I have hiked hundreds of trails in the last forty years from the North Shore of Minnesota to Pisgah Forest in North Carolina, to the Palmetto Trail in South Carolina. But recently, I  hiked a trail that is my all-time favorite. It is almost as if Mother Nature took all the best bits of every other trail and designed a hike to incorporate each piece.

The Mount Rogers trail starting from Grayson Highlands State Park has a diversity of terrain that I have never before witnessed on a single hike. The first thing you notice from the beginning is the breathtaking panoramic views of the Blue Ridge Mountains surrounding you.  Your starting elevation from the trailhead in the park is 3,698 feet, and your view continues throughout the hike until, ironically, the last leg which takes you to the summit and has no view at all.

Starting from the parking area and traveling through windswept grasses, the trail invites you up a gentle slope and through a wooden gate to where you’re likely to encounter the first of many wild ponies grazing on plentiful grasses. The ponies lavished with attention from every type of hiker are almost comical in their nonchalant response to the attention.

The trail meanders through grassy balds, and alongside blooming rhododendrons, if it happens to be June, travels through heavenly scented pine forests and across rock outcroppings that wind around cliffs reminiscent of scenes from Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid. There were fields of wild berries covering acres of hillside, and in every direction, mountain peaks stretch to the horizon with a blue hue mimicking the choppy waves on an ocean.

The deep blue sky dotted with cumulus clouds its grandness emphasized by the wide-open spaces of the balds, and the elevation achieved en-route to Mount Roger.

The final leg toward the summit holds another change consisting of rich greens, mossy growths on fallen trees, and a forest floor alive with plants and life that one would expect to see in a more tropical environment. The forest canopy is dense and closed-in and sunlight that penetrates slants in with rays that might highlight a small evergreen or a patch of the forest floor. The place has an almost sacred feel in its tranquil silence. 

Once you reach the summit, a marker rewards your effort, and reads “US Coast & Geodetic Survey Reference” with a date of 1930, 1933, scratched into its surface. The marker indicates that you are now standing at the highest point in Virginia at 5729 feet. The large boulder where the marker is affixed provides a perfect place to sit, brew a cup of tea and take a respite to consider the beauty and grandeur of this special place.