Dragon's Tooth Trail
Not yet safety-verifiedThe third jewel of the Triple Crown and the only one that makes you use your hands. From the trailhead off VA 311 (~525m) the blue-blazed Dragon's Tooth Trail climbs a creek hollow to Lost Spectacles Gap (~760m), where it joins the Appalachian Trail for the steep half-mile up Cove Mountain — the rockiest, most hands-on stretch of AT in Virginia, with rock steps, ledges and two sets of iron rungs drilled into the sandstone. From the wooded 922m summit a 200m spur leads to the Tooth itself: a free-standing fin of Tuscarora quartzite jutting ~10m above the ridge crest at 3,020ft. Scramblers top out on the monolith for a view from Catawba Valley to the Peaks of Otter; everyone else gets the same horizon from its base. Descend the same way — the AT continuation north toward VA 311 is a longer, wilder ridge walk.
Not yet safety-verified
We have not yet verified this route against the agency that manages it, so we do not publish its coordinates for download. You can view it on the 3D map to orient yourself, but do not use it as a navigation guide without confirming against the official source.
How we verify routes →