You love a mountain hike in the fall. What you don’t love is driving there and back in a day. Or paying leaf-peeper rates for a motel.
We have a better option.
This fall, we’ve planned four weekend camping/hiking trips to some of the best hiking in the mountains, and one late fall trip to some pretty cool hiking at the coast.
Not a camper? No worries. We’ve got a couple of trips that are perfect for you as well. Our trips fall into two categories:
- Experienced. These weekends are geared to established campers: folks who have their gear and know the process and logistics — packing, setting up camp, cooking food. We arrange the campground and guide the hikes, we cook one meal and provide a swag bag, and you do the rest.
- Newbies. These weekends are geared toward folks new to camping. We arrange the campground and guide the hikes, and we also cook the food and manage logistics. All you really need is a tent—and if you don’t have one, we can provide one for an additional fee. Learn the ropes, or kick back and relax and let us do the camp work.
With these trips, there’s time for both great hiking and relaxing. Arrive anytime after 4 p.m. on Friday, get established, settle in, relax. Saturday, we’ll hit the trail between 9 and 9:30 a.m. Saturday’s hike is usually in the 10-mile range, a long day on the trail, but without pushing it. Sunday, we sleep in a little later and hike a little shorter, usually around 5 miles.
Here are our trips for fall, including whether it falls into the Experienced or Newbies category:
Mount Rogers, Sept. 21-23. Newbies. Grayson Highlands State Park, Virginia. Includes a hike to Mount Rogers, at 5,724 feet the highest point in Virginia, and an optional bike ride on the 17-mile Virginia Creeper Trail, nearly all of which is downhill. (If you’d rather not bike, a hike is also planned.) The Mount Rogers area is known for its vast meadows, rock outcrops, Rocky Mountain feel — and ponies.
Curtis Creek/Graybeard, Sept. 28-30. Experienced. Pisgah National Forest and Montreat Wilderness. The Curtis Creek campground is in the oldest section of the Pisgah National Forest, dating back to 1913. On Saturday, we’ll summit 5,592-foot Graybeard Mountain in the adjoining Montreat Wilderness; Sunday, we’ll hike from the campground up the Hickory Branch Trail into some of the oldest old growth in the Pisgah.
New River State Park, Oct. 12-14. Newbies. This trip gets a jump on fall color in the mountains by visiting two of the highest points in North Carolina’s northern mountains: 5,520-foot Elk Knob and 4,655-foot Mount Jefferson. Because of their high elevation and rich soils, both peaks offer a fall color experience akin to that found in New England.
Mount Mitchell, Oct. 19-21. Experienced. From base camp at the Briar Bottom Group Campground at the base of Mount Mitchell, we’ll hike from camp up to the Green Knob Tower on Saturday, an 8-mile roundtrip that culminates with great views of the Black Mountains. Sunday, we drive to the highest point on the East Coast, 6,684-foot Mount Mitchell, for a hike on the Black Mountain Crest Trail. Includes a burrito dinner Saturday evening.
Outer Banks, Nov. 2-4. Experienced. What better way to close out the fall hiking season than a trip to the coast. Base camp for the weekend is the National Park Service Campground at Oregon Inlet. From there, we’ll head a short distance up the coast and hike 5 miles through maritime forest at Nags Head Woods Preserve. Sunday, we’ll visit some of the oldest and biggest trees in the state on a 5-mile hike at Pettigrew State Park.
To learn more about the camping weekends mentioned and to sign up, click the appropriate trip.
Happy trails,
Joe