The Ponies of Grayson Highlands State Park

“That one has just been born, it’s still wet!” exclaimed Jenna Wagner, marketing and public relations director of the Southwest Virginia Cultural Heritage Foundation. Indeed, we had just missed the birth of a foal as the afterbirth still hung from its mother. Wagner, my wife Elaine, Abingdon CVB marketing manager Amanda Livingston, and I were on the Rhododendron Trail at Grayson Highlands State Park. Our mission: to witness the park’s ponies in the wild and to learn more about them.

Regarding the latter, I had many questions. Where did the ponies come from and when did they arrive? I had heard they were descendants of Chincoteague’s famous equines. How do the park’s ponies fit into the ecosystem at Grayson Highlands, are they a positive or a negative? And most importantly, are the ponies actually wild? To answer these questions, we first stopped at park headquarters where we met Harvey Thompson, park manager, who has observed and studied the animals since he arrived in 1991.

“Our ponies have no relationship with the Chincoteague ones,” said Thompson. “Perhaps that rumor got started in 1991 when six horses from False Cape State Park were shipped here. But they were too far out of their natural biome and roamed constantly trying to find their natural habitat. Eventually, those horses died; one of the main reasons was that they didn’t know how to paw down through the snow to find food.”

The ponies’ actual arrival is more mundane, said Thompson. Before the 4,502-acre park was established in 1965, local farmers brought their livestock to graze during the post-Depression era. At one time, some 40 separate farms existed on what is now park property and that open land served as grazing land. In the 1950s, the American chestnut blight arrived and killed the most predominant tree in these mountains. The massive logging that followed created more openings, changed the soil composition, and resulted in even more pasture for livestock. Thus the origin of the park’s famous balds (treeless mountaintops).

Also in the 1950s, Thompson said, Bill Pugh of Sugar Grove began breeding an equine called the Virginia Highlander, a small horse (a pony is just a horse that is no more than 58 inches at the shoulder) that was more suited for the cold winters and mountainous terrain. When the park was established, the ponies remained as both the U.S. Forest Service and Virginia State Parks wanted to maintain the balds by allowing grazing. 

In fact, these openings among so much heavily forested land are very beneficial to wildlife. For example, some three dozen species of songbirds require such early successional land. An additional benefit of the ponies is that the state does not have to pay money to keep the balds in their present state.

Pugh retired in 1974, and a group of local folks formed the Wilburn Ridge Pony Association (WRPA) and assumed ownership of the herds. The organization holds an annual late September auction where a few animals, usually between 15 and 26, are sold. 

“The color of the coat has a lot to do with how much some of the ponies go for,” he said. “People seem to pay more for the brown and white ones, maybe because they look like Shetlands. One of the ponies, that people called Socks, went for a high price because all four legs were white. Generally, the ponies go for anywhere from 25 to 550 dollars.”

The WRPA also gives each pony yearly exams and administers, if needed, various treatments such as deworming. Money from the fundraiser goes to benefit the Rugby Volunteer Rescue Squad and Fire Department. The park herd and the one on the Mount Rogers Natural Recreation Area together total about 100 animals, the most that the two locales can support with the amount of habitat available.

With the origin of the ponies established and the fact that they are good for the environment now a given, I asked the big question—are these ponies actually wild?

“People are ruining the wildness of the park’s ponies,” said Thompson. “Visitors are constantly trying to get close to the ponies and feed and pet them. We have signs up that state that feeding and petting the ponies is illegal and violators are subject to ticketing and fines. The more signs we put up, the more people seem to want to disobey them.”

Human transgressions are numerous—and possibly dangerous—to them.

“I saw one lady trying to tie a pony’s mane into dreadlocks,” continued Thompson. “One person who got too close to a pony was severely kicked by its hind legs. Some visitors have purposefully broken rails to let ponies out, and others have opened the gates where we have clearly posted that they must remain shut to keep the ponies from leaving designated areas. 

“We’ve even had horseback riders come here and let out ponies. We’ve had people put babies on a pony’s back. I’ve seen ponies bite people, too. It’s a real challenge for park personnel to keep ponies in their designated area.”

Thompson then directed us to Wilburn Ridge, which can be accessed from the Massie Gap Parking Lot by taking the Rhododendron Trail. Walking the Rhododendron Trail is the best way to try to view these equines. A variety of fences and rock walls serve to keep them in this area. The park manager also suggested that we take the Rhododendron Trail, a one-mile path that offers moderate walking, views of the balds, and hopefully glimpses of ponies.

We were still in our car when we experienced our first pony sighting: a mare and her offspring were feeding next to a mother and a young boy and their tent and picnic table. At this point, I didn’t realize how easy it would be to take pictures of the ponies, so I asked Amanda to cautiously drive the car to the animals, and I slowly rolled down the window and began photographing.

“The ponies have been feeding in a fire pit most of the morning,” the mother said as she pointed to the mare and foal. “My son has been petting and feeding them.”

At those remarks, the foal walked over to my car window, apparently thinking the outstretched camera was some sort of food offering. Not wanting to break park policy, that is by my pushing the foal away from the car window, someone might interpret that as petting, I shrank back inside the car, worried that the creature was about to thrust its entire head inside. The foal, however, became distracted by several small boys running up to him, and they too began to pet it. The mare, meanwhile, continued to feed near the fire pit.

We then drove on to the Massie Gap Parking Lot, debarked, performed some map study, figured out how to access Rhododendron Trail, and headed for it. Once again, it did not take long to encounter ponies. A half dozen or so people were busily—and quite happily—petting, feeding, and taking pictures of the creatures.  Several of the mares were extremely pregnant, their bellies distended and not far above the ground on our mid-June sojourn.  Other mares had small foals beside them, indicating that they had recently given birth. 

