Spring: you can’t wait to get out on the trail — and stay on the trail. Which is why backpacking was invented. We’ve got opportunities for you to do just that this spring: hit the trail Friday and not leave it until Sunday.
Your options …
GetHiking! 50+ Summer 2022
You’ve been working most of your life, and maybe you’ve devoted what free time you did have to raising a family. Now, the kids are grown, and you can see an end to the 9-to-5. The point: you now have the time to do the things your’ve been wanting to do for years. The things you haven’t had time for that’ll make you feel like a kid again — and which will help you in all sorts of ways.
Our 6 Favorite Backpacking Destinations
This recent spate of bitter cold, snow and ice can’t last forever. This is the South: It just can’t.
Before you know it, maybe within a week or so, you’ll be out on the trail and you’ll see a bright yellow daffodil poking through the turf beneath a stately oak, near a loosely arranged pile of rocks. A non-native ornamental favored by early homesteaders to get them through the last half of winter, a harbinger of spring and warmer weather. They will be followed shortly by trout lilies, spring beauties and the rush of spring abundance. You may not be thinking about sleeping in a tent now, but it won’t be long. And you’ll want to be prepared.
GetOut! This weekend: Like last weekend, but different
Weatherwise, this weekend appears to be a carbon copy of last weekend. Only in reverse.
Last weekend, the snow and ice hit on Sunday; this weekend it’s on Saturday (starting late Thursday, actually). And last weekend, the farther west you went — into the western Piedmont and mountains — the more winter-like it became. This weekend, it gets more wintery toward the coast.
GetGoing After 50: tales of ‘extreme’ aging
This morning I set out with a couple of buddies on one of their regular adventures and was reminded of a column I wrote a couple years back about free soloist Alex Honnold. Honnold is known as the climber who eschews ropes and other protection — “free soloing,” it’s called in climbing circles.