Wilderness areas shouldn’t be the private domain of only the most intrepid swashbuckling types who have no compunction about pushing through where the trail disappears, about fording waist-deep streams, about scrambling through rhododendron hells ever-so-deserving of the name. They shouldn’t be their private playground and they needn’t be. Provided you know how to get in the back door.
Category Archives: Hiking
Budget would close most state parks two days a week
On Wednesday, North Carolina’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources announced that attendance at its 39 state parks and recreation areas last year was 14.1 million, just short of the all-time record (The record of 14.2 million visitors was set in 2009.)
This weekend: Plunge, hike, run
Make February go faster by getting out this weekend
Coast
February: on paper the shortest month, in your mind, the longest. Forced to bridge the gap between dread, post-holiday, dreary cold January and the start of spring in March, February can seem interminable. The best way to escape the February doldrums? Jump into an icy cold Atlantic Ocean.
A weekend afoot
Go short, go long, go fast: Those are among your options this weekend in North Carolina.
Coast
Whenever I run across someone who’s just been to Goose Creek State Park for the first time, their first comment is, “Wow! Why didn’t I know about this place?” Maybe it’s because it’s off the beaten path (it’s between Washington and Bath off a lesser traveled stretch of U.S. 264). Maybe it’s because it doesn’t have a famous landmark at it’s core (the dunes at Jockey’s Ridge State Park, Bear Island at Hammocks Beach State Park). Maybe because it doesn’t have easily accessed recreational opportunities, such as the rental canoes at Merchants Millpond State Park.
‘A Guide’s Guide to Panthertown’
Fifteen years ago I took my first trip to Panthertown Valley, a 6,700-acre playground that some call the Yosemite of the East because of its abundance of waterfalls (19), towering (if not old-growth) trees and exposed granite domes. It was also to be my first try at backpacking solo.