Short Hikes at Grayson Highlands

Sunday morning, we woke up and broke camp, but wanted to get in a few hikes before driving back home. From the campsite, we headed to the Wilson Creek Trail, which starts just across the street from the group campsite and the camp store. The trail begins with a moderately steep climb down to Wilson Creek and follows the creek upstream. Although the foliage was thick with rhododendron and other plants, we were able to find a few nice places to climb out onto the rocks and enjoy the view of the stream tumbling over rocks and boulders.

Although the trail sign claims a waterfall on the creek, it was hard to find one specific "waterfall"; rather the entire length of the creek along the trail is constantly cascading as it makes it way downstream.

This also made for a moderately steep climb as the trail heads upstream. After about a mile or so, the trail made a very steep climb back up and met up with the horse trail leading back to the campsite. Then, we moved our car to the Massie Gap parking area. Since we hadn't seen many ponies the day before, we tried our luck again and followed the Rhododendron Trail up to the AT and went as far as the gate to leave Grayson Highlands State Park and enter Mount Rogers NRA. Still no ponies. But it looked like storms would be rolling in soon, so we had lunch on a rock, before heading back to the car and making our way back to Raleigh.