You know why you haven’t taken up backpacking?
Because you think you have to hike with 40 pounds on your back with every footstep you take.
Well, you don’t. If every backpack trip we took involved lugging a full pack for days on end, we wouldn’t backpack, either.
Here’s our annual note for when the temperature seems too cold to hike.
I start most days with an early 3-mile hike. The walk often spells the difference between a good day and a really good day. The walk is important any day of the week, but it’s especially critical on Mondays. This past Monday when I checked the weather, it was 17 degrees out.
If you live in North Carolina or Virginia you have only yourself to blame if your year gets off to a sluggish start. The two states combined have more than 100 First Day Hikes planned, from New Year’s Eve hikes at Virginia’s Natural Tunnel and Pocahontas state parks, to late day hikes in both states for folks who might not feel like getting out of bed early New Year’s morning.
I’ve never been big on New Year’s Resolutions. If you decide on a goal, why wait until an arbitrary date to start working on it?
But in the last couple of years I’ve discovered a flaw in that way of thinking. For me and for many others, about the only time we have to think about goals is during that slow period between Christmas and New Year’s. A lot of businesses close that week, and even those that stay open, well, who’s actually working (apologies to you financial types whose fiscal year coincides with the calendar year)? It’s the one time many of us have to actually think.
The holidays are upon us — and so, too, are our holiday visitors.
You’re eager to show your visiting friends and family why you love living where you do: the outdoor opportunities that make this such a wonderful place to explore. You also don’t want to alienate your guests — or worse, harm them! — by taking them on an outing beyond their capabilities. Fortunately, you can do the former while avoiding the latter with the 10 hikes below, hikes that offer considerable esthetic bang for minimal physical exertion.
There’s a lot of moaning this time of year about the absence of after work sunlight. In the summer, I can get in a 3-mile hike after work. Now it’s dark before I leave the salt mine.
It’s true that if you punch out at 5 this afternoon you’ll only have 3 minutes before sunset, and maybe 25 minutes of useable light total. It’s also true that the issue is less a matter of available sunlight, more a matter of not looking for it in the right place.
