Hiking Mount Rogers

Hiking Mount Rogers, Virginia’s High Point | August 2026

We awoke this morning to a gorgeous sunrise near the summit of Whitetop Mountain, with pink skies and clouds filling the gaps between the lower peaks. It was hard to not want to linger here and enjoy the views, but we knew we had a big hike ahead of us. We prepared the van, then slowly made the drive down the mountain, and North up the road just a little ways to the Elk Garden Trailhead.

This morning was shaping up to be a perfect day to hike: there was a chill in the morning air, and hardly a cloud to be seen in the sky that would obstruct any views. I made a quick breakfast of oatmeal in the van, then we filled all our water containers and gathered all the snacks we had. It would be a 9 mile trek round trip — no record for us, but much longer than the shorter hikes we had been doing recently, and we would have around 1600 feet of elevation gain, which was much different than the recent peaks where we were able to drive nearly to the summit. I think I was making it out to be more than it actually was; not because of the length or the elevation gain, but because of how remote this area felt. Sure, we live by the motto that we’ll always return to places we love or to do things that are important to us, but when we’ve gone so far on long winding roads to get here, I’d really like to accomplish what we set out to do. And it wasn’t just any peak — it was a state high point, our first in over 2 years, one we’ve thought about doing many times before but never had the right chance. And today was finally the day!

We crossed the road and entered into the gate, and officially started on our hike. Right away, you have the option of hiking up either the Appalachian trail or the Horse trail, and we put zero thought into our choice. Isn’t the Appalachian Trail the obvious choice? Horse trails are for horses, and not the wild kind, the kind we hoped to see along the trail. We had heard of the wild horses that roam in this area, though we believed them to reside mainly on the Greyson Highlands state park side, not the Elk Garden side that we were currently on.

However, it wasn’t even a quarter mile into our walk when we spotted 3 horses in the woods, two adult and one foal! We couldn’t believe our good luck, and we stopped to admire them (from a distance) and both took pictures to send to our sisters, to be shared with our nieces and nephews, who we were sure would appreciate this sighting. Sure enough, they were all as excited as we were. My sister responded by video calling us immediately so my nephew could ask if we were riding the horses. We chatted with them until my phone service cut out, and then got back to our main objective: hiking this mountain!

The trail was not quite what we were expecting, especially for a high point, and with it being the Appalachian Trail and all. There had been several other cars in the trailhead lot this morning, and yet it seemed like no one had walked this trail in a while. It was rather overgrown and there were plenty of spider webs across the path, which led us to using my hiking pole to swing in front of us, trying to save our faces from that disgusting feeling of walking into a web. It was also narrow and steep, which soon necessitated another stop to remove the extra layer that we were sure we’d need with the 50 degree morning temps.

We eventually came to a trail junction, and here we found a sign that explained some of our questions: the Appalachian Trail has had a significant reroute to a different ridge North of where we were due to trail reconstruction in the Virginia Creeper area, bypassing this area and Whitetop Mountain completely. We hadn’t been expecting to see many thru-hikers because it was too late in the season for Northbound and too early for Southbound hikers, but had thought surely section hikers could come through at any time of year? This explained why it felt like the trail hadn’t been used recently. We turned right and continued following the Appalachian Trail up, through more steep, rocky, and overgrown sections. After Curtis’ bad experiences with poison ivy this summer, I wasn’t too happy about having to blindly walk through so much foliage. We came across only one other hiker on this section, who was going downhill. He said he had gone up the horse trail, which put the thought in my mind: maybe that’s where everyone else was? And maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to write it off? It was obviously too late to change my mind, but I started to think that maybe instead of hiking out and back on this trail, we could potentially make a loop out of it and have an easier trek going down.

After a steeper section of climbing, we took a short snack break on the trail and let ourselves catch our breath. We were 3 miles in, and at this point, it was getting harder to stay positive. The trail hadn’t been what we were expecting, and we also hadn’t gotten any views. I was mostly concerned about that second part because I knew that the summit wouldn’t have any views and was hoping to be treated to something along the way. When we were ready, we got back up and continued on our trek.

