Appalachian Trail Section hiking: Grayson Highlands State Park to south of Buzzard Rock

Day Five

October 4, 2013
Massie Gap to past Buzzard Rock
10.9 miles

After a restful night at Ruby’s Rest, we arose at 6:00 a.m. and soon made our way to the Exxon Station for a sausage and egg biscuit. At 7:00 we met our shuttle driver at Mt. Roger’s Outfitters and found out he was the original owner of the Outfitter who has now turned it over to his son. He was a wealth of information about the AT and surrounding area and we enjoyed chatting with him as we drove up the winding Music Trail road up to Grayson Highlands State Park entrance. At 8:00 a.m. we started up the AT Spur Trail to join the AT at the top and head south.

It wasn’t long before we found the ponies enjoying the shade in the bottoms--about 13 of them. After enjoying them for a few minutes we continued on our way up the mountain. When we reached the top, we found that they had beat us there. We took even more pictures of them. We passed the sign for Wilburn Ridge and read about the feral ponies. In 1974, when the land changed from private to public ownership and cattle were removed, ponies were introduced to the park to prevent reforestation of the highland balds. The pony herd is managed by the Wilburn Ridge Pony Association. During fall roundups of ponies for an auction held in conjunction with Grayson Highland’s annual Fall Festival, association members check the herd for health problems.

Fatman Squeeze

“Fatman Squeeze” was an interesting feature of the trail going up to Wilburn Ridge. It is a natural rock formation tunnel and the trail went right through it.

Wilburn Ridge is a long ridgeline that goes up toward Mt. Rogers. Due to logging, flooding, and burning in it’s history, it is treeless and quite rocky. Hence, the panoramic view is unobstructed. The white blazes of the AT are marked on the rocks.

Mt. Rogers is Virginia’s highest peak, at 5,729 feet. Surprisingly, the trail does not go over the top of this one. They say the top is viewless because of the trees anyway.

One of the rocky areas going up to Wilburn Ridge.

Thomas Knob Shelter

There are many beautiful campsites between Thomas Knob Shelter and Rhododendron Gap—it is easy to see why it is a popular trail for day hikers. In fact, everyone we saw in this area were dayhikers or overnight campers.

Coming out on the highway at Va. 600 I was looking forward to the bathroom located there but found the door locked with a note saying closed due to government shut-down. Drat! I was not the only one though, several others had the same thing in mind while we were there.

There was a nice campsite right before we crossed US Forest Service Road 89 (Whitetop Mountain Road) but we don’t like to camp so close to the road, so we kept going. South of the road though there are no trees big enough to hang from. Then, surprisingly, we came out of the woods facing a big bald mountain with a big rock formation on the top. We reckoned this to be Buzzard Rock. The view from the top of the bald was breathtaking all around. When we began our journey south again we were very glad that we were headed south. Going north would have been quite a climb up the mountain.

It was awhile before we got far enough into the woods to find trees big enough to hang our hammocks from and by this time we were more than ready to stop for the day. We had traveled less than 11 miles. How could that be? Strange, but we were ready to stop nonetheless. We were glad when we finally found a place although it was a pretty steep mountainside and not the best, but with a hammock we could do it. We would have been in bad shape with a tent.