A little more than a year ago, we decided to go to Trail Days together and this was the backpacking trip that we planned pretty much in the middle of it. We all met at Trail Days on Friday afternoon. I’m not really going to go into the details of what we did at trail days, so in order to be short here are some photos to help with the imagination:
Backpacking Vendors
The Damascus Brewery
Night Life
Tent City
Saturday morning we drove separately to the Overnight Backpackers Parking Lot by Massey Gap where we dropped off Katie’s car…hmm actually maybe it was my car. 🤔 Anyway, then all get in the same car to go to where we started our backpacking trip at Elk Garden Trailhead.
Elk Garden Trailhead
It was a beautiful weekend for a backpacking trip. I remember all of the wild flowers being out, which was a beautiful surprise. When I had passed through on my thru-hike just 10 days after Trail Days, I did not see any wild flowers passing through so there must be a really short window.
We originally were going to tent, but the ponies we migrating and starting to nibble on our tents. I remember not handling this situation well, but I survived. 🙃 So, we stayed at the shelter there, which had quite the view behind it as you can see on the top of this post! 😀 Oh one thing that is easy to forget when revisiting: There is pony poop everywhere! 💩
It got chilly up there that night, but I shouldn’t be too surprised for 5000+ feet of elevation. Next day there were a couple more views!
I’m not very good at posing for photos, though I can take a damn good one of anyone else. 😉 I wonder why I decided to keep my backpack on in the shot…I look very stiff.
No, I don’t have a clue what they were looking at. The ponies were quite sociable.
Once we get to Massey Gap, we take the car we left there 😅 to the other car at Elk Garden Trailhead to then get something to eat. I think it was Hardees. 🤤
| Name | Grayson Highlands State Park |
| Location | Wilson Creek, VA |
| Parking/Trailhead | Start: Elk Garden Trailhead End: Overnight Backpackers Parking Lot |
| Trail Name | Appalachian Trail |
| Hike Length | 6.9 miles |
Side Notes:
- This was supposed to be Friday’s blog, but the intensity at work has picked up.
- Each Blog Post can take from 2-6 hours. Usually, the longer the better.
