The highlight of my weekend: handing a bottle of water to someone.
Close second: taking an hour to clear a two-foot wide, 15-foot-long swath of forest.
Slow weekend?
Hardly.
Not long ago I decided I should become more giving to the various outdoors communities I benefit from. I’ve written three books about hiking trails, so that seemed a good place to start. And last week I got a Facebook message from a bike team I once belonged to asking for help. Why not? I thought.
Beavers can be quick to judge.
I realized this Sunday at Falls Lake as I crossed a lengthy boardwalk leading to the footbridge over Little Lick Creek. Normally, Lick Creek is maybe 12 to 15 feet across. But after a good rain, like we’d had the past two days, the surrounding wetlands are flooded. Hence, the lead-up boardwalk on this section of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail in Durham County.
I heard a spectacular splash and looked up to see a radiating circle of disturbed water about 25 yards north of the bridge. At the base of the bridge, on a spit of land that wasn’t submerged, stood a man holding loppers who also was checking out the splash. Moments later the beaver slapped again.
“She’s mad at me,” offered Gregory Scott. Undeservedly so.
Scott is one of the hundreds of volunteers responsible for blazing and maintaining the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, the 950-mile work-in-progress that will one day link Clingman’s Dome on the Tennessee line with Jockey’s Ridge
A lot of great stories emerged from Saturday’s annual meeting of the Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail in Saxapahaw.
There was the story of Scott “Taba” Ward, who crossed the 950-mile Mountains-to-Sea Trail for the fourth time in 2012. This time, for variety, he did the 500-or-so miles still on paved roads on a skateboard.
When the Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail gathers for its annual meeting Saturday in Saxapahaw, they’ll hear a keynote address from Diane Van Deren, who set a record for crossing the 950-mile trail last spring. They’ll honor top volunteers and the 10 hikers who did the entire trail in 2012. They’ll have workshops and take a hike on one of the most recently minted sections of the MST, a short stretch along the Haw River just outside of where they’ll be meeting.
A good looking weekend is on tap across North Carolina. Our thoughts on how to make the most of it include a trip to the coast, where some of the best hang gliders around will be circling Jockey’s Ridge; an excursion into the Piedmont, where they’ll be celebrating another milestone for the Mountains-to-Sea Trail; and a visit to the high country where they’re doing what you do when the spring wildflowers start to pop: you go for a hike.