Let’s say you went on one of the 59 First Day Hikes scheduled today at North Carolina’s State Parks, and, perhaps to your surprise, you — someone who never really considered yourself the outdoors type, let alone a hiker — really liked it. You fell into conversation with fellow hikers that made time fly, you were taken by aspects of the outdoors you never appreciated before, you didn’t mind getting a little muddy. And when it was done — Wow! Did I really just walk two miles!? You wonder where hiking might lead if you stuck with it. Well, here are a few possibilities of what hiking can lead to from the 19 hikers on today’s GetHiking! Triangle New Year’s Day Hike on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail along Falls Lake.
- Deb, who was eager to get her hiking legs prepped for trips this year to Africa and New Zealand.
- Vaughn, who’s committed to five backpack trips in just the first half of the year.
- Linda, a retiree, who’s booked three backpack trips for the first half of the year.
- Susan, who looks for any chance to hike.
- Amy, see Susan, above.
- Alison, who only discovered backpacking two years ago and is already leading trips and teaching backpacking.
So how do you proceed from here, from having taken a short but intoxicating New Year’s Day hike to wherever you’d like your hiking feet to take you?
By enrolling in our GetHiking! Winter Hiking Program for Beginning Hikers. This eight-week program begins Jan. 6 and runs every Sunday through Feb. 24. We hike at different locations around the Triangle for hikes that start at 1.5 miles in length and progress up to 4 miles. We take a leisurely pace — in fact, no pace is too slow because we lead our hikes from the rear, so no hiker ever gets left behind. To further help you develop as a hiker, we send you a weekly enewsletter that includes hiking tips, resources and gear suggestions, as well as a detailed account of that week’s hike. A fast learner (and hiker)? If you discover during the program you’d like to go farther and perhaps faster, you can transfer to our GetHiking! Winter Hiking Program for Experienced Hikers. Start now and by the time spring rolls around you’ll be ready for longer hikes on more challenging terrain. And if you’re perfectly happy with the type of hiking we do in this series, that’s great, too.
We’d love to help you develop a passion for hiking. On the first day of the New Year, a time of fresh starts and new directions, there couldn’t be a better time to join us on the trail. Click the link below for details and to sign up.