We planned a camping trip to Hungry Mother SP over July, with hiking at Grayson Highlands. The trip started off with driving 4.5 hours in the pouring rain.
A bright spot of the drive down was a quickie drive through of Claytor Lake SP just to see the facility. It's lovely. The lake is huge and reminded me of Lake Anna.
It's about 50 minutes closer to home than Hungry Mother and merits a visit all of its own.
We finally arrived at HM and the rain abated long enough for us to check in...and of course, resumed in a deluge when started to set up. I mean, it was a MONSOON. I couldn't even look up to untangle the strap of the camper awning because the rain was hitting my eyeballs. Not fun. Needless to say, there are no photos of this part of the trip.
Hungry Mother Lake is gorgeous!
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| We were prepared for Fourth of July! |
The campgrounds are oddly arranged in and out of the park boundaries, and the bathhouses are old style and in serious need of updating in the campground we were assigned, Campground A.
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| The creek behind our campsite |
However, there is an adorable little creek that runs behind the campsites there and we really enjoyed that.
Camp Burson had nicer bathhouses but the sites are way too open and in rows.
This "trail" is more of a walking path, and the part that goes around the lake is easy and fun. It must go up and down on the far side of the lake where it veers off into the mountains, because it's rated "moderate". We didn't get that far because rain was threatening. (We got used to that.)
The park has lots of lovely, picturesque paths and bridges. It's beautifully landscaped and has wonderful cabins and shelters, and even a restaurant that was quite good.
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| How cute is this? |
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| And this?? |
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| The Restaurant at Hungry Mother. Just adorable. |
We stayed near HM on July 4, with a short hike in the morning and a paddle in the afternoon, before grilling dinner. We started dinner over charcoal with the plan of turning it into a campfire when we were done...but of course it started raining while we were grilling so we ended up switching to the electric grill.
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| Dave had grill duty, as usual. |
On July 5 we decided to take an easy day to sightsee another park, New River Trail. The river was heavily flooded and well over its banks so there was no kayaking to be done. We did check out the actual New River Trail itself, which is a rail to trail project similar to High Bridge. We saw the Fries access first and checked out the river, and then had lunch at the Galax access. It's beautiful, wooded, and shaded, and would make a lovely day hike.
After returning to HM, we walked around the park a bit and enjoyed the beautiful grounds, then went to the restaurant to have dinner on the deck. There was live music in the gazebo and it was a very enjoyable meal.
We spent the day on July 6 at Grayson Highlands. We planned to hike the AT Spur and do a couple of miles on the Trail itself, and most importantly, to see some of the wild ponies. However, once Dave found out that we were this/close to Mount Rogers, he really wanted to hike to the top.
I chatted with a ranger I quickly dubbed Knowitall Nancy about the distance to Mount Rogers. It's outside the park but following the AT out to the Mount Rogers spur it's just over 4 miles. I said that was good and that would be our plan, and she looked at me dubiously. I told her we often hike 8 miles in a day, and she looked at me again and said "In this weather?" I'm thinking, lady, it's not even actually raining. Then I realized I was standing there in a T shirt and tennis shoes with no pack. Hey, at least I had on my convertible hiking pants, right?
I reassured her that we had actual hiking gear in the car but she still seemed very concerned about our ability to manage. If I'd known what she knew, I would have been, too.
We figured 8 miles = @4 hours. That's typical for us, with maybe an additional half hour for a lunch stop.
It took us 7 hours.
The AT in the park is rated as a "moderate" hike on the park brochure. Unfortunately, as soon as you're out of the park, it turns into a rock scramble. It was rough. There were definitely some all-fours climbing spots rather than "hiking". There was even a cave to climb through. I took so many pictures that we started having battery issues less than half way up.
This spot is actually pretty easy compared to most of the rock section. The rocks last about 1.5 miles? Two miles? Two hundred miles?
I was concerned because we had Ollie with us, as well as Maya. I knew Miss Youthful Energy would be fine, but I thought we'd have to turn back because of the old man. Nope. He bounded up those rocks like he was a puppy again. It was Dave and me who struggled.
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There are AMAZING views all the way (until you get to actual Mount Rogers itself).
We saw a couple wild ponies here and there, some of them fairly close.
We stopped at Thomas Knob shelter for a rest and lunch--our first shelter!
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After going up and down no less than four hundred times (give or take), we finally reached the Mount Rogers spur. The trail suddenly got much easier; there were still a few rocky spots but it was much more regular trail.
We had been warned that the summit of Mount Rogers was easily missed because it's nothing special--just a large boulder in the trees with a medallion on top. The ground is flat. If we hadn't known, we would have walked right by and who knows if we would be home yet or not?
We stopped and took photos with both dogs, and then quickly started moving back down as the hour was getting uncomfortably late and it was dark in those woods.
Once we rejoined the AT and got below 5500 feet, though, the mist cleared out, the sun shone, and we felt like we had more time. Good thing, because we needed it.
It was harder going downhill, as always, but there were some huge payoffs. When we reached the top fence we found an actual herd of wild ponies waiting for us right there at the gate. They were very familiar with people and came right to us. One was nuzzling Dave's pack and following him, hoping for treats! Fortunately, I was able to coax a few more pictures out of the camera for this part of the trip.
We made it all the way back to the truck, went home, and thank goodness we had leftovers from The Restaurant to heat up for dinner, because I doubt I could have cooked.
When we went through photos we were very sad to see that one of the photos Dave really wanted, one of him standing out on a rock with the mountains for background, had not saved. He was really disappointed.
I stewed on this all night and while I knew we couldn't possibly hike all the way up there again, I had an idea. I suggested to him that we go back to GH that morning, July 7, even though it was pack out day. I said we could go do the Twin Pinnacle trails quickly and I was sure we would get the top of the world view he was looking for.
When I'm right, I'm right.
It was really misty first thing in the morning, so we hiked down the Cabin Creek trail. It was very pretty! We didn't go all the way to the waterfall we will do that next time.
Once the mist burned off, it was back up the mountain to the Visitor's Center and access to Twin Pinnacles. We visited with Knowitall Nancy for a few minutes--boy, had her tune changed!--before heading up to Little Pinnacle, which, oddly, is the higher of the twins.
HERE we found those view Dave was hoping for on Saturday! So gorgeous. While we were taking photos a group of young hikers arrived. We'd met them the day before on the Rhododendron trail, so we took each others' photos. After talking with them we found out they had not gone all the way up Mount Rogers. Score for the old fogies!
We made it back to HM in time to pack up--you guessed it--in the pouring rain.
Park Rating:
Claytor Lake
C ?
B 10
W 8 (lake)
H ?
R 0
O 10 (store, restaurant)
S 0
Hungry Mother
C 8 (nice, but small and on road)
B 2
W 9 (lake, but great)
H 8
R 0
O 10 (restaurant, store)
S 8
New River Trail
C 0
B 5
W 10 (New River, duh!)
H 10
R 10
O ?
S 10
Grayson Highlands
C 8 (small, in woods)
B 10
W 0
H 10+
R 10
O 10 (country store, excellent visitor's center store)
S 5
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