A “brawl” at the coast, IDing trees in the Piedmont, checking out new trail in the mountains: it’s another active weekend in North Carolina.
Coast
You wouldn’t think that a nature preserve would be a suitable venue for a “brawl.” But when that preserve is the Brunswick Nature Park in Winnabow, with nine miles of singletrack mountain bike trail, then the venue does indeed seem appropriate for Saturday’s Brunswick Brawl endurance race.
Some rue the passing of summer, some despair over the approach of winter.
Others — hikers — revel in the fact it’s October.
With cooling temperatures, generally sunny skies, dry air and the natural world in transition, it’s hard to imagine a better time to be on the trail. Early in the month, the change begins on mountain peaks above 5,000 feet. As the days progress, the palette of autumn slowly descends — 4,000, 3,000, 2,000 feet. Finally, it reaches the Piedmont. And by the beginning of November it’s at the coast.
Fall has arrived, and you know what that means. Actually, it means two things (probably more, but for our purposes here we’ll stick with two): the hardwoods are starting to change color and the snow birds are changing locals as they relocate south. Both activities you won’t want to miss — and won’t have to thanks to various North Carolina State Parks programs this weekend.
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.
The Carolina Thread Trail reflects the textile industry for which it is named: Currently, the 7-year-old project is a series of random and scattered threads of trail that, someday, will be woven into a 1,500-mile trail network draping a 15-county area with 2.3 million people.