Imagine living a half hour away from the National Whitewater Center.
Today, we unveil a new feature: Live Where You Play.
Periodically, I get emails from out-of-staters moving to the region who are looking for a good place to live. And by “good place,” they mean a place close to where they can play. A place with a long greenway, or good hiking trails, a nearby mountain bike network or maybe some nice Class II and III whitewater running through the backyard. Well, maybe not right through the backyard, but close. I do a little research and shoot back an email listing options. And every time I do, I think, there have to be more people out there who would love to live closer to where they play.read more
Completion of a five-mile stretch of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail near Boone in 2011 created a continuous 300-mile stretch of the trail.
When the Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail gathers for its annual meeting Saturday in Saxapahaw, they’ll hear a keynote address from Diane Van Deren, who set a record for crossing the 950-mile trail last spring. They’ll honor top volunteers and the 10 hikers who did the entire trail in 2012. They’ll have workshops and take a hike on one of the most recently minted sections of the MST, a short stretch along the Haw River just outside of where they’ll be meeting.read more
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 escape to 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.read more
Did you know this is about the time in the new year when people begin to lose their resolve to be healthier and more active? If you feel you may be at risk, check out our statewide prescription for a prolonged active lifestyle. We have something for the team player (volleyball at the coast), the nature lover (a geology hike in the Piedmont) and — what’s a nice way to put this — the nutcase, in the form of a night downhill mountain bike race in the mountains.read more
Odds are you don’t do it in winter. Odds are equally good that you don’t have a good reason that you don’t.
Go winter car camping, that is.
There is no good reason not to camp in winter.
You hate being cold when you sleep at night? Bad excuse for two reasons: One, sub-zero sleeping bags. Two, fleece blankets, layers and layers of fleece blankets. There is no better sleep than that had snuggled in a comfy, coldbomb-proof sleeping bag, the world outside crisp, quiet and dark — and with minimal threat of ornery critters lurking about. read more
