Grayson Highlands

A much discussed highlight of the Appalachian Trail is Grayson Highlands State Park. This park is notable for its population of wild ponies.

In practice, the ponies are mostly tame. All of the ones we saw were branded, and most of them barely paid us any mind. Only the curious foals approached us, interested in nibbling the salt off of our clothing. It wasn't until midway through the park that we came across signs instructing visitors to not pet the ponies. Oops!

We took a short detour to summit Mount Rogers, the highest point in Virginia. This was a nice evergreen forest section, after hiking across balds much of the day.

We hit a milestone in the park: 500 miles down, 1,697 to go.

My passage through the park was punctuated in the middle by returning to Damascus for trail days, and at the end by leaving the trail to heal my knee.

Which is going very well, by the way. By Friday I was walking more or less normally. Since then I've been spending time on stationary bike to work out any remaining kinks. I have booked a ride back to the trail on Wednesday, and we'll see if I can still keep up with the crew.