I have been taking it easy for the past two days. I have been a bit sluggish after leaving Damascus and have not been motivated to push very far. I did 14.7 miles yesterday and only 12.2 today. The climb of Whitetop Mt. and then up to Mt. Rogers sapped me of quite a bit more energy then it should have. I got into the shelter pretty early but was just not motivated to push on. Thomas Knob shelter has a nice upper deck that is out of the weather and I think I was tempted by the promise of a night out of the wind. The big payoff of the day was the ponies!
The Grayson Highlands ponies are a semi-feral heard that are believed to be related to the ponies of Assateague Island. They are friendly and are very accustomed to people. For a time they were totally wild but are now fenced in to the boundary of the park. They visited the shelter that night in search of some scraps. Seeing the ponies was on my highlight list for the hike and I am so glad that I had good weather on top of the mountain. Owl, Zag, Magic and half a dozen new faces were all at the shelter for the night.
1 comment:
The ponies look like those. At Assatique island. Every summer they swim the ponies across the inlet to an auction
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