I climbed into the frigid car this morning, turned the key and was met by a sluggish grind, followed by clicking, followed by quiet. A moment of worry, then a smile. The New Year would be getting off to an active start with a bonus three-mile “hike.”
Escape with us into the Outdoors in 2018
Hiking is a gateway activity. You start with a hike along Umstead’s Sycamore Creek after a rain, maybe hike the Little Mountain Falls Trail at Virginia’s Fairy Stone State Park on a cloudless winter day. Before you know it, the notion of spending a day or more on the trail has a keen appeal. You’re hooked by the lure of outdoor escapes.
Hike with us in 2018
We want to hike with you in 2018. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been hiking since the days of leather boots and lederhosen. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know a hiking trail from a paper trail. We want to hike with you, and odds are we have a program that will meet your needs as you enter the new year.
Don’t let the cold clip your hiking wings
A crisp, brilliant day without a cloud in the sky! It’s perfect weather for a hike. Except, you say, for the cold.
We love hiking this time of year. The air is typically dry, the diminished foliage lets you see deeper into the woods, the slanted winter sunlight seems to light the forest from the ground up.
Make 2018 your year to Get Backpacking!
It was cold and dark, and we were occasionally plunked with raindrops. But not a one of us moved from our spot by the fire.
“What is it about a campfire?” someone asks.
We’re drawn to fire for its light and heat, of course. But for us, on a three-day backpack trip on the Neusiok Trail in the Croatan National Forest, it was less about survival and more about pondering, as Guy Noir might say, life’s persistent questions. Like whether one would survive a freeze-dried meal with an expiration date of 1997. (Answer: yes, surprisingly.)