After waiting out a brief rainstorm during breakfast, I hit the trail and hiked up towards the Grayson Highlands. As I gained elevation, it became cold, windy and foggy.

Once over 5000ft, the weather really got cold, the wind picked up to over 40mph with gusts of 60+mph. The terrain was great though, as the trail wound over rocky outcroppings.

About midday, a storm rolled in with freezing rain, hail and eventually snow.

It became really hard to walk in the wind and ice.  At one point, a gust caught me off guard and blew me into a bush.

Being the highest point in Virginia, you couldn’t have picked a worse place to get stuck in a winter storm.

I finally made it to a shelter and was able to get out of the wind and snow for a bit. I was sitting inside eating a snack and thinking how I had not seen any of the famous wild ponies of the Highlands, when one walked right up.

After a short break, I headed back out on the trail.  The snow was blowing hard and sticking to everything making it hard to pick out the white blazes.

I finally made it to Wise shelter, joining Seeker, Peanuts, Splash and Enox. Enox and I used our tarps to block the open side of the shelter to keep the blowing snow out. I hung my hammock inside the shelter and we all hunkered down for the night.