Saturday, our GetHiking! Winter Wild series takes advantage of the winter cold to hike the Lower Haw River State Natural area, which extends along its namesake river from Bynum south to U.S. 64. It’s an especially good time to hike this stretch, I tell people, because the dense foliage of summer is at bay, the flying and biting pest population is at a minimum, and the cold-blooded snakes will be tucked into their hidey-holes.
Why we do this
We hiked in in the cold (about 40 degrees), the rain (roughly two inches would fall over a 36-hour period), the dark. The one consolation? The frozen rain that had been in the forecast failed to materialize.
In the end, our trip to the Birkhead Mountain Wilderness was the best trip in a year full of pretty great trips.
Getout! Your Friday Nudge for Weekend Adventure
We live less than a half mile from Occoneechee State Natural Area in Hillsborough, and I either hike or run there a couple times a week. Though I generally like to mix things up on trail I do regularly — hiking clockwise one time, counterclockwise the next — I have the same routine at Occoneechee: I enter from the neighborhood entrance off Eno Mountain Road, then take the Occoneechee Mountain Loop Trail, Overlook Trail and Chestnut Trail back to the Loop Trail, which brings me around the west side of the mountain to the Eno River for the hike’s highlight: a 75-yard stretch beneath a north-facing cliff that is perpetually green. Green with holly and ferns, which are common in these parts, but also with mountain laurel, with rhododendron, and even a narrow carpet of galax. For this brief stretch the trail leaves the Piedmont for the Southern Appalachians.
GetBackpacking! 2020: Old favorites, new challenges (including 4 thru-hikes)
We’ve got one backpack trip left in 2019 — this weekend, to the Birkhead Mountain Wilderness — but already we’re looking forward to next year. We’ll be visiting some of the same places, the places you’ve demonstrated that you love to explore. But we’ll also be exploring new terrain, and adding a new component that we’re especially excited about. First things first, the first four months of 2020.
GetOut! Your Friday Nudge for Weekend Adventure
When Rod Broadbelt began leading hikes at Umstead State Park more than two decades ago, they were events not for the feint of foot. Rod had just retired to Cary, moving from the Philadelphia area where he was a member of a competitive hiking club.
Competitive hiking? you ask.