In fairness to these transgressing humans, the ponies exude incredible cuteness. Their typical colors are often blonde, brown, or black with appealing white or tan patches intermixed. Long eyelashes adorn the inquisitive, dark brown eyes. My own wife even commented that she was having to resist the urge to join in the petting fest that we continually witnessed. Earlier, Thompson had told me about the dangers not just to humans but also to the ponies themselves of them becoming too tame. 

“The park has a considerable coyote population, and they can easily kill a newborn foal,” Thompson had said. “Bears are also common in the park, but they don’t seem to be the threat to the ponies that the coyotes are.”

In short, a pony that becomes too used to handouts and human interaction may lose the essential wildness that keeps it ever alert for predators that could kill it or its foals. The Grayson Highlands’ ponies are many things, but the adjective wild, from my experience, no longer fits them.

We then left the ponies and their human benefactors and resumed our ramblings up the slight incline of Rhododendron Trail. Not long afterwards we came to where the Appalachian Trail intersects Rhododendron, which made me wonder how many through hikers temporarily leave the AT to experience the ponies. We were also able to observe just how stunningly beautiful Grayson Highlands State Park is. Flame azaleas and their bright orange blooms caught our attention as did Catawba rhododendron and their purple ones. I also viewed more hawthorns than I had ever observed anywhere else. Hawthorns with their spiny limbs and red berries provide cover and food for many songbirds. Rock outcroppings, mountain peaks, and scenic vistas seem to be everywhere, and the bald habitat is rich with songbirds and other wildlife.

The bird life especially is impressive. In the distance, I heard a ruffed grouse drumming on a log—the male fool hen no doubt taking advantage of the balds’ openness to announce his availability and to display his charms in order to attract females of the species. I also heard the sewing machine-like staccato trilling of a male junco; he, too, was desirous of female companionship. Indeed, I later heard, then saw, a female junco heeding the male’s call. Juncos breed mostly in Canada and Northern states, but the park elevation (which tops 5,000 feet in some places) and alpine/northern habitat (red spruces, firs, striped and sugar maples are common) allow the juncos to thrive and mate here.

Other more Northern species that spend the summers here include many species of warblers such as the Canada, chestnut-sided, and magnolia, plus blue-headed vireos, red-breasted nuthatches and yellow-bellied sapsuckers. I also heard and/or saw black-throated green warblers, common yellow throats, cedar waxwings, Eastern towhees, indigo buntings, phoebes, pee-wees, robins, and cowbirds. The park is certainly a dynamic place to birdwatch. But these songbirds, as well as the ponies, face a looming threat.

“Global warming is a major concern here,” Thompson had told me earlier. “When I first came here, it was not unusual to have five or six feet of snow, which gave us a considerable snowpack which led to more watering areas for ponies the rest of the year. Now, we may only get a foot of snow as was the case last year.”

Conceivably, if the lack of snow continues to be the new normal, the park habitat may not be able to support the same number of ponies. Will that mean that more of the animals will have to be auctioned off? That hawthorns, greenbrier, and other flora will take over the balds and cause some species of songbirds to vacate the park? Who can say?

Next, we decided to head back down Rhododendron Trail.  When we came to where we had earlier observed the ponies and humans, even more ponies and people were present. The reason—a mare had been giving birth, the episode mentioned at this article’s beginning.

The scene was surreal. The mare and foal weak from the birthing experience, people crowding in to take pictures and talk to the animals. One young woman kneeled down beside the foal, snapping pictures and offering words of “encouragement” to it as if that meant something to the animal. The mother pony understandably was distressed by the woman’s advances and even though exhausted from giving birth, snorted and made an aggressive move toward the lady.

“I get it, I get it, mama,” said the woman. “You’re not happy with me. I’ll move back.”

She did, too, all of five yards and resumed taking pictures.

I then looked around and was amazed at the number of mares with foals (over a dozen total animals) and the very pregnant ponies that looked like they too would soon give birth. Had we stumbled across the equivalent of a pony maternity ward? What was it about this little patch of the park that had drawn so many of these diminutive horses? 

For the sake of these particular ponies, I hope it is not because people have been feeding them there. If that is the case, the park’s coyotes will soon discover that easy meals are available at this particular area. 

Human follies aside, our visit to observe the ponies of Grayson Highlands State Park proved a fascinating experience. Harvey Thompson said that in the summertime, the two most popular reasons that people give for visiting the park are its ponies and cool, mountain air. But the bird watching, hiking trails, Northern flora and fauna, and scenic vistas are remarkable as well.

A horse is a horse of course, unless…

A horse is a horse, of course, of course, unless that equine has a parent that bred with a donkey. Several years ago, says office manager Theresa Tibbs, a mini-herd was introduced into the area one autumn after the festival and pony auction.

“It is unclear as to where they came from or who let them out,” said Tibbs. “This herd was domesticated and the mares were already pregnant with unusual donkey-like offspring.”

Understandably, those animals were auctioned off. By the way, regarding this breeding, if the male is a pony and the female is a donkey, the offspring is called a hinny. If the male is a donkey and the female a horse or pony, the offspring is called a mule.

If you go:

Grayson Highlands offers 96 campsites and a two-room camping lodge. For those folks who do not enjoy the camping experience, Abingdon offers plenty of amenities. We spent two nights at Black’s Fort Inn, and numerous other B&Bs are in Abingdon. Quality, locally owned restaurants exist in the town; two of our favorites are The Tavern and 128 Pecan. Besides the activities mentioned earlier, the park hosts 18 trails and nearly 10 miles of wild trout streams with Big Wilson Creek a special regulation stream, one of the best known ones. Nearby is the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area, which also offers hiking, trout fishing, and bird watching.

For park reservations, 800.933.PARK

For Abingdon CVB, 800.435.3440