were a family of 3 there, and 2 other people.  This is a double deck lean-to with an upstairs.  It was raining when we got there, as it had off and on all afternoon.  It was about 6.  We went down to the spring to filter water, which is the elevation dip on the first profile, about 4.6 miles.  I filled my gallon canteen, a quart water bottle, and both my cook pots.  Chuck filled his bottles.  We cooked macaroni and cheese with chicken, and had some cheese and crackers for appetizers.  Chuck and the boys ate Oreo pudding with blueberries, and I had a hot cocoa.  I didn't want to spend the night in this place, for various reasons, and we agreed to pack up and hike back to a tenting site, even though it was still raining and nearly dark.  Just as we were leaving, 3 more guys showed up.

When we got to our selected site, it was raining harder, and dark.  Working together, we set up the Go-Lite Cave 2 tarp first.  Then we set up the Walrus Bughut 2 with its rain fly.  We covered our packs, raised a bear bag, and got in our shelters.  Chuck and Eric slept under the Cave, while Beau and I shared the Bughut.  It continued to rain.  I stood my bear canister on the ground next to my pack by a tree.  My rain cover was over the pack as it had been most of the day.

I wrote in my journal for a little while, but Beau wanted to sleep, so I turned my headlamp off and laid there listening to the rain on the fly.  We were at 5381' and it was 21:29.  We had hiked 5.0 miles in moving time of 3:00 and stopped time of 2:48.  I drifted off, but woke up shortly to the sound of a hard downpour.  I put Beau's poncho over his side of the tent, as the wind was blowing some of the downpour into the tent, and put my rain jacket over the corner near my head.  I pulled my boots inside the Bughut so they wouldn't get any wetter.  I remember thinking that the nice part of a rain this hard is that it can't keep raining this hard for very long.  But alas, I was wrong.  It kept up and slackened sometime later after I had drifted off again.  I got up at 0530 and ventured out into the thick fog, and managed to find my way back.  I saw people with a fire going sometime later and wondered when they had come into camp and set up their tents.  Later I found out it was Chuck and Eric, who were already up and had the stove going for breakfast.

We worked together again, like we had the night before in the rain, to break camp and pack everything up quickly, since it was raining and we didn't want things to get wetter (and therefore heavier).  We were on the trail at 9:07 heading South on the AT.  We then branched off onto the Pine Mountain Trail, which was the AT before the AT was re-routed to its current location in this area.  Where the trail joins the AT again, above Old Orchard Shelter, it had stopped raining and we stopped to have some crackers and cheese and Clif Bars.  Three guys were hiking up from the shelter, hiking South on the AT, and stopped there to put their rain gear on.  We took off, but we stopped for a little break at the spot where Chuck and the boys had camped last year.  While we were there, the 3 southbound guys passed us.  We caught them at the Scales, where we paused for a nice bathroom break (they have nice bathrooms there).  People can drive to the Scales with their horse trailers.  There was a trail ride forming up while we were there.  The group of 12-15 horses and riders took off up the trail just ahead of us.  As it began to rain again.

We got turned around heading for the Wise shelter and actually met those 3 guys.  We followed them to the shelter where we unpacked a little.  We decided to make dinner, and Chuck cooked black beans, I carved an onion and a brick of cheese, and we made burritos with some chicken and southwestern corn and the other stuff.  After that, we had a group discussion on whether to spend the night there, spend the night near there, or hike back to the car and not spend another night staying dry.  Beau and I opted for coming out, while Chuck and Eric voted to stay.  We decided to hike out.

It was all uphill to the top of the ridge we had crossed the day before.  Here we ran into some very inquisitive wild ponies.  At the top of the ridge, we came across a group of 4 tenting in a non-tenting zone, with a wood fire going.  But we hiked down the AT spur to the parking lot without opining on their violations.  We hiked 9.6 miles, leaving the tent site at 0907, with 4:37 of moving time and arriving at the parking lot about 1930.

We changed clothes in the parking lot and headed out.  It wasn't raining.  We stopped at a little convenience store that was closed, but they let us in for a bottle of water and a Klondike bar.  Then it was back on the road and I mentioned how it wasn't raining at all.  Then the downpour started, and Chuck had to put his wipers on at top speed, and slow down and put on his flashers to see where we were going.  About halfway back, we got some coffee and switched seats and I drove the rest of the way.  We got back about 1230 in the morning.  Having called ahead, Susie had pizza and salad ready, which we greedily consumed after getting much needed showers.  A successful journey!

As we left the parking lot, we got someone leaving to take a snapshot.  I put my pack raincover on before leaving the parking lot - the eternal pessimist. Later when the sun started coming out to shine... so the Scheiers put their raincovers on. 

On top of Wilburn Ridge, we paused to take in the view.  Chuck went down below and took photos up at us.

As the weather moved in, we get ready to descend the ridge.  Beau isn't having any fun at all.  There's Chuck way down there in the very center.

Into the Jefferson National Forest, leaving Rhododendron Gap, the fog rolled in.  As we moved out into the fog, we found some of the wild ponies that live here.  They didn't seem to notice us, and I didn't see them photographing us either.   The ponies seem to congregate in families.  Almost all the mature animals we saw had colts or yearlings with them.

A few ponies said good bye to us as we neared the end of our hike.  The little one came right up to each of us, whinnied, sniffed us, and then went back to grazing. She followed us several hundred yards up the trail before going back to her family.