For the past few years, since turning 60, whenever I’ve finished a favorite challenging hike, I’ve wondered: Will I hike this trail again?

In part, that’s because there’s a limited amount of time in life and a growing number of trails. We like hiking our favorites, we like hiking new trails. And since the pandemic, more trails coming on line. Decisions, decisions.

But there’s another factor. I’ve come to the slow-dawning realization that I while I’ll mylikely be able to hike another 20 years, I may not always be able to hike 15 miles in a day. Or 10. Or 7 or 8. 

That’s why when I had a day off recently and a forecast favorable for a long day on the trail — high temperature of 50, cloudless skies — I knew what I had to do. And I knew where I wanted to do it.

When I started GetHiking! more than a decade ago, the first long mountain hike we did was at Doughton Park on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Doughton offers the best hiking along Parkway: 30 miles of trail consisting of the most challenge hiking near Charlotte, the Triad, the Triangle. Four trails — Cedar Ridge, Bluff Ridge, Grassy Gap Fire Road and Flat Rock Ridge — climb the Blue Ridge escarpment, where they all connect with the 7.5-mile Bluff Mountain Trail (also the Mountains-to-Sea Trail). You can put together three long loops, ranging up to 17 miles. That first year we did the longest (up Cedar Ridge, across Bluff Mountain, down Flat Rock); a couple weeks back, because of time and available sunlight (not an area you want to hike after dark), I chose the Cedar Ridge/Bluff Mountain/Bluff Ridge route, about 15 miles. 

This hike is best done starting from the little-used Longbottom Road Access at the base of the escarpment. The reason: you get 80 percent of the climbing out of the way on the hike up. This is good for the obvious reason: who doesn’t like finishing a long day hiking downhill? It’s good, too, because if you overestimate your fitness and the climb is winning, you simply reverse course and head back down. I’d know within an hour if I had a 15-mile mountain hike in me.

Why?

Because the first mile and a quarter of Cedar Ridge is the worst; it’s not until the 2.2-mile mark that you encounter level ground, even a short descent. You still trend uphill for another two miles, but it’s not nearly as taxing. By the time you hit the Bluff Mountain Trail at mile 4.3, the bulk of your climb is over. For the day.

As I walked, I recalled my previous hikes on the trail. On that first GetHiking! hike, when I would have been 55, I don’t recall being overly tired after our 17-mile day. That’s in large part because when you’re leading a group you can’t feel overly tired: your charges get wind that you’re flagging and suddenly they’re really tired, too. I remember being especially invigorated on the long, mellow downhill on Flat Rock Ridge back to the trailhead. Same with a corporate group I took that returned down Grassy Gap Trail (we encountered a dusting of snow on that winter hike). I remember the first time taking the shorter, steeper Ridge Mountain Primitive Trail and seeing a momma bear and her two cubs, I remember scouting the trail for book projects  twice. The last time, in 2021, we base camped at the Basin Cove primitive camp, then spent a very cold and windy November Saturday on the trail, returning at dusk. Brief flashes of previous adventures suggested at least three other times doing a Doughton loop.

They were all good memories, and I’m sure that contributed to the fact it wasn’t until mile 13.5, coming off the Bluff Ridge Trail, that it occurred to me I was on the verge of being tired. Before hiking the last mile and a half on gently trending downhill, I took off my hiking shoes and stuck my feet in a very nippy Basin Creek. 

As my feet slowly went numb I realized I was as happy on the trail as I’ve been in a while. I recounted particularly memorable parts of the hike — drawing water from the Brinegar spring, the views from the open meadows near Bluff Mountain, the sun, the fact I only saw one other hiker — and smiled. 

I can’t wait to do this hike again, I thought.

And I’m pretty sure I will.

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Forever hikes

Here’s the skinny on my top 5 Forever Hikes.

Doughton Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Sparta

30 miles of trail, 3 long loops

The trail in today’s tale. 

Learn more here.

Standing Indian Recreation Area, Nantahala National Forest, Franklin

40 miles of trail, various loops involving the Appalachian Trail

As the AT enters Standing Indian, it traces a horseshoe-shaped ridge; about a dozen trails snaking up from the Standing Indian Recreation Area over a variety of loop options. Note: Three weeks after doing Doughton Park, I lead a two-day, one-night backpack trip on a favorite loop, starting from the backcountry trailhead: Long Branch Trail to the AT to Lower Trail Ridge Way, for 24 miles. 

Learn more here.

Appalachian Trail: Carver’s Gap to US 19E, Roan Mountain, Tenn.

