Category Archives: Hiking

Tips for Afterwork Exploring Thanks to DST

Editor’s note: Every year at this time, upon the dawn of Daylight Saving Time (it’s this Sunday, btw; remember to Spring forward), we celebrate the return of afterwork light with a tabulation of tips on how to celebrate this late-day sunlight. Most of these we’ve run before, a few are new. All, hopefully, will help you rev up your outdoor experiences. read more

New Year, new trails

Now is about the time we start taking notice of how our goals for the new year are going. We’ve got a month under our belt, we have a general idea of whether a goal is going to stick or not. And a month is enough time to tell whether a goal will stick. A goal such as hiking two new trails a month, which is one of my goals for 2024 — the one goal, alas, that looks like it will stick. read more

Goals for a memorable 2024

Goals. Intentions. Objectives. 

Anything but resolutions.

At the start of any new year we look at a blank slate and ponder how best to fill it. Traditionally, we’ve referred to these slate-fillers as resolutions. And over time, the term has become burdened with negative connotations. Primarily because “resolutions” tend to be things we don’t really want to do. They’re things we think we should do. Like lose weight. read more

Discover North Carolina’s State Trails

How do you follow an event like Year of the Trail?

You don’t. But you do build on it.

The just-passed Year of the Trail was intended to promote North Carolina’s vast trail system. Hiking trails, sure, but paddling, biking and equestrian as well. Year of the Trail events were held in 94 of the state’s 100 counties, those events ranging from hour-long guided walks on local greenways to three-day festivals celebrating trails across the state. The ultimate sign of Year of the Trail’s success? When the concept was conceived by the state’s General Assembly in 2021, it included $29.15 million for trail development; in the budget passed this past fall, legislators allotted nearly twice that much for trail development in the next two years. read more