I grew up only a few miles from the Appalachian Trail in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. 

I never imagined that years later, and 600 miles to the south, I would be photographing two amazing locations along that same trail.  

After moving from Pennsylvania to northeastern Tennessee in 2007 I began to build a new portfolio of images.  I traveled throughout the mile-high mountains and fertile valleys of eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina and southwest Virginia. 

As I explored this new part of the country I found myself returning again and again to two mountain locations that are 120 miles apart and connected by the Appalachian Trail; the Grayson Highlands area of southwest Virginia and the Roan Mountain Highlands on the Tennessee / North Carolina border.    

These Highlands along the Appalachian Trail are beautiful, rough, stark and wild.

Below are images from the Grayson Highlands part of this AT connection.  

The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't. 

                                  ~Henry Ward Beecher
 

There are similarities between Roan and Grayson Highlands - mountain top balds (large areas at the top of the mountains where trees don't grow), Catawba rhododendron blooming in June, and wildflowers through September.

Though winter in both locations has bone chilling cold temperatures and high winds I've found the snows to be deeper in Grayson Highlands with drifts over fifteen feet high. 

Grayson Highlands is slightly lower in altitude than Roan with a peak elevation of 5,089' and nearby Mt. Rogers, the highest mountain in Virginia, at 5,729'.  The terrain is rockier and there are sections of the Appalachian Trail that cross jumbled piles of rock where your feet don't touch the ground for 100s of yards.   

It is a stunningly beautiful location in every season.  

And on Grayson Highlands there really are wild ponies that roam the balds.   Well, sometimes they do take a break...     

                                    And Visions of...

To see addtional images select the Grayson Highlands tab from the portfolio listing on my website.