13.7 miles

I’ve only done this as a day hike twice — largely because it’s such a stunningly gorgeous hike that you don’t want to rush it. We usually do it as a two-nighter, staying Night 1 at the Overmountain Victory Trail crossing and Night 2 at Doll Flats.

Learn more here.

Mountains-to-Sea Trail at Falls Lake, Durham/Raleigh

16.4 miles: Penny’s Bend to Cheek Road (Day-Hike sections P,Q,R,S,T)

The MST spends 60 of its 1,175 miles along Falls Lake’s south shore, and all it makes for good hiking. We like this leg-stretcher because it’s among the more remote stretches of MST through the Triangle — and it’s probably the latest stretch!

Learn more here.

Weetock Trail, Croatan National Forest, Cape Carteret

11 miles

I love off-trail hiking, which is why I love this trail. The first 7 or so miles are fairly easy, over mostly flat coastal forest terrain with the occasional gully dip. The last 5 miles or so is an exercise in wayfinding, thanks to a hurricane a few years back that turned the trail into an obstacle course, an especially fun one.

Learn more here. 

The post Racing the clock on Forever Hikes appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Bob and Henry aren’t free soloists; in fact, climbing may be the only outdoor adventure they don’t do. Among other things, Henry is section hiking the Appalachian Trail, while Bob starts his day with a 5-mile run, ends it with a 3-mile hike, and works in, say, a 20-mile mountain bike ride in between. The pair usually work in a paddle trip together every couple of weeks, a hike as well. Maybe they don’t scamper up El Cap without a rope, but for a couple of retired guys, they’re doing pretty good.

This morning’s adventure was a hike and while they were only going 8 miles, most of it was off trail. Some of it over cliffs, some through rhododendron hells, all of it on the 2-3 inches of snow and ice remaining from Sunday’s storm. I won’t reveal too much about the mile or so I hiked with them; for that, you’ll need to listen to next week’s GetHiking! Southeast Podcast. What I will say is that in retirement both have blossomed as adventurers, with both acknowledging that they are in far better shape today than when they left the workforce. 

“I’ll just keep going like this as long as I can,” Henry said early in the hike. 

Why do they remind me of Alex Honnold? Because among  their “golden years” cohort, what they do may seem similarly remarkable. Thing is, it’s not. While they may be the exception, they are not alone. And growing numbers of 50+ folks are joining the ranks and pushing themselves like never before. Folks who GetGoing After 50 is a topic we’ll be exploring at length in the coming months.

In the meantime, the 2019 post on Honnold follows. Marvel in his accomplishments, then think about what you might do that would cause you to flash your own Honnold “smile.”

* * *

Talking with author/climber Mark Synnott earlier this week about his new book, “The Impossible Climb: Alex Honnold, El Capitan and the Climbing Life,” I was touched by something vaguely familiar. Vaguely, and weirdly, because the book is about one of the most audacious physical and psychological feats of our time: Honnold’s ascent of El Capitan, a 3,000-foot near-sheer rockface in Yosemite National Park — without any form of protection to save him should he slip from one of the wall’s precarious microscopic holds. What could possibly be familiar about that?

Honnold has climbed, mostly without a rope, throughout much of the world on some of the globe’s toughest mountains. Despite living on what he describes as “the income of a moderately successful dentist,” he still prefers to live in his van, even when it’s parked in the driveway of his Las Vegas home. And after knocking off El Cap on June 3, 2017, at 9:28 a.m., how did he celebrate? By hanging for more than an hour on his Beastmaster Hangboard, a strip of hardwood with microscope indentions that he uses to build arm, finger and torso strength. Why the hangboard? Well, because he does this every other day as part of his training, and his epic climb just happened to occur on a training day.

So again, how could Honnold’s story even remotely feel familiar?

Then I thought about “the smile.” When Honnold successfully executed the hardest part of his El Cap climb — an especially tenuous move called the Boulder Problem — he turned to one of the camera’s documenting the climb for the film “Free Solo” and flashed a huge grin. That grin, says Synnott and others who know Honnold, is rare. “You see that smile,” says Synnott, “you stand in the presence of that, it washes over you.”

Then it hit me. I haven’t necessarily seen that smile before, but I have seen that look, the “one that washes over you.”

