Exposed on the Virginia Appalachian Trail

I was walking along an obvious and plainly marked section of the Appalachian Trail in Southwestern Virginia and not paying much attention. I made the mistake of letting my dog take the lead...

After an hour scrambling up to an exposed ridgetop, the trail just ended. I knew this could not be right and looked about for where I had missed something. I tried to think back to the last time I had seen one of the famous trail markers the AT is known for. The last one I remembered seeing was in the valley I had just climbed out of. I tried to think back but could remember no obvious trail crossing or divergence but somehow I knew I had gotten off trail. There are an abundance of wild ponies in this area and it is possible this trail could have been created by one of them. I trekked back down the trail hoping to find the AT up high rather than having to hike all the way back to the bottom. After an hour with no luck, I knew something was wrong. I ended up at a sheer dropoff with the trail going straight over the edge. I had followed a water runoff course.

I turned around again, not knowing how I ended up here since I couldn't possibly have come from here. Though it was still early in the day, dark clouds quickly descended around me, obscuring anything more than 10 feet away. A light mist began to fall, dampening my clothes, and a strong wind began to pick up around me, regularly gusting more than 40 mph. I was on an exposed ridge with no vegetation higher than my knees and only a few boulders. I tried to shelter behind a few of the larger ones but the wind seemed to come from all directions. I could only remember one landmark on my way up the trail: a boulder split in two with barely enough room for a man to squeeze between the sides. I knew that if I could find that, I could find my way back. The situation was turning dire, but I knew I had to remain calm. The wind was trying to push me back so I had to lean into it to stand still and think. The answer came to me quickly...footprints. It took only a few seconds to find them and I followed them back to where the water path turned from the one I had been on, then I was able to take that one down the mountain and back to the AT where the blazes were a welcome sight. I vowed not to lose them again.

Trail conditions can turn bad quickly. The weather prediction had been for a warm day in the 60's, full of sunny skies with a low of 45 at night. The actual weather during the day was soggy and never rose out of the 40's. Nightime lows were in the 30's and the blasting wind kept the windchill in the teens and 20's. Lesson learned: always be prepared.