Mountains in the Snow

I caught up my two January backpacking tales, so wanted to add this day hike from last week. 

A few guys were hiking in the mountains last Thursday, and asked if I wanted to join them.  "Sure," said I.  As we assumed, the Skyline Drive was closed, but we parked at Swift Run Gap and started the hike up the Appalachian Trail to the top of Hightop Mountain.  It is about three miles each way, and climbs nearly 1,100 feet.  To make it more challenging, there was significant snow up there.  People had broken trail, so it was only a few inches deep on the trail, but every step required extra effort to push through the snow.

The weather was gorgeous.  Temperatures were in the low 30's (F), and the sky was crystal-clear, one of the clearest days I have ever seen in the mountains here.  I'm displaying some photos from this very fun hike.  It felt great to be out in the snow!

You can see the trail with the packed down snow.

On the hike up to Hightop.

Pat in the snow.

Snowy rocks...

The trail goes continually uphill, graining about 950 feet in the last 1.6 miles of the hike.

Views from Hightop...

Just a few hundred meters from the summit is a nice spring, a rarity for mountains ridges here.  You could actually camp up here and have plenty of water.

There is something beautiful about the woods in the snow.

I brought along a thermos of tea, which stayed hot all day.

Once we got back to the Skyline Drive, we cheated by walking back to the car on the road, rather than repeating the snowy walk along the AT.

Snow in the mountains?  No problem!  This was a very fun hike.