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Off to Rogers for a backpack, maybe a basecamp on the ridge with hiking or snowshoeing. We do plan to camp up near Scales and/or Deep Gap. It will be rather cold. Interested parties PM me.

Wish I could, but I'll be schlepping mail. You'll probably run into some severe conditions. I hear it's supposed to snow for five or six days straight.

A friend was up at Old Orchard shelter, 6-8" snow there, expect much more up on Pine Mt. Not sure if we'll circle around Rogers or set up basecamp and dayhike Saturday.

I'm strongly considering heading down there on the first with a couple of friends for a dayhike. I'm not all that keen on camping in wind and freezing rain. I'm a little worried about the roads though.

Look at www.averyweather.com and look at conditions for Beech Mt. VDOT keeps the main roads up there pretty good (There are only a few main roads, SR 600, 603, Va 16 and US 58..) I don't think roads will be a problem. Consider taking exit 35 (Whitetop Mt Road) over Iron Mt to Elk Garden. Hike in from there. US 58 to Grayson Highlands SP sucks in bad weather.

We ended up doing one night. We hiked in from 603 via Old Orchard to the top of Pine Mt, then down the Crest trail to Scales to camp. At the TH we met some scouts who planned to overnight near Thomas Knob (Why I don't know in the winter) and hike out to Elk Garden. They ended up camping near Lewis Fork trail and back to TH on 603. The snow on Pine Mt was 18" in places, with a firm crust. Thick enough to take 3 steps then plunge through the crust so I ended up wearing my MSR snowshoes down to the Scales where we camped

Sat we cooked hots and finally got out the tent at 10 am. At 1:30 we broke camp and headed toward Rhododendron Gap on the Crest trail over Pine Mt. Nice hike, windy, about 5. Found where the scouts had camped. At the AT/Lewis Fork intersection the wind was really screaming. My hand held aneometer was frozen up but felt like gusts between 30-40 mph. The temp had been a steady 5 all day. We told Julia maybe we would do 1 nite and have pizza saturday night, so Ed and I didn't feel bad about heading down.

Made the car by 4:30. It took a little time to get the low clearence VW out of the lot but we made Bellas Pizza in Abingdon by 6 pm. Grayson Highlands is a wonderful place to hike but I think many don't realize ther ferocity of conditions in the winter. Sitting on the toilet at the Scales brought back memories of Camp Sherman and conditions on the ridge were like what I've been in on Mt Washington in March. And how those ponies stay warm, I'll never know?

I've been on Haw Orchard Mountain summit in winter with 50mph wind shrieking at me and 12" of fresh snow all around with drifts piled up thigh-deep on the trail up. The most amazing thing I've seen up there were the huge black clouds flying right at me like gigantic freight trains. As one of my pals said of how I described the experience:

"God showed you Her tits."

I ended up not going due to questionable transportation. Ended up hiking some AT sections. Glad to hear you had a good(?) time.