The look

On our backpack trip into the Joyce Kilmer/Slickrock Wilderness a couple weeks back we were making our way down a particularly challenging stretch of the Slickrock Creek Trail. We were losing elevation at a dizzying rate — in one stretch, about 1,400 feet in less than a mile. The trail was overgrown, and it was criss-crossed by more than 30 downed trees — Joyce Kilmer-sized sentinels of ample girth. At one point, after a particularly challenging crossing, I looked up the trail expecting to looks of concern, at best, anger at the least. I didn’t see any Honnoldesque grins, but I what I did see surprised me. I saw people, many of whom were either retired or of retirement age, very focused on the task at hand. Not one person looked worried or defeated. All were in the moment. They knew a wilderness area would present challenges unlike what they’d seen hiking in a state park. That was why they were here: they were aware of the challenge, and they were embracing it.

Same thing a year earlier on our annual dive into Linville Gorge. A late start and a wrong turn left us a mile and a half from camp in waning light in the midst of a classic, homegrown Linville thunderstorm. We righted ourselves, then, a half hour later, wronged ourselves again. We ended up pulling into a makeshift camp at 11 p.m., low on water, wet, and five hours past feeding time. Yet the next morning, there was nary a word about the previous evening. Rather, everyone was eager for the day ahead.

I feel this presence on local day hikes. Someone who’s never hiked 5 miles before, who’s never hiked in 85-degree heat, shows up because she wants to push her limits. The hike may not be easy, it may not be entirely enjoyable. But they do it and you can feel their sense of accomplishment.

Facing the ‘impossible’

Some argue that Alex Honnold lacks a sense of fear, that his brain is wired in such a way that he doesn’t experience fear. Honnold pooh-poohs the notion (and an MRI scan of his brain reported in Synnott’s book appears to back him up), saying he feels fear all right, he’s just better at managing it than most (which he does in part by being extremely prepared). If you want something bad enough, he says, you figure out how to make it happen.

That’s what resonated with me, with Honnold’s story. The people who do our trips aren’t, for the most part, athletes who’ve dedicated their lives to training for the impossible. Most have jobs and have to deal with the day-to-day of survival. But, like Honnold, they’re driven by that spark to feel, even for just an afternoon or a weekend, truly alive. To feel good about themselves in a way that binge watching the latest Netflix series or buying a Tesla can’t touch.

To do for themselves what might seem, like the audacious free solo of a 3,000-foot rock face, the impossible.

* * *

Test yourself

Eager to flash your own Honnold smile? Here are some upcoming opportunities:

GetHiking! Winter Wild Adventure Series. We have two Winter Wild off-trail hikes remaining in our 2021-22 series: Hanging Rock’s Three Sisters on February 5, 6-7 miles; Birkhead Mountains Wilderness, March 12, 8 miles. Learn more here.

GetBackpacking! Intro to Backpacking. Our three-part class — including a gear session via Zoom, a 5-hour in-field training session, and a weekend graduation trip — will turn you from nervous novice to competent, confident backcountry explorer in time for the spring backpacking season. Our spring session starts Feb. 23; learn more and sign up here if you live in North Carolina, here if you’re in Virginia.

GetHiking! Weekend Escape to Jones Lake State Park. Give your hiking legs some pre-spring training with this 15-mile weekend on trail at Jones Lake, Turnbull State Educational Forest and Bay Tree Lake State Natural Area. Learn more and sign up here.

The post GetGoing After 50: tales of ‘extreme’ aging appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

The following originally appeared in October of 2013. We re-run it today, updated, with a tweak or two

