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Ten Degrees and Getting Colder

  Cold Sunrise   That's just the name of the song written by Gordon Lightfoot.  It was actually -13 F when I got up this morning (wind chill -24).  Tucson may have pulled back into the lead!  There's a lot of weighing pros and cons of Colorado vs Arizona by the wood stove.  Not much else to report. I did enjoy a few games of pool and a beer with my brother this week.  We don't get together very often, so it's good to try to keep the lines of communication open, especially with my mother celebrating her 86th birthday next month.  He lives in Milwaukee and just started semi-retirement.  Our opposing politics and lifestyles keep things very casual and surface-level.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.   It's important to find common ground.  He and his wife have started going to concerts and recently saw the Steve Miller Band.  Music is one of our common interests.      
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Grayson Highlands State Park


I hiked through Grayson Highlands during my Appalachian thru-hike in 1996, but I didn’t camp here for a very good reason.  The Appalachian Trail back then was 2159 miles.  The blue blaze trail to the state park was 0.66 miles.  


My hiking partners and I had some rules during the thru-hike.  We would walk 0.2 or 0.3 if we needed water or a shelter, but I tried to keep extra miles at a minimum.  If there was a cold six pack of beer or a hamburger and fries at the other end of the 0.66, there would be no question.  But the blue blaze trail leads only to a gravel overnight parking lot.

With the Brew Hut and Nissan truck, I am no longer constrained by those rules.  I parked in the ugly little gravel overnight parking lot and started hiking up the mountain where it  joins the Appalachian Trail. Within a quarter of a mile, I saw something that I never saw on my thru-hike: one of the the famous Grayson Highlands wild ponies right on the trail walking towards us.


For once, Callie was quiet and still.  Eventually, the pony got too close (they bite and kick), so we wandered to the left.  It wandered to the right.
Soon, we climbed to the intersection of the spur trail and the A.T.  Just like on Roan Mountain, the ridges are grass and shrubs.  The views are stunning.




Callie and I continued southbound into the Mount Rodgers Wilderness.  We peaked out at around 5200′ in elevation.  The climb was in direct sun and without wind;  Callie was hot.  I shared some of my water bottle with her, but it was time to head back.  A breeze picked up for the mostly downhill hike. We met some other hikers who were southbound and stopped to chat with one guy who wanted a photo of Callie for his daughter.

On the way down the spur trail, there were more ponies.


Hickory Ridge Campground

The campsites at Hickory Ridge are wooded.  I haven’t seen any hickory nuts, but the leaves are falling, and so are the acorns.  When one hits the top of the Scamp, it is startling.  Something that sounded like a larger hickory nut falling several hundred yards just hit the roof, but I couldn’t find the evidence.


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