Clik here to view.
GetOut! Explore our lesser-known State Parks
It’s the last weekend of summer, but on the trail it’s beginning to feel like fall. And that means many of the trails we love year-round are getting lots of love from the seasonally infatuated. Many...
View ArticleClik here to view.
When, where to find fall color
Editor’s note: This is a piece we run annually around this time. It has been tweaked, updated and massaged. When it comes to fall color, outdoors types take the changing of the leaves pretty seriously....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Long hikes for cool fall days
Something about cool, fall weather makes you want to hike farther. Now that that weather has finally arrived, we’ve got some of those longer trails we think you might like. Here are 11, including nine...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Start 2022 with a First Day Hike
The notion of beginning a new year with a brisk walk goes back ages, but the modern concept of First Day Hikes is relatively new, dating back only to 1992 when a Massachusetts State Park held the first...
View ArticleClik here to view.
GetBackpacking! Winter 2022
Take the winter off from backpacking? Not hardly. Not when you live in part of the country where you can experience a rare coastal forest escape, hike on the country’s most iconic trail, and explore a...
View ArticleThinking of camping? These 9 campgrounds are our faves
As we look ahead to the upcoming summer camping season, we look with special attention to certain campgrounds. Here are some of our favorites. Davidson River With 160 sites you’d think scoring one...
View ArticleClik here to view.
7 Mountain Hikes for a Sizzling Summer of Fun
Summer arrives and our thoughts turn to hiking in the mountains. Until now, the weather, by and large, has been decent for hiking in the piedmont. Come Memorial Day, however, the steamy reality of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
5 of our favorite summer hikes with water
A summer hike isn’t a summer hike unless it includes water, the more water, the better. And the more water in more forms, better still. Forms? You know, the 5 major forms of mountain water: Mountain...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fall hiking: A month-by-month approach
Fall is just around the corner and you can’t wait to resume a vigorous hiking schedule. But where to go first? A tough decision: You want to hit all your favorites first. Alas, because you can’t be...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Year of the Trail: Start Marking Your 2023 Calendar
Too early to start planning for 2023? Not when you love the outdoors and 2023 happens to be Year of the Trail in North Carolina. As I’ve mentioned over the last couple of months, next year has been...
View ArticleFirst Day options abound
This week, it’s all about Sunday, New Year’s Day, and First Day Hikes — and First Day Outings. The latter First, first. On Sunday in North Carolina we enter Year of the Trail, as deemed by the State...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Long hikes for a cold winter’s day
The best thing about hiking on a cold winter’s day? You can hike forever. For starters, the cold itself is good incentive to keep moving. And the more you move down the trail the more you realize what...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Five Spring Wildflower Hikes
Despite the cold, the forest floor is coming alive with splashes of color: carpets of delicate white spring beauties, patches of starburst white chickweed, bursts of purple periwinkle, flashes of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Our 5 Favorite NC Group Campgrounds
We last ran this feature four years ago and it stands today — except where the nightly fee has gone up, which we’ve updated. We take a lot of groups on weekend hiking trips to the mountains. As a...
View ArticleFirst Day, First Hike
The question isn’t if you’ll be taking your first hike of 2024 on Monday, but where. Taking a brisk hike to welcome the new year is a long-standing tradition. It became formalized a few years back when...
View ArticleClik here to view.
It’s Spring, hike longer
Saturday looks rainy, but Sunday looks hiking perfect, with cloudless skies and temperatures in the 50s. Cool weather coupled with the first weekend of spring and our desire to spend more time on the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Saturday is National Trails Day; Here’s where to Celebrate
Saturday is National Trails Day, that time every year (the first Saturday in June), when we celebrate trails, by hiking them, biking them, paddling them, creating and maintaining them. This year, the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
This weekend experience the future of N.C. hiking
Fall-like weather got you in a fall hiking mood? Perhaps a full day on the trail? Or, better yet, a full day on two trails? You have that option this Saturday when the N.C. Dept. of Natural and...
View Article104 New Year’s Day Hikes (and that’s just in state parks)
If you live in North Carolina or Virginia you have only yourself to blame if your year gets off to a sluggish start. The two states combined have more than 100 First Day Hikes planned, from New Year’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
10 of our favorite winter hikes
Today we revisit a topic we first wrote in 2012: 10 of our favorite winter hikes. Hikes that, for various reasons, are especially good hiked in cold weather. For some (at the coast, for instance, it’s...
View Article