I completed the Triple Crown (VA)!

What is a Triple Crown?

Being a Triple Crowner is a BIG thing in the hiking community. Completing a Triple Crown means you’ve hiked all three of the big long trails in the US: the Appalachian Trail (AT), the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), and the Continental Divide Trail (CDT). But there is another triple crown that is much easier to conquer within the AT known as the Virginia Triple Crown.

Triple Crown VA: Who is she?

The VA Triple Crown comes just after mile 700 on the AT. It is made up of three rocky landmarks on a trail that spans approximately 17 miles. If you’re heading north, it would be Dragon’s Tooth, then McAfee Knob, then Tinker Cliffs in that order. These are very popular day hikes for locals and a highlight for hikers! You can do all of this in one go, but we ended up splitting this into two days to stay in a lodge and enjoy a much-needed shower and an amazing meal at The Homeplace in Catawba. It would be great to do it in one stretch, but either way I was going to walk and finish it and this allowed us to enjoy things more. I don’t regret it.

dragon tooth

Dragon’s Tooth is awesome… until you have to go back down. This giant, jagged tooth has incredible views and is fun to climb up. You can also climb up to it if you want! We climbed a little but we wanted to keep moving forward. The hike north to the parking lot is a little treacherous and technical, but it levels out after a while. But by that point you’re probably already frustrated, so you MUST walk a half mile to Catawba Grocery and eat pizza at the gas station before getting back on the trail. I’m sorry! I don’t make the rules!

McAfee Knob

This is the injection of money. If you’ve ever seen anything about an AT hike, you’ve probably seen a photo of them here. This rock outcrop offers one of the most interesting and iconic photographs of the trail. It’s also the license plate image of Virginia’s AT plates! It really doesn’t disappoint! Singe and I were delighted that the path up was really well done and not as steep as our map made it look. We enjoyed our hike and when we reached the top, we had it all to ourselves for a while! We were surprised and delighted to get there when we did. It really is impressive and does not disappoint. We stayed for a while hanging out and really enjoying the milestone. Other hiking friends like the fabulous @Fam4Outdoors and @TripodOnTrail joined in during lunch. We had a lot of fun goofing around trying to get the best poses, including an attempt with the Fam4 kids to make the AT symbol.

Tinker Cliffs

This is the least talked about of the three and… yes, I understand why. Some people are impressed when they see cliffs BECAUSE they are not talked about much. But we did it in the afternoon and it was very hot, so I wasn’t exactly dazzled by them. No disrespect to Tinker Cliffs, but to me, it felt like they were just looking for a third thing to be able to say this was a triple crown. But! I’ve heard the cliffs are beautiful at sunrise or sunset, it just didn’t work with our hiking plan to experience them that way. I will say we were very lucky to have great weather! We completed this just before a week straight of rain and not all of our friends were so lucky with the views!

The VA triple crown is great though! It was the last part of the map we had to complete before heading off the road for a long weekend. It was very rewarding to have completed the map of southern VA to Daleville and marked this AT milestone!

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