This Saturday, our GetHiking! hike will also be a National Trails Day hike.
For the past 25 years, the first Saturday of June has been—by decree of the American Hiking Society—National Trails Day, a day dedicated to celebrating our nation’s thousands of miles of hiking and biking trails. Sometimes, that celebration takes the form of a hike, sometimes a bike ride. Often, it’s a trail workday, reminding us that the vast majority of our natural surface trails would not be possible without volunteers. A professional land manager may oversee the blazing and design of the trails, but when it comes to the work of actually clearing the paths— and maintaining them—that’s largely the work of volunteers.read more
Sunset today is at 8:19 p.m., with lingering light until 8:48 p.m. Come June 21—the Summer Solstice, the start of summer, the “longest” day of the year—sunset is at 8:34 p.m. Daylight starts diminishing after that, but by a quirk of Earth’s orbit, the sun continues to stay up longer until June 28, when sunset is at about 8:35, with light lingering until after 9 p.m.read more
That’s the story of summer, the 13-week run between Memorial Day and Labor Day when we pack in most of our adventures for the year. So we set out to pick some destinations that seem most worthy of summer fun. Here are a few places we’re headed this summer, and why:read more
Last weekend, we hiked more of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail along Falls Lake and saw our first mountain laurel bloom of the season — a lone bloom, but an impressively full and vibrant (if white can be vibrant) bloom about midway between the Shinleaf Recreation Area and NC 98. We also spent a little time exploring all the Eno River in Orange County and planning a trip next weekend to the Curtis Creek area of the Pisgah National Forest. It was a busy weekend on the trail.read more
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.
Here’s a quick look at prevention and treatment for both.read more
