We came to a stop in the narrow clearing accommodating a power line and switched off our headlamps. We’d reached the turnaround point for our weekly Tuesday Night Hike, and as was our habit, we went dark for several minutes. The sun was long gone, having set two hours earlier, and the moon was just starting to think about cresting the eastern horizon. It was dark, really dark, and it took our eyes a minute to adjust. Our psyches, too.
Category Archives: Hiking
GetOut! Ditch the crowds with Three Hikes for Fall
Fall, with its crisp air, cool temperatures and dazzling color, is a time when everyone, it seems, wants to be on the trail. Those crowds, especially now, can detract from the experience we seek when we head outdoors. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Embrace winter hiking with these 7 bits of advice
I was putting together a curriculum for a new hiker in our Adventure Coaching program and realized that some of what she needed to know was especially pertinent to this time of year. Today, I share some of those tips that will be especially helpful, hopefully, going into winter.
Winter Wild: Solitude when you need it most
In the early 1980s I lived in Loveland, Colo. On weekends, I would drive up U.S. 34 along the Big Thompson River toward Estes Park, into the Arapaho & Roosevelt National Forest. I would typically stop well short of Estes, sometimes not even making it to the tiny crossroads of Drake. I’d find a roadside pullout, get out and start hiking: there didn’t need to be a trail, as long as the terrain was passible. It wouldn’t be long, scrambling up the steep canyon walls, before I’d start fantasizing that I might be the first person to have ever made it to the ridge above. Hey, I was in my 20s. What did I know?
GetOut! N.C. State Park programs resume
If you love fall, you’ll adore this weekend.
After a little rain on Friday, the skies clear, the temperatures drop and it’s fall again. Look for a temperature when you wake up Saturday in the upper 30s, look for daytime highs both days in the 60s, look for lots of sunshine. And look for something that’s starting to reappear after a long hiatus: programs at North Carolina State Parks.