“Uh!” Kathy groaned about three quarters of the way up the grinding march up to Moore’s Knob at Hanging Rock State Park. “I wish I’d started doing this when I was younger.”
“Better late than never,” her sister Judy offered.
“Yeah,” I added, “and hiking is something you can do for another 40 years.”
Kathy looked at me like I was nuts. “I’ll be 60 this fall!”
OK, maybe another 20 years. The point, as sis so eloquently put it, it’s never too late to start an activity, especially when that activity is health-friendly hiking.
According to a 2005 report (the most recent year for which I could find demographic information for free), the average age of a hiker was 38 and nearly a third of the nation’s 76.7 million hikers were 45 or older. That’s about 25 million hikers — 25 million smart hikers, considering a 2009 study found that the decline in our level of fitness begins to accelerate after age 45. Because of the constant impact of hiking, it’s especially helpful for women trying to stave off osteoporosis. The additional health benefits of hiking are numerous: hiking regularly can lower your blood pressure by four to 10 points, reduce your chances for cardio vascular disease, reduce your odds of getting diabetes, help you keep weight off, lower your cholesterol and triglyceride levels and, perhaps most importantly, clear your head and help you maintain your sanity.
And it doesn’t discriminate on the basis of age.
Take Emma “Grandma” Gatewood. In 1955, at the age of 67, she hiked the entire 2,180-mile Appalachian Trail. That was the first time she hiked the AT; she did it again in 1960 at age 72, and again, when she was 75, in 1963. Lee Barry became the oldest person to thru-hike the AT when he completed the trail in 2004 at age 81. The oldest AT section hiker was 86 when he finished wrapped up the trail.
Closer to home, Triangle hikers have been trying to keep pace with Rod Broadbelt since  he started his monthly hikes, mostly at Umstead State Park, in the 1990s. Rod goes anywhere from 8 miles (in the dead of summer) to 22 miles (in the briskness of February) on his hikes, which often leave much younger hikers gasping for breath. On a hike in 2012 he said his goal was to continue leading the hikes after he turns 80. He was 78 at the time.
And lest you be an older hiker and think you don’t have the knees for hiking, we have two words of advice: hiking poles. For just as full-suspension bikes have extended the riding lives of many an older mountain biker, and the over-sized tennis racket meant more control and less darting about the court for aging tennis players, so have hiking poles made it possible for the weak-kneed to keep on hiking. Plus, with poles, not only do you still get a good cardio workout, but your upper body gets to share the toning benefits of a hike.
We can’t blame Kathy for wishing she’d started hiking sooner; think of all the great places she’s missed seeing. But then, think of all the great places she’ll visit in the next 20 years.
Or 40.

* * *

Better later …

Whether you’re young or older, if you’re interested in getting into hiking and seek a supportive environment, check out our GetHiking! Triangle hiking program.

Hike with Rod

Rod Broadbelt’s next monthly hike is March 11. It’s his annual Wilderness Hike, and while it’s short by Broadbeltian standards — 10 miles — it’s mostly off-trail. You’ll see some especially fetching terrain on this hike.

Can’t make this one? On April 8, Rod will do his 14-mile hike to Carter-Finley Stadium and back.

Questions? Email Rod at rbroadbelt@nc.rr.com or call, before 7 p.m., 919.363.6611.

The post Hiking: Better late than never appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

How many fall into this category I can’t say. Though I am curious, I don’t ask age. It has little bearing on what we do, be it a 4-mile hike after work or a 4-day, 40-mile backpack trip in the mountains, and would only serve to suggest that one’s age is somehow relevant. There’s a curious mix of patience, determination and que sera, sera that drives these folks beyond what society at large sees possible — and appropriate — for their demographic, a demographic that as recently as 1970s was more likely to be planning their final destination than their next.

These folks need no convincing that age is a number that seems less real and consequential as the years go by. (I’m 60!? How did that happen?)

If you’re not yet in this camp, allow me to make plans for you Friday night: head to Ninth Street in Durham where Ashton Applewhite will discuss her new book “This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Aging” (which evolved from her 8-year-old blog of the same name).

“This Chair Rocks,” says her web site, “traces Applewhite’s journey from apprehensive boomer to pro-aging radical, and in the process debunks myth after myth about late life.” In March, she told the Washington Post she hopes the book “will transform the way Americans think of aging in the same way ‘The Feminine Mystique’ helped catalyze the women’s movement half a century ago.”

Applewhite, who is 63, got turned on to the topic of aging while working on a book project — she was an editor at the time — about people in their 80s who still worked.

“I started learning about longevity,” she told the Post, “and everything I heard was so much more positive than the common wisdom.” Like the fact there is a “U-curve” for happiness (happiness declines in young adulthood and increases for people over 50), and that only 4 percent of people over 65 live in nursing homes.

Of particular interest, “This Chair Rocks” looks at how our cultural biases against aging originated and looks at how the “medical-industrial complex” contributes to the stigma of aging. (I’m reminded of the time when I was 52 and went to a prominent local orthopedic practice because I’d tweaked my knee. “Your getting old,” said the doc, “better stop running.” Instead, I eventually read “Born to Run.” I’ve been running, happily, since.)

“We have this idea of aging as loss,” Applewhite told the Post, “when it’s really a process of accretion. It’s additives.

“I miss my cartilage,” she adds, “but I really don’t miss anything else.”

* * *

Ashton Applewhite in the Triangle

Regulator Book Shop
Where: 720 9th Street, Durham, NC
When: Friday, May 20, 7 p.m.
More info here.

Applewhite will also also be speaking Thursday at 4 p.m. in Fearinging Village in Pittsboro, at Fearrington Cares.

The post Ashton Applewhite discusses her ‘aging manifesto’ Friday in Durham appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

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