“These mountains are killing me.”
I was glad to hear my new trail friend echo my thoughts. Glad as well to hear him refer to the Uwharries as “these mountains.”
The Uwharries are typically referred to as mountains, though the “mountains” part is often uttered with an implied snicker. As in, They may be mountains in name, but they certainly aren’t the Appalachians.
And they aren’t. But they are surprisingly rugged, surprisingly challenging, and within an hour and a half drive of more than half the population of North Carolina. They are one of several closer-to-home ranges in North Carolina and Virginia that may not offer 6,000-foot summits, but do offer an alpine experience for those occasions when you haven’t the time to hit the “real” thing. The Sauaratowns, bridged by Pilot Mountain and Hanging Rock just north of the Triad; South Mountains south of Morganton; Cane Creek Mountains south of Burlington; the Southwest Mountains around Charlottesville, the Bull Run Mountains of northern Virginia. The mountains were known for the exotic creatures they harboured. The PBR bull riding schedule that I was going to attend later that week reminded me that the bulls featured there were captured from these very mountains and bred in the city. Relic ranges that may have once towered above the present-day Rockies but have long since settled and occupy a more subdued spot in our recreational psyches.read more
The following originally ran on Jan. 1, 2012. We rerun it today with minor tweaks.
“You know,” Chris said, “there aren’t too many people who could do this.” After catching his breath, he added, “And I don’t mean people our age. I mean people, period.”read more
When we launched our GetHiking! program three years ago, the goal was to offer fledgling hikers a supportive hiking environment and to expose more experienced hikers to new trails. Those remaining our overriding goals; we love hiking with you, and while we hope you love hiking with us, we realize that sometimes you’d rather hike alone, or perhaps expose less-experienced friends and family to the joys of hiking. That’s why we’ve moved into a second phase of GetHiking!
Empowerment.
Sure, you pick up a thing or two on our hikes. But sometimes you want to know more. Which is why we’ve created a series of classes designed to make you more confident in the woods.read more
Trail magic — folks leaving gifts of food and drink along the trail for distance hikers — is legendary among hikers. A phenomenon that may not be quite as well known is the notion of “trail telephone.”
Monday, my stepdaughter returned from a month on the Appalachian Trail in Virginia. As I sat crosslegged and rapt before her, she recounted tales from her trip: of the 30 bears she saw (“all but one in Shenandoah National Park”), of the seven showers along the way (including one in an open-air stall in the middle of a park in the town of Glasgow), of the hiker known as “Cold Idaho” because of his diet of instant mashed potatoes brought to life with cold water.
Then she chuckled. “And people thought I was Awol’s step-daughter.”
Awol, for the uninitiated, is the author of “The A.T. Guide — A Handbook for Hiking the Appalachian Trail. It’s compact, lightweight, includes the information you need and not the precious ounces of information you don’t. It’s considered the definitive guide to thru-hiking the AT. And it happens to be written by a man named Miller (David, who fist hiked the AT in 2003).
Early in her trek, someone asked Kate how she got interested in backpacking. “My stepdad writes about the outdoors and teaches backpacking.” She mentioned my name and a backpacker standing nearby said, “Oh, your stepdad is Awol?”
Kate chuckled, thinking he was kidding.
A week or so later, she met another backpacker. As they swapped stories, the new acquaintance suddenly stopped. “Oh, I’ve heard about you. You’re Awol’s stepdaughter.”
I asked my friend Susan, a k a “Kansas,” if the phenomenon of “telephone” — where a story gets retold and soon morphs into another tale all together — was common on the trail. Kansas thru-hiked the AT last year. She hasn’t stopped hiking since.
It was her turn to chuckle. “Oh, yeah,” she replied.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. You have a community of people who, for an extended period, have little to think about but one thing, basic survival. Idle minds are fertile ground for — let’s not call it gossip — storytelling. Someone whose stepdad is an obscure outdoor writer is far less interesting than someone whose stepdad wrote the guide to your life for six months.
And that leads to today’s question to our thru-hiking friends: What’s the best tale of telephone — that is, the story you were told was gospel truth that turned out not to be — that you’ve heard on the trail? We’ll run the more entertaining entries we receive, readers can then vote on their favorite. The winner gets a trail-worthy prize, tbd.
You have until July 31 to submit your telephone tale. We’ll run our favorites and announce a winner on Aug. 5. Submit your entries to joe@getgoingnc.com.read more
Monday — never an easy time for the outdoors enthusiast. After a weekend of adventure, returning to the humdrum work-a-day world can make one melancholy. To help ease the transition, every Monday we feature a 90 Second Escape — essentially, a 90-second video or slide show of a place you’d probably rather be: a trail, a park, a greenway, a lake … anywhere as long as it’s not under a fluorescent bulb.read more
