Note: The following is a tweaked re-run of a post that originally appeared in July 2022. With the current heat it’s even more relevant today than it was when it originally appeared.
Tuesday afternoon I was driving back from a meeting in Oxford when I made a detour in Stem. Specifically, to the Tar River Land Conservancy’s Ledge Creek Forest Conservation Area. It was 98 degrees, with a Heat Index of 105, no one’s idea of ideal hiking conditions. Yet once I got under the canopy, the heat became less of an issue.read more
Granted, we ran a version of this blog in April, but with the appearance of The Heat Dome and the possibility of temperatures topping 100 in the region this weekend, it seemed appropriate to repeat the high points. Starting with …
Don’t hesitate to adjust your plans based on the forecast. For instance, GetBackpacking! was scheduled to do the 35-mile Virginia Triple Crown loop this weekend. The four-day trip takes a high route, largely sticking to ridges.read more
What kind of Top 10 list would you have if it didn’t evolve over time? You’d either have a Top 10 list that wasn’t honest, or you’d have evidence that you need to get out more and experience new trails.
Fortunately, neither is the case with this year’s running of our Top 10 Cool Hikes with Water, because it includes some new entries from the last time we ran it. To keep the list at 10 — arbitrary, perhaps, but it keeps things manageable — we’ve had to drop a couple hikes from last year’s list, which you can read here. But that doesn’t diminish those hikes; after all, these lists are subjective anyway, so be content with 10.read more
Maybe it’s a skosh early, but our recent taste of warm weather made me wonder how many people wanted to take a hike, but passed, thinking, It’s so warm out. To nip that type of thinking in the bud, today we rerun our annual guide to summer hiking.read more
Here’s a post we like to run in the waning days of August, as a reminder that while fall is near, you still have time to knock a few more items off your summer to-do list.
Labor Day weekend, which is in two weeks, marks the end of wearing white shoes and seersucker suits. It also marks the end of several summertime frivolities.read more
