Good times around the campfire, such as this one last year at Price Park, will resume soon along the Blue Ridge Parkway.
I’ve been spending a lot of time along the Blue Ridge Parkway of late, exploring the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. I’d be spending even more time if the Parkway facilities, specifically the campgrounds, were open. Which they soon will be.
The National Park Service has announced 2012 opening dates for their seasonal facilities along the Parkway. I’m finding them useful for trip planning, figured you might, too. Here are some key locations for the pedestrian explorer, when they open and some thoughts for how these locations might play into your plans. For locations, go here for a Parkway map.read more
Get to know a new place on foot, get to know the season that started Tuesday.
Coast
When I was in high school I had a part-time job on the old Lowry Air Force Base in Denver. I took the job, in part, so I could get inside the inner sanctum of a military installation just to see what it was like. It wasn’t as exciting as I expected; In fact, the only significant difference between it and the outside world was that it was a whole lot cleaner. Still, it was cool being allowed in this land forbidden to mere civilians.read more
It’s not your stuffed-up imagination; the spring allergy season really is off to early start this year (and, thanks to climate change, may be trending in this direction). You can read all about it in today’s Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer, in a story I contributed to.read more
It was a mileage marker by the side of the greenway. Having spent last week hiking the Mountains-to-Sea Trail along the Blue Ridge Parkway, I was accustomed to seeing mileage markers in the form of the parkway’s knee-high stone obelisks that tick off every mile. And I have seen them before on greenways, but never with such a high number. Rarely, in fact, in double digits.read more
This weekend, there’s a walk for non-walkers, a 100-miler in 100 days, and the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour, two days of film-watching guaranteed to get you up and moving.
Coast
We’re always on the lookout for good reasons to walk for people who don’t like to walk. Such as Sunday’s African-American Historic Downtown Walking Tour of Tryon Palace in New Bern. This ramble through New Bern’s Historic District will cover 16 blocks (a little over a mile, by our reckoning) and 300 years of African-American history in New Bern. It’s estimated to take an hour and a half; lots of short walks with pauses in between to learn.read more
