Thomas Knob Shelter

Day 44, Friday, 4/29 – I hiked with Birthday Sandwich and Dillan today. Early in the hike, I started seeing bananas in the trees. Someone must have put them there for hikers to take as they were passing through. I ate one on the walk. Shortly after I walked up to trail magic. Low Cash and McSquatch were cooking up delicious breakfast burritos. They were also the ones putting the bananas up in the trees.

Birthday Sandwich and I were hiking just South of the Grayson Highlands where there are wild ponies. We were on the lookout, and saw a wild pony on our way to camp. The pony was grazing in the forest, but then walked right up to us. The ponies in the area are used to being fed by hikers. I pet the pony and Birthday Sandwich gave the pony a peanut butter cracker. The pony dropped the cracker, became agitated, and started kicking at us. We gave him some space after that. Lesson learned, don’t feed the ponies.

After our encounter with the pony, Birthday Sandwich and I climbed to the summit of Mount Rogers. Mount Rogers is Virginia’s highest peak at 5729ft. I’ve recently heard about people hiking to the highest peak of each state as a fun challenge. I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to check Virginia off that list.

The summit of Mount Rogers is 0.5 miles off of the AT. There wasn’t a good view from the summit, but it was worth the extra mile. The foliage was neat with dense pine trees and a lot of moss.

There’s a lot of side trails off of the AT. Many of these side trails lead to summits, waterfalls, good views, etc. On a thru-hike, there’s a pressure to skip anything that’s not official trail. Reason being, it takes energy and time to hike the side trails. I have been deliberately hiking a lot of the side trails so I don’t fall into the routine of just cranking out miles. I’m out here because I like to hike, and the side trails often lead to the best part of the hike.

Birthday Sandwich and I hiked 13 miles to Thomas Knob Shelter (mile 499). At the shelter we ran into a half dozen more wild ponies grazing in an open field.