I hiked this trail from Thursday, May 12th to Saturday, May 14th, 2022 with my brother. The goal was to finish most of the section of the Virginia Creeper Trail/Appalachian Trail hike we had started back in August 2020 but gotten rained out of. We hiked most of it, but again got hit with some serious rain. This time, we were better prepared and were able to push through most of it.

We started by parking at the Fox Creek Parking Area and horse camp. From there, we headed southward, opposite the direction of most through-hikers. Thankfully, though it was summer, the trails in the area were relatively clear because a lot of hikers had headed to Damascus for Trail Days. We spent our first day making the hike from the Fox Creek Parking Area to Old Orchard Shelter, and then finally to The Scales, a campsite without a shelter named for its history: mountain farmers used to weigh their cows at the top of this field, where their herd's weight would be higher than its weight after making the arduous journey down the mountain, earning the farmers a better price for their meat.

Unfortunately, that evening, the rain came hard and fast. And since the area was a bald, trees to set up hammocks, which we had planned to use for the duration of the trip, were few and far between. We found three that *barely* worked -- there was just enough space to set up our rain flies well enough that we would have been covered under a lighter rain. But since this rain was so strong and windy, both of our hammocks got wet, and the combination of packing them into their bags and the mist of the next morning made them wetter. Because of the wetness of much of this day, I failed to take many pictures.

Fortunately, as the day went on, it gradually started clearing up. By the time we got to lunch, it had almost entirely stopped raining. This only held true briefly, as it rained while we stopped to eat, but fortunately we had set up under Wise Shelter, and the rain had abated by the time we finished. Not long after that, we hit the Massie Gap area of Grayson Highlands State Park, more of which (from another trip) can be seen here.

Sadly, the rain came back again for most of the afternoon while we were rounding the rocky bases of Wilburn Ridge and Pine Mountain. Most of the rest of the hike to Thomas Knob Shelter was a wet trog with few views or stops other than to catch our breath. I didn't take but one picture until we reached the shelter just before 4 PM, when the sky had finally cleared up.

My brother and I were among the last people to arrive for the night, leaving the shelter surprisingly full -- 9 people including us. We layed out our sleeping pads on the upper level, then hung our hammocks out to dry. It worked mostly well until the skies opened up for a third time that day, wetting them once again.

While we thought the shelter was full at first, it would soon get fuller: first, a single through-hiker showed up around 7, while most people were eating dinner; later, a single woman walked up, turned towards the cabin, and asked "Do you guys think there's room for 9 more?" When given a resolute "probably not," she countered, "This shelter's supposed to hold 16, isn't it?" She was the leader of a group of yoga hikers (people who hiked into the woods and did yoga), and several of the girls had failed to bring tents or sleepings pads -- one even forgot her sleeping bag, instead using the group-leaders' emergency blanket. While we fit about 4 of them into the shelter, the rest had to share a few tents outside.

After another morning rainstorm, Davis and I left the shelter around 9 AM and decided to change our plans. We left our bags in the top of the shelter and did a day trek to the nearby top of Mt. Mitchell (where we supped), and then used the area's intermittent cell service to text my mom and Aunt and ask if they could pick us up a day early and a few miles ahead of schedule. Thankfully, they agreed to help us out. Instead of completing the loop back to the road intersection a few miles south of the Lost Mountain Shelter as originally planned, we met them at Elk Garden, completing the vast majority of our originally-planned hike, once agail foiled due to rain and soaked gear.

While waiting at Elk Garden to get picked up, we were hit with our final bout of rain for that hike (but not the trip -- see Three Top Mountain), but thankfully we were able to shelter in the bathroom and wait out the storm.