Mount Rogers

Lisa and I and the dogs loaded up the Xterra to head to Mount Rogers for a camping trip. We've each got about a week left until we have to be back to school, and we hadn't really taken any vacations this summer...so, it was time! Once we got all unpacked and set up, in near record time, we headed up to Elk Garden for a short hike on the AT. Arwen has been recovering from a shoulder injury due to an extremely heated game of frisbee, so she'd not been on a walk in nearly a month. The trail was very pretty, tons of ferns and mosses in the undergrowth.
Arwen and Lorien on the AT


Day two, we decided to take the X up to an area called the Scales. The "road" to the scales is hardly a road. I had new tires installed earlier in the week and had been wanting to try them out off road. The X got muddied up on the way to the top.


The top of The Scales is used as a backcountry horse camp, and is surrounded by meadows filled with berry bushes.

We got the dogs set up and started out towards Massie Gap on the AT. After only about a mile, I happened to look up on the hill above us and see a bear come running kind of in our general direction. He slammed on the brakes, stood up to get a better look at us and became very indecisive. First he took off in one direction, then another, before finally settling on scurrying on in another. I was able to snap a very quick picture, the bear is in the left, kind of in front of one of the trees. It was the best I could do in the ten seconds or so that he was running around in front of us.


We met a guy coming the other way a few hundred yards later, he asked us if we saw the bear. He explained that he had scared it up and over the hill, so now we had the explanation why the bear was running frantically towards us at first. The rest of the trail was mostly open with lots of views like below...beautiful!


One the way back down from the Scales, we stopped at this little waterfall.

Once back in camp we made a feast of hot dogs, pretzels, the berries I picked, Gatorade and many other likely camp foods. The dogs were spent.

Lorien wrapped up in her sleeping bag, this dog is always cold!


A very fun trip, wish we could have spent more time up there!