Learning the Hard Way Not to Feed the Ponies

One of the members of the “Cornell Crew” that I hiked with for a bit named Geodude has a mantra: “never ever listen to anything anyone tells you, ever”. Said partly in jest, there is some value in this expression while on the Appalachian Trail.

There are a lot of sources of information on the trail. Fellow thru hikers, day / section hikers, former thru hikers offering trail magic, townspeople, and the list goes on. Further, most aspiring thru hikers are equipped with one (or both) of the preeminent guides to the Appalachian Trail: the AWOL guide and Guthooks (a phone app powered by Atlas Guides). In 2021, Guthooks has a comments feature, wherein other hikers can provide information in real time about upcoming landmarks, trail closures, and other helpful information (all the food at the Standing Bear Hostel is expired, for example). It’s easy to get mixed up in the different tributaries of the stream of knowledge, and can be equally difficult to orient oneself to the truth.

An example of this that personally impacted me are the wild ponies that roam Grayson Highlands State Park. One of my fraternity brothers was planning to drive down from Washington D.C. to put a few miles on the trail, and it so happened that his arrival was coincident with my entry to this state park. I was hopeful we’d get to see these ponies, up close and personal.

Upon arrival in Damascus, the trail rumor mill began informing my expectations of the ponies that we’d hopefully soon encounter. I found that advice on how to interact with these beautiful creatures roughly fell equally into two categories:

• “Don’t get near the ponies. They’ll kick you in the head and end your thru hike”
• “Pack out apples and sugar cubes. The ponies will lick the sweat off your face”

I imagined the truth to fall somewhere between these poles. I was pushed slightly toward the second school of thought after receipt of a picture message from AquaDog, who was a few days ahead, in a pony selfie.

I’d planned to hike about 8 miles before meeting up with Luke (the fraternity brother mentioned above), and during that time, I saw my first four ponies. I maintained a cautious distance, taking pictures and making sure I never found myself sneaking up on a pony or in reach of their hind legs. I was so excited that it looked we were in for a pony filled afternoon!

We encountered our first pony some hours later. We stopped to admire as some other thru hikers passed by. Unsure of their take on approaching the pony (which is almost certainly irresponsible and outside the realm of leaving no trace), we waited until they were out of earshot, and I turned to Luke – “should we get a little closer?”

I brought a granola bar with me, and we approached. The pony seemed unbothered by our advance, and was grateful to receive small pieces of the granola bar. We were in! We got some great pictures, and thought we’d made a lifelong friend in pony-boy (or pony-girl, as it were). Things were going great, until I ran out of granola bar.

The pony stared into my soul, and upon returning its gaze, I saw nothing but anger that I was no longer feeding it. The horse (and it was a horse at this point, pony no longer seemed fitting) began making new noises, noises that voiced frustration and aggression.

I retreated toward my backpack. The horse followed, breaking into a trot. I’d stowed my belongings behind a tree next to the trail, and the horse gave chase. I made it to my belongings, grateful for the safety the tree afforded. The horse lacked much lateral agility, so I was confident so long as I kept the tree between myself and the horse, I was relatively safe.

Luke was howling in laughter at me by this point. I haphazardly picked up my things and began briskly walking northbound on the trail. In my mind, the trail was safe, right?

Wrong. The horse picked up speed once it hit the clear cut trail and continued attempting to track down more of that sweet sweet granola. “Luke, is it still coming?” I’d say, somewhere between a power walk and a jog. “Oh yeah dude, you should go faster, it’s hot on your tail,” he’d reply.

We finally escaped, but it took the better part of a quarter mile and passage through a gate before my heart rate returned to normalcy. We paused so I could make sure I’d actually grabbed everything in our hasty exit, but this was effectively useless, as I’m not sure there was any gear I would have been willing to return to grab.

What, then, is the moral of this story? Every day, I’m experiencing new things. I’ll be the first to say the above representation may be a tad dramatized – if there was a moment where either of us ever actually felt in danger, it was brief and fleeting. However, it did serve as a helpful reminder to trust your instincts. Approach situations with your own opinions, and be prepared to safely pressure test them. And lastly, never ever listen to anything anyone tells you. Especially if they tell you the wild ponies in Grayson Highlands are nothing but cute and friendly.

Cheers,

Billy