Moores Creek. Photo courtesy National Park Service
This weekend in North Carolina you can paddle into the Revolutionary past, you can paddle at night, or you can go camping a mile up.
Coast
Like a paddle with a little history? Thursday’s Moores Creek Kayaking History Adventure paddle on Moores Creek, which meanders through the Moores Creek National Battlefield, is just the ticket. The 88-acre park “commemorates the battle between Patriots and Loyalist militia on February 27, 1776,” according to the Halyburton Park (Wilmington) program guide. “This battle was the first major victory for the Patriots that lead to Cornwallis’ withdrawal from North Carolina. Join us and paddle this historic creek and watch history come alive after your kayaking adventure with a ranger-lead tour of the battlefield.” Fives mile roundtrip.read more
A Charlotte Meetup group at Hanging Rock State Park.
Here’s an exchange I find myself having surprisingly often.
Other Person: I’ve been trying to find a local hiking [slash-paddling-slash-cycling-slash-climbing-slash-other-favorite-activity-here] club but haven’t had any luck. Are there any?
Me: Have you tried Meetup?
OP: Meetup?
Yes, even today, after 12 years, 14.1 million members, 131,119 Meetup groups and 2.65 million monthly RSVPS (members indicating they plan to attend a Meetup activity) there are still people out there unfamiliar with Meetup.com. In short: Meetup is how people gather to play in the internet age. You want to go on a group hike in Charlotte, you join Outdoor Club South: Charlotte. You want to go kayaking in the Carolinas? Simply join Simply Kayaking. You want to do just about anything and you live in the Triangle? Become one of the 5,392 members of the Triangle Hiking & Outdoors Group: they’ve got 20 events currently scheduled and odds are at least one will tickle your adventure fancy.
Finding a group is easy. Go to Meetup.com, click “Find a Meetup Group,” click on your interest and how far you’re willing to drive, and options will appear. If they don’t, if there’s not a group that does what you want to do, start one.
To give you an idea of what’s out there, here’s a list of the 17 Meetup groups I belong to. Click, see what they do, where they go and who they are. Like what they’re about? Click one more time and become a member.
It’s that easy.read more
Monday — never an easy time for the outdoors enthusiast. After a weekend of adventure, returning to the humdrum work-a-day world can make one melancholy. To help ease the transition, every Monday we feature a 90 Second Escape — essentially, a 90-second video or slide show of a place you’d probably rather be: a trail, a park, a greenway, a lake … anywhere as long as it’s not under a fluorescent bulb.read more
Dragon boating Saturday on Lake Lure (see "Mountains").
Paddle a swamp, paddle someone else’s boat, paddle a dragon.
Coast
There’s great cache in being able to say you paddled the Great Dismal Swamp. After all, people have gone into the massive wetland in the northeast corner of the state (and southeast Virginia) and never come out. On Saturday’s Kayaking the Canal paddle at Dismal Swamp State Park you can earn both Dismal bragging rights and, since it’s ranger-led and on a canal, be assured that you will emerge unscathed (save, perhaps, a mosquito bite or two if you don’t later up beforehand).read more
It's always sunny at your local climbing gym (in this case, the Triangle Rock Club).
Wondering what kinks Tropical Storm Andrea may have put in your weekend plans?
Paddling. If you were planning on paddling, you might think again. With projected rainfall amounts of four inches or greater, some local rivers may be swollen to the dangerous level, especially for less experienced paddlers. Your best bet for assessing paddle conditions on specific rivers is to check with the outfitters who serve them. Find a list of 44 such outfitters, specifically those who rent canoes and kayaks, here. If you’re familiar with a specific waterway, you can check levels and flows at the U.S. Geological Survey site, here. If you need help interpreting what those numbers mean — what’s optimum, what’s safe, what’s not — you should have a copy of Paul Ferguson’s “Paddling Eastern North Carolina” for the eastern part of the state, the Benner boys’ “Carolina Whitewater: A Paddler’s Guide to the Western Carolinas” for the west.read more
