Tag Archives: winter

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 a magical time of year this is in the woods. Winter’s sunlight knifes bright through a leafless canopy, illuminating a forest floor littered with coppery leaves. Somehow, those gray tree trunks manage to evoke a sparkle. Winter’s dry air cranks up the volume the season’s quiet. It’s an experience you don’t want prematurely ended on a 3-mile trail. read more

Welcome the early dark with a night hike

The following is a version of a piece we run every year at this time, a time when our spirits are buoyed by day by cloudless skies and cooling temperatures, but bummed when those days of sun end earlier and earlier.

Most of us don’t expect the day — the daylight part, that is — to end so soon until the demise of Daylight Saving Time, which is Nov. 6 this year. So when we walk out the door on Oct. 6 expecting to get in a hike and discover a setting sun that will be completely set by 6:52, we’re taken aback. And a bit sad.  read more

Better cold than SAD

Saturday’s GetHiking! Winter Wild hike at the R. Wayne Bailey-Caswell Game Lands near Yancyville was cold, really cold. But the brilliant blue sky more than made up for the 28-degree temperature. If I had a nickel for every time someone on the hike said, “What a beautiful day!”, I’d have a dollar thirty-five. A little sun can make up for a lot of cold. read more

GetHiking! Winter 2022

A brilliant bluebird day without a cloud in the sky — yet not another soul is on the trail. Can this possibly be so? you wonder. And if it is, what price must be paid for the privilege?

How about just enduring a little cold weather.

We love hiking this time of year. The air is typically dry, the diminished foliage lets you see deep into the woods, the slanted winter sun seems to light the forest from the ground up. Yes, it’s cold, and perhaps you’ve shied away from hiking in the cold in the past. But not this year, not when you can escape the hordes of recent hiking converts and have the trail nearly to yourself. read more

This year, warm up to cold weather hiking

Note: We run a version of this post, tweaked and updated, every year around this time. We run it because every year around this time, when the sun spends less time with us and the temperatures drop, a lot of folks think about hanging up their hiking gear for the season. That, we believe, is a bad idea. In this post, we explain how to make friends with the cold on the trail. read more