The following is a post we like to run at the beginning of the warm-weather hiking season.
We’ve made the transfer from cool and budding to warm and lush. The weather is great for hiking — the associated annoyances we face along the way, specifically ticks and mosquitoes, and poison ivy.
The following is a post we rerun when the temperatures heat up and we’re suddenly, sometimes unexpectedly, at greater risk for heat exhaustion. It has been slightly tweaked from previous versions.
With temperatures possibly hitting 90 today, for the first time this year, we’re reminded that, while we’ve spent the last several months longing for warmer weather, we need to show it the proper respect now that it’s here. Today we share some thoughts about heat exhaustion: how to recognize it at the onset, how to treat it, and, most importantly, how to prevent it.
On today’s Morning Walk with Joe on Facebook Live we marveled at the unique confluence facing us this weekend: cool temperatures (in the 60s and 70s) and sunny skies, and a fully leafed-out forest.
Typically, when we think of a leafed-out forest in the Southeast we also think of hot temperatures and muggy air. Walking through the Seven Mile Creek Nature Preserve this morning I was struck by the full onslaught of green and the fact that, with the temperature around 60, I needed long sleeves. Spring hiking weather with the visual benefits of summer. It’s the best, and that’s what this weekend is about: the chance to take a summerlike hike in spring.
The waterfalls, the mountaintop views, the wildflowers blooming in spring, the trees changing color in fall — all things I love about hiking and backpacking. But what I think I love most — and have missed the most in the past year — is gathering around a campfire at day’s end and simply talking. Talking about who’s having what for dinner, about past trips together, about the simple things … about then Seinfeldian nature of life. The Vicious Circle had their Algonquin Roundtable, campers have their campfire.
Sunday, we hiked a popular section of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail at Falls Lake. Popular, because there’s an actual parking lot at the trailhead — with an address. At 1 p.m., at the start of our hike, the lot was packed, with cars spilling over onto the road.