Not long after that, we came to an unofficial trail junction where we had the option to either continue on the Appalachian Trail, or to follow another path that went slightly downhill but out of the trees, and we took a chance on the other trail. Thankfully it turned out to be a good choice, and we were rewarded with wide open views to the South! It was worth losing some elevation just to see that and be in the sunshine for a little bit. We eventually met back up with the Appalachian Trail and followed it to the trail junction for the summit. This part was much wider and obviously used, so we assumed that most people were walking the horse trail up to this point, and then following it the rest of the way to the summit.

After turning onto the summit trail at the last junction, we only had a quarter mile to walk through a green mossy forest. Since I already knew not to expect a view, it made it easier to enjoy all the little details along the way: the trees, the moss, the mushrooms. It was gorgeous and felt like a reward for all we had walked through to get here. I was so glad to have found this positive headspace and to be able to enjoy the last stretch of the hike…until I noticed a moment too late that we were walking right next to a ground hive with swarming bees, and before I could fully process that thought I got stung on my knee. Ouch! We hurried away from that spot, and while I wanted to do something to take the sting away, I also wanted to give more distance between us and the hive, and so we pushed on to the summit before stopping to assess the sting.

We made it to the summit, which as expected, was really just an insignificant flatter spot at the top of this peak we had spent hours climbing, surrounded by trees and rocks. I was very thankful for several things in this moment: that I was wearing long pants, that it was only one sting, that I have been stung once before and didn’t have a reaction, so I believed that I wouldn’t have one today, and that we had a first aid kit with us stocked with Benadryl and numbing wipes. We took a long break, me tending to my knee and eating all the snacks we brought, Curtis searching for a letterbox with vague clues that hadn’t been found in over a decade and actually having success! We did our best to get summit pictures in the dappled light of the forest before preparing to make our descent.

I was very alert on the way down, looking out for the hive, and when Curtis spotted it ahead of me I walked into the woods off the trail, giving myself as wide a berth as I could, and made it through unstung. It wasn’t fun walking with the new stinging ache in my knee, but with no other choice, I persevered. We made sure to warn all the other hikers that we passed heading up about the hive, and hopefully they all made it alright. It’s not a good place to get stung and have a bad reaction given how remote it is!

As soon as we had the option to, we decided to take the Horse Trail back the rest of the way. It turned out to be much better than we imagined: not too narrow or overgrown, better views, and the majority of it was a wide rocky trail with more gradual elevation. There were no horse riders here today, just other hikers who apparently knew more than we did about this area. After a long walk back through the woods, we made it back to the trailhead, where we spotted a group of wild horses hanging out closer to the beginning. A happy ending to a successful hike! Bee sting aside, I was proud of us and so glad we were able to make this hike happen. Here is the Alltrails recording for our hike.

I wish I could proudly declare that this is our 35th state high point — which it should be, given that when we went to our last high point (Florida), we said it was our 34th — but unfortunately things changed and I cannot say that anymore. In the past year, Michigan’s state high point has changed (again) and so we technically lost that one. It used to be Mt. Arvon, which we hiked to in 2019, but now it’s said to be nearby Mt. Curwood. So I guess today we got our 34th high point. However, today was the 35th time that we stood on a point for the first time and were able to say we were standing on the highest point of a state, and no one can take that moment away from us! If you’re interested, you can see all other posts about hiking to state high points here.

After a little time spent sitting in the van, snacking and planning what we wanted to do next, we found a national forest campground a ways North of us that was a reasonable price, not far from the interstate and on our route North, and decided to head there for the night. This brought us to Stony Fork Campground off I-81 in Virginia, which we found to be quiet and peaceful, just what we needed for the rest of our day. It had cell reception so we were able to get some work done, and even had free hot showers. We always like finding campgrounds like these and will keep it in mind for future trips to the East Coast.