The best thing about hiking on a cold winter’s day? You can hike forever.
For starters, the cold itself is good incentive to keep moving. And the more you move down the trail the more you realize what a magical time of year this is in the woods. Winter’s sunlight knifes bright through a leafless canopy, illuminating a forest floor littered with coppery leaves. Somehow, those gray tree trunks manage to evoke a sparkle. Winter’s dry air cranks up the volume the season’s quiet. It’s an experience you don’t want prematurely ended on a 3-mile trail.read more
This week, it’s all about Sunday, New Year’s Day, and First Day Hikes — and First Day Outings. The latter First, first.
On Sunday in North Carolina we enter Year of the Trail, as deemed by the State Legislature. All year, we will celebrate trails of every stripe: natural surface, paved surface, equestrian, hiker, mountain biker, trails of blue. Even our cultural trails. We’ll get into all this in January, but for now we focus on Sunday. And first, those Outings.read more
In today’s Lunch with GetHiking! session, we share tips for hiking with visiting friends and family. You can join that Zoom session at noon by clicking here. In today’s blog, which is suspiciously similar to a blog we ran this time last year, we share 10 hikes we think are especially well-suited for visitors who might not have their hiking legs under them, but might well enjoy a venture into the woods.
The holidays are upon us — and so, too, are our holiday visitors.
You’re eager to show your visiting friends and family why you love living in the region: the outdoor opportunities that make this such a wonderful place to explore. You also don’t want to alienate your guests — or worse, harm them! — by taking them on an outing beyond their capabilities. Fortunately, you can do the former while avoiding the latter with the 10 hikes below, hikes that offer considerable esthetic bang for minimal physical exertion.read more
We love winter hiking. Why? We’ll refer you to this post from two years ago to explain why. Today, as we do every year at this time, we trot out our tips for how you can take the perceived discomfort out of winter hiking, making it possible to better appreciate what to many hikers is the sport’s lost season.read more
I’m suddenly compelled to do 5 hikes by year’s end. Check that, 5 hikes by the end of New Year’s Day, because one of the hikes I know I’ll do on New Year’s Day, to kick off 2023 and North Carolina’s Year of the Trail.
The reason for this sudden compulsion? Probably the fact that December can be so busy it’s easy to not hike. And that’s trouble, because this is precisely when you need to get out and hike — to deal with the stress of the season.read more
