Looking for an adventure with the kids? Look to Brunswick Nature Park near Wilmington. Looking for some mountain biking adventure? Look to the annual Triangle Fat Tire Festival. Looking for some spectacular hiking? Look up, about as high as you can, to the Roan Highlands.
90 Second Escape: Linville Gorge
Monday — never an easy time for the outdoors enthusiast. After a weekend of adventure, returning to the humdrum work-a-day world can make one melancholy. To help ease the transition, every Monday we feature a 90 Second Escape — essentially, a 90-second video or slide show of a place you’d probably rather be: a trail, a park, a greenway, a lake … anywhere as long as it’s not under a fluorescent bulb.
This weekend: Paddle a swamp or run through one, but be sure to Get Outdoors!
We have a swamp theme at the coast and (near) Piedmont this week: paddle one (and perhaps see a ‘gator) at the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge near Manteo, or run through one on the Wilson Swamp Stomp. Meanwhile, Saturday is National Get Outdoors Day, and while its website lists only four locations in North Carolina with events scheduled (see below), truth be told there are several North Carolina State Parks holding NGOD events. We tell you about the one at Chimney Rock State Park; you can learn about the others here.
Ziplines: Fear no factor (but strength can be)
When I saw the zipline at Go Ape, my thoughts drifted back a century or so to the kids who lived on the south side of the Rocky River in Chatham County who had to get to school on the north side of the river. With no bridge for miles, someone strung a steel cable across the river, tied it off around some trees, then had the kids ride in a bucket across the river to school every morning, back home every afternoon.
I thought about those frigid January mornings riding in an ice bucket. I thought about those days after (or during) a heavy rain, when the roiling Rocky would have been nipping at their keisters. I thought about how this “zipline” was likely devoid of rigorous safety oversight — or any oversight at all.
And I thought about how those kids who rode in a bucket over the river to school every day likely went through life nonplussed by the challenges they faced, challenges that, compared to their commute, likely seemed pretty manageable.
Put some zip in your summer
Move over whitewater rafting, there’s a new “extreme” family adventure that’s fast become the thing to do for families with a taste for adrenaline.
Ziplines — most of which include high adventure ropes courses — have popped up throughout North Carolina over the past few years, selling the safe thrill that for years has earned whitewater rafting on Class III water a spot on the adventurous family’s vacation agenda.