Hiking has long been lauded for it’s health benefits. Hiking regularly can lower your blood pressure and reduce your chance of heart disease. It can lower your risk of certain cancers and of getting diabetes. It improves muscle fitness and can help stave off osteoporosis. When you hike during the day, you sleep better at night.
Category Archives: Hiking
GetOut! Your Friday Nudge for Weekend Adventure
So it’s raining, and may rain over the weekend. That doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t get outside. Consider:
- Cleansing, cooling rain. For one thing, a storm front often leaves cooler temperatures in its wake. Considering it’s been in the 90s of late, a dip into the upper 70s — as was the case Thursday — can be most refreshing. Simply wait until the rain appears to be easing, check the radar, and head out.
- Check the radar. That second step — check the radar — is essential to making sure you aren’t venturing into a short lull. Be sure to check both the immediate past — the last couple hours or so — to see how the storms are developing and tracking, as well as the projected future to see where the storms are expected to head. Be especially leery of dark greens, yellows, reds and — gasp! — purples, which indicate increasingly sever weather.
- Avoid it, or embrace it. And if you’re seeing just green, especially light green, headed your way, so what? If you’re properly prepared (see below), hiking in a light rain can offer a more intimate level of outdoor escape. Ideally, hike for a trail that’s good tree cover to absorb the bulk of the rain. If you’re a novice at hiking in the rain, plan not to go out for too long the first time; like any new undertaking, there will be small kinks to work out.
- Soggy solitude. Another advantage to hiking in the rain, especially right now? You’ll likely have the trail to yourself. Because not everyone knows how to cope with the rain, not everyone feels comfortable being in the rain. This makes it an especially good time to visit some of the trails that have been so crowded of late, the parks that have had to shut their gates at mid-morning on a weekend because they’ve reached capacity.
- Summer’s the time. Finally, if you’re going to hike in the rain, summer is the time to do it. Though a rain-bearing front often drops the temperature, in summer it usually isn’t enough of a drop to pose a hypothermia concern (unless you’re in the mountains, at higher elevations, where a even a temperature dipping into the 50s can be troublesome). Getting a little wet when the temperature is in the 80s isn’t such a bad thing (unless you get more than “a little” wet and hike a longer distance, inviting the opportunity for chaffing).
This weekend, check the forecast, then get out and enjoy!
GetHiking! Guide to Hiking in the Rain
Don’t let a little rain keep you indoors on a summer weekend, not when our 5-page GetHiking! Guide to Hiking in the Rain can quickly give you the motivation and direction to enjoy one of the best times to be out in the woods. Learn more and purchase the $0.99 guide here.
Take the Fear out of Summer Stream Crossings
The following is a tweaked version of a blog we wrote two years ago on water crossings, specifically mountain water crossings where there’s no bridge and, often, no obvious place to cross.
In the past couple of weeks, it’s become hot. Summer hot.
And that means when we head out for a hike, we’ll look more favorably on trails that have water as a main feature. Just enough to cool our feet in, maybe splash some water in our face. Trouble is, you can’t always choose how much water you get. When that happens, when your trail comes across a stream or creek without a bridge or an obvious way to get across, you need a strategy for a safe crossing.
Monday, Monday: A run of MST hiked ‘just enough’
A dozen summers ago I tried to hike a section of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail off Redwood Road in Raleigh and was quickly thwarted. About 20 yards in, the trail disappeared into a sea of summer growth, of saplings and grasses and ground covers all prospering in the heat of the season. I was bummed, because I’d hiked this stretch, Day-Hike Section P, of the MST several times, but, apparently, every time in winter, when the less hardy species had gone into cold storage. The problem in summer: no one hiked this stretch, in large part because not many folks knew it was there.
Monday, Monday: A week of early and late hikes
After paying weekly visits to Seven Mile Creek Natural Area west of Hillsborough for eight months, last week I finally had the chance to share this find with other hikers. They were equally impressed.
It was the first of our weekly GetHiking Sunrise, Sunset Summer Beat the Heat Hikes, and it lived up to the hype. Thunderstorms that had been threatening to flare throughout the afternoon vanished by hike time (7 p.m.) and we were treated to the late day light that’s special to the season. As the light faded, over rocky Seven Mile Creek and the surrounding low hills, we could feel it taking the temperature with it. We weren’t exactly chilled by hike’s end — the temperature was 89 less than an hour before the hike — but between the sheltering canopy above and a 7-degree drop by hikes end, we were no longer melting into our boots. You can see a video of that hike last Wednesday on Friday’s post.