Craggy Dome from Walker Knob Overlook

About the Hike

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Hike Description

**Canceled due to illness.** Contact leader by email for reservation. Limit of 12 hikers. We will hike the MST over a section with great views to Graybeard Overlook for our lunch stop. Hikers wishing to peakbag Craggy Dome (at 6080 ft.) may hike up and back at this time. The climb up Craggy Dome will be on a rough, unmaintained trail and will add another mile of hiking and 400 feet of ascent. We return to our cars on the same trail. This fills the requirement for both the SB6K and hike 85 of the 100 Favorite Trails.Topos: Montreat

Scout Report

I scouted this hike on Wed. July 29 with Karen S and Diane S. I will lead this hike on Sunday Aug 2, as I was out of town on July 26, the originally scheduled date for this hike. This hike is the same as CMC#464 which I co-led with Kay H 3 years ago, except this hike #117 includes an additional .8 miles to include climbing to the top of Craggy Dome (6079'). We drove through some thick fog to reach Walker Knob Overlook. But the cooler temperatures here felt refreshing. Trail maintainers had been weed whacking on the MST recently and the trail was in great shape. It undulates up and down quite a bit. We stopped briefly at lunch rock for a snack. Shortly past the Graybeard Overlook we turned left on to the unmaintained small trail up to Craggy Dome. Unlike the MST, no maintenance has been performed on this trail. It is difficult to navigate with plants overtaking the trail and some very high step ups. We turned around about 100' from the tippy top when the encroachment of the plants became extreme. I will not be leading folks up to Craggy Dome on Sunday. We will hike just to Graybeard Overlook and return. Some things to note: because of heavy rain last night, the trail between Graybeard Overlook and Glassmine Falls Overlook was very wet in places. My trail runner shoes became completely wet. Also because of the rain, Glassmine Falls had water in it! We saw Turks Cap lilies and ghost pipes. And also a short section of tree trunk trimmed to look like a pig. Although we walked through fog and clouds all morning, we had a clear view of the Falls in the afternoon on our return. The hike, including Craggy Dome and our breaks, took us over 6 1/2 hours.