After work on Friday 17 May 2019 I finished packing loaded up the car and headed to Jason’s. We had a long drive ahead of us and were meeting Jeremiah so he could ride the remainder of the trip with us. We stopped a few hours or less away and stayed at an hotel.
We arouse early and headed to meet Outlan at Grayson Highlands State Park, Where we transferred cars and rode with lance (Outlan) to Damascus.
Trail days was interesting. So many vendors and hikers alike. It was pretty fun. I met Chris from LiteAF and his wife. Amazingly he knew my name! I guess I spend too much money there! speaking about spending money, I bought a blue Zpacks Duplex. We then grabbed some food and headed to the trail. Oh but wait we decided to leave at the same time as the start of the parade. So we ended up waiting at the last intersection in town for the parade to pass before the police let us leave.
Finally we arrived at the trail head! The goal for the day was Saunders shelter. We made it there fairly quickly and the shelter already had plenty of people there. So we quickly set up our tents, which was a good thing as it suddenly decided to down pour.
Sunday morning we had thousands of feet of elevation gain ahead of us. It was a tuff day. We had two significant climbs, one of 1000′ over two miles and one of 2000′ over two miles with a few smaller ups and downs. we hiked all the way to Beech mountain and Buzzard Rock. Jeremiah and I talked for about an hour with an older through hiker, multiple Ironman and multiple triathlon participant at the spring. It made for some very good conversation making the trip that much more enjoyable. Soon we were joined by Jason and Lance. Once they topped off their water we headed to look for the camp sites near FS89 we were next to. It didn’t take long to find the few sites. The first was taken by a few men on their first backpacking trip. Good thing they were going down the mountain! it took three sites to house the four of us. Jason and I set our duplexes up side by side on the small spot we had making the primary camp furthest up the trail. Lance moved back within eye site to get a good hang, with Jeremiah moving the furthest back dent he trail near the two men. We all ate at our site discussing what time to wake up. It was anywhere from Jasons 0400 to Lances seven or eight, I don’t quite recall.
We ended up getting up at 0430 and waiting a month of Sundays for Jeremiah to get ready lol. We left camp around 0530, which would put us at Masses Gap near noon. The walk was still very up hill and rocky, I can’t believe how rocky Virginia is! We got to Grayson Highlands and sat on the bench for awhile, took some pictures. Soon we were off again, and it got cloudy and rained for little bit. The surrounding mountains just disappeared as we were in a cloud. The rains stopped and we passed through a large trail crew working the trail. I believe them to be the Konnarock Trail crew but cannot confirm as I failed to take a picture of their signs or commit the name to memory, though according to their website they were working in the area that day.
Getting to the end of the trail, the horses. we came across two horses with two young foals. I got a few good pictures that I shall link to on Flickr. It was a short rocky walk to the car from there, then we dropped Lance of at his car and got our other gear and headed to Taco Bell to satisfy Jeremiah. Who do you think we ran in to there Lance going through the drive thought as we waited 15 minutes for some tacos! So we had some conversation as we ate and this is where Jeremiah became sponsored by Backpacking with Jason ;). What do you know we split up again and had a long ride back to Jasons house so I could finish the last hour leg to my home.
I hope you enjoyed the read and it wasn’t to poorly wrote. Writing about my adventures is something I enjoy. But I feel I’m not great at it and hope to improve as I put in more time in it, amongst all the other things I have and want to do.
If you would like to purchase prints from my previous trips and adventures please go to Greg Parker Photography .
At the time of this post I still have a roll of film I have not developed yet. Film and processing adds up so I finish the rolls before development. Photographs will be added as soon as feasible.
NM8B Radio Room. 