From mellow hikes at the coast and in the mountains to a statewide star party, your prospects for adventure are looking up in North Carolina.
Coast
This is the perfect event if you’ve been thinking: I really should get moving more, and now that the weather’s awesome I don’t have a good excuse not to be active. Still …
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 hike at Fort Fisher State Park Saturday is only a mile and a half, but it’s a well-appointed mile-and-a-half; there’s a rare introduction to the misunderstood pursuit of trail running along the Eno River Saturday afternoon; and on both Saturday and Sunday, those crazy videos of skateboarders bombing down twisty mountain roads comes to life at Mount Jefferson.
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.
In the last two weeks, the forest floor has, finally, come alive with splashes of color: carpets of delicate white spring beauties, patches of starburst white chickweed, bursts of purple periwinkle, flashes of yellow green-and-gold.
The spring show is in its prime, but it won’t last forever. Here are five spots where you’re likely to find the season in full flower for at least the next couple of weeks (longer in the high country).