Comments on: Snowball Trail at Craggy Gardens, Blue Ridge Parkway

By: Jeff Clark, Meanderthals

Jeff Clark, Meanderthals — Sun, 27 Nov 2016 20:02:00 +0000

In reply to Josh. Rime ice is amazing.

By: Josh

Josh — Sun, 27 Nov 2016 19:42:00 +0000

Just made it out here on accident, got to Craggy Gardens and it was all iced over in the trees. Wandered up and made it to Hawkbill, it was magnificent! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/356dfda54f39cd9f8ec0311681bc4ff03e1f7126e552f5c95077df0d13aea090.jpg

By: WD

WD — Mon, 14 Sep 2015 23:43:00 +0000

In reply to WD. Make that 35.726098,-82.426735

By: WD

WD — Mon, 14 Sep 2015 23:40:00 +0000

In reply to Jákob Róka.

Thanks for the rundown… great blog! I hiked up from the north side of Little Snowball (starting from down near Dillingham) and made it to the fire tower site, but ran out of time due to having gotten lost a few times on the way up in fields of stinging nettles (forest service needs to update their maps) and couldn’t get all the way to Hawksbill.

Thank you for taking the picture at the end, it was truly the only place on the internet I could verify that I had made it to the right place because all my maps were wrong! I thought maybe I had wandered into a vortex where GPS was useless.

I look forward to making it all the way to Craggy Gardens one day soon. The path South from the tower site appeared to be in great repair and was clear to hike for the 100 or so yards I took of it.

If anybody runs across this and is looking for the tower site, the coordinates are 35.726086, -82.426744. You can see the pillars on Google Earth as well.

By: Phil Schaefer

Phil Schaefer — Tue, 16 Jun 2015 23:44:00 +0000

In reply to Jákob Róka. We hiked up there yesterday. Found the 4 pillars as promised, but no broken glass. I think there may be a tech problem with the google map above, as our GPS did not agree. The actual end point was well NW of the map, along that ridge you can see a mile or so NW. (I can figure out how to post it if anyone's interested!)

By: Jákob Róka

Jákob Róka — Fri, 31 Oct 2014 22:30:00 +0000

In reply to Jeff Clark, Meanderthals. I'm sure I'll end up there again and will do some further exploring, I was pretty confused when I ended up in the gap on the other side but it was nice regardless. Thanks for all of the great guides, you're my primary resource ever since I moved here in August.

By: Jeff Clark, Meanderthals

Jeff Clark, Meanderthals — Thu, 30 Oct 2014 19:39:00 +0000

In reply to Jákob Róka. Hi Jakob. Thanks for the info. I don't know. I haven't been on the Snowball Trail for more than three years, but it didn't seem like it would be subject to overgrowth. Perhaps I should schedule another trip up there next spring. I don't kn

By: Jákob Róka

Jákob Róka — Thu, 30 Oct 2014 16:39:00 +0000

Hey Jeff, I left a comment on the map as well but I wanted to point out in response to DeLene that I had the same problem. The trail very distinctly continues NW past the area indicated on your map to Alexander Knob and then down into Snowball Gap which is NW of Little Snowball Mountain, the gap to the SE back towards Hawkbill is unnamed to the best of my knowledge but I do see that TEHCC and other groups do call the first gap after Hawkbill Showball Gap as well. I never encountered the turn-around area indicated on the official trail guide and never saw anything leading to the old tower, I’m almost wondering if at this point the trail has been overgrown from disuse? I camped in Snowball Gap which upon further investigation I don’t think I was supposed to do per NPS regulations, oops! I attached a map of where I ended up.

By: Jeff Clark, Meanderthals

Jeff Clark, Meanderthals — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 13:49:00 +0000

In reply to DeLene. DeLene, believe me y'all didn't miss much. It's just four small concrete pillars surrounded by scrub laurel. You would know you're close when you begin seeing broken glass on the trail.

By: DeLene

DeLene — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 16:08:00 +0000

Hi Jeff, thanks for this post. My husband and I just did this yesterday, and were quite stumped when we never found the “tower” our map showed so prominently at the end of the trail. We were racing a setting sun (and actually finished the hike after sunset, with about 30 minutes of trail lamp use) so we didn’t hang around for long trying to find the tower. I actually suspect that we overshot the old tower point… we passed the orange/red trail markings you describe as the private land boundary of the Blackberry Inn, and kept going, and going… and I think we followed the ridge line well past where the tower ought to have been. From your Google map here, I suspect we may have continued down the next gap and up to the third peak, rather than taking a right-hand veer and heading to the tower, as your map shows. We’ll have to try it again some other time, and start much earlier in the day!