Our two favorite times to be in the trail in winter: sunrise and sunset. They’re great year-round, frankly, but much more accessible in winter: Sunrise today is at 7:21 a.m., sunset at 5:34 p.m.
If you have to ask what’s so special about these two golden hours of the day, then you’re probably not a hiker. Or possibly in possession of a pulse. Personally, we love the moment-to-moment change as the sky evolves from yellow to pink to orange to crimson to purple. If we sense the conditions for a good sunset, we’ll dash to the local summit in town, Occoneechee Mountain, which affords an open view to the west: sunset over the Eno River Valley is one of the best. We’re pretty crazy about certain other sunsets as well: from Shortoff Mountain at the south end of Linville Gorge, from atop Shining Rock in the Pisgah National Forest, from Little Long Mountain in the Uwharrie National Forest, from Hump Mountain on the Appalachian Trail. We’ve even seen the queen mother of sunset phenomena: the elusive green flash, a prismatic neon burst that lasts just a second or two, which we saw over the Pacific Ocean years ago in Hawaii.read more
Fire, when it comes to the natural world, is often associated with loss — the loss of trees, of shrubs, of grasses, of animal life. But it also plays a key role in keeping the forest alive. This year, North Carolina is celebrating that role, proclaiming it the Year of Fire in its State Parks. read more
The first time I hiked Lake Mattamuskeet was on a late November day back in the late 1990s. I was heading back from the coast and only intended to stop for a moment, stretch my legs, see tundra swans, teals or widgeons had arrived for the season. I wound up walking one of the dirt access roads around the lake for a couple of hours. The snowbirds had yet to arrive from the north — or maybe some had and I just didn’t notice. Rather, I was taken by the sweeping view across the lake, the endless blue sky, the quiet. Ever since, when I’ve been to the coast in winter I’ve tried to spend time hiking Lake Mattamuskeet or one of the other National Wildlife Refuges along the coast.read more
Winter — such a misunderstood season. For too many, the notion of hibernation learned in elementary school seems to have stuck: it’s cold, hunker down, stay inside until spring. While that notion may apply to cold-blooded types in more northerly climates, hibernation isn’t an approved practice in North Carolina, where daytime highs around 50 and sunshine are common occurrences.read more
I’ve had a dream to live in a place where I could walk out the back door and be on a trail. I’ve twice flirted with this dream: once living a quarter mile from a greenway network in North Raleigh, then living just above the headwaters of Swift Creek in Cary, where there wasn’t a trail per se, but there was some awesome floodplain to explore (under the right conditions).read more