Waterrock Knob to the Pinnacle, Sylva

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
4/3/2022	9.7 miles	6 hours 5 minutes	918'	2.0 mph	226.5

Parking: 

• One car at Browning Knob Overlook (Blue Ridge Parkway), one car at Pinnacle Park Parking Area (Fisher Creek Road)

Maps:

• None

Directions:

• Begin from the Waterrock Knob lower parking lot and continue along a rough trail, passing Yellow Face and mega rock formations, and on to the spectacular view from Blackrock Mountain. From there, descend a bit and then hike out to even more spectacular views of craggy Pinnacle Park. Backtrack a short distance before descending steeply to the Fisher Creek Trailhead.

Carolina Mountain Club Challenges

• South Beyond 6000 Challenge - Yellow Face, 6,032'

We joined a club hike in the Waterrock Knob area. This hike didn't actually climb Waterrock Knob though. This area is beautiful. We hadn't been on this section of the Blue Ridge Parkway before. Beautiful mountain views on the drive up. I always like being over 5,000' in altitude here. I didn't have a map for the trip - I'm not sure what map covers this area. I have Gaia, which I checked ahead of time, but couldn't figure out the route. This was unfortunate, as the trip leader left us behind periodically. Luckily none of us got lost. The beginning of this hike had some rock scrambling and was harder than you would expect for the elevation gain listed. It reminded me of hiking in the Catskills. It was windy and cold in the morning - we got some nice views but didn't stay anywhere long. In the afternoon, we walked on the easy, wide Fisher Creek Trail, and then turned right to hike to the Pinnacle. We stopped to eat lunch at the Pinnacle - it had both mountain views and views of Sylva. Then we headed back down the Fisher Creek Trail. This is a wide woods road type trail, but it was very rocky. We had a lot of descent, so by the end my knees were aching. I'm really looking forward to doing more hiking in this area. The MST passes by here, so we should be returning here to hike another section of that trail.