I’m reminded of this memorable event because I wonder if, 53 years from now, I’ll remember where I was on my very first Great Trails State Day. OK, probably not because I would be 130 and my memory might have faded by then. But I won’t be fuzzy on my whereabouts because of a lack of great ways to observe Great Trails State Day, which is this Saturday.

Great Trails State Day is part of our ongoing Year of the Trail activities in North Carolina. Year of the Trail was decreed by the State Legislature, and it wasn’t an empty proclamation. It came with $29.15 million for the Complete the Trails Fund (target to North Carolina’s then 12, now 14 State Trails), and the suggestion that if there was good response to Year of the Trail, more state money for trail development might be forthcoming. And it was: the state budget recently passed for 2023-2025 included $25 million for trail development.

Back to Saturday. How will I be observing Great Trails State Day?

• Will I be in Burnsville, celebrating the fact there are more than 100 miles of public hiking trails (not to mention climbing and paddling) in Yancey County?
• Will I be in Caldwell County participating in Hudson Parks & Rec’s “Story Walk,” held in conjunction with Smart Start?
• Perhaps I’ll throw the bike on the rack and head to Goldsboro for “Ride the City” for one of three levels of guided bike rides.
• Of course, there’s also the “Pinecone Pathways Special Edition Treasure Hunt” in Moore County, where there’s the chance to find one of 10 glass-blown pinecones secreted along the trail.
• There’s also the “Downtown Greenway Guided Walking Tour,” a 4-mile guided walk through downtown Greensboro.

As of 9 a.m. on Oct. 18, there were 32 Great Trails State Day events listed on the Great Trails State Coalition website, with events to be found across the state, from Corolla (“The OBX Way: Corolla Trail Talk)” to Old Fort (“McDowell Moves 2023“).

Actually, I do know where I’ll be for Great Trails State Day: Shelby, where the City of Shelby and the N.C. Department of Natural Resources’ Hometown Strong initiative will celebrate Shelby Trail Days with three days of events, starting Friday and ending Sunday afternoon. The event includes hikes on the Shelby greenway system, including the dedication of the first mile of the new Carolina Harmony Trail, a rails-to-trails project that will link downtown Shelby with the South Carolina state line. Thirteen trail-related events in all, AND, it’s held in conjunction with Shelby’s Mush, Music & Mutts Festival. (As part of the event, even though it’s not on Saturday, is a guided hike at Crowder’s Mountain State Park from the Boulders Access, which you can learn more about here.)

All in all, Great Trails State Day will be a day to remember. Perhaps even when you’re 130.

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For all the Great Trails State Day events, visit the Great Trails State Coalition website here.

GetHiking! Fall Weekend Escape on the AT at Hot Springs

Looking for one last hiking fling for 2023? Join us Nov. 10-12 for two days of hiking on the Appalachian Trail out of Hot Springs. Both hikes start from Tanyard Gap: Saturday’s heads up to Rich Mountain, then returns to Hot Springs on Forest Service Trail down a long ridge; Sunday’s hike follows the AT west over Lover’s Leap into Hot Springs. Learn more about the weekend and sign up to join us here.

The post Will you remember where you were on the first Great Trails State Day? appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

The Great Dismal is one of the few spots in the country so wild it has refused development. It flummoxed George Washington’s earliest surveying efforts, it was so wild and impenetrable that it provided safe haven for enslaved African-Americans escaping the south and Native Americans driven from their homeland by invading Europeans. In fact, evidence suggests that humans have been seeking shelter in the Great Dismal for 13,000 years. Thought to once cover a million acres, about half that is now protected.

And it’s the focus of the fifth Year of the Trail Weekend Trail Days Festivals being sponsored by the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources and its Hometown Strong initiative. The festival begins with a ranger-led hike at Great Dismal State Park at 2:30 the afternoon of Friday, June 2 and concludes with a paddle on the blackwater Sawyer’s Creek the morning of Sunday, June 4. In between you’ll find bike rides into the Great Dismal, paddling in a cypress swamp and a hike during the magical gloaming.

Here’s a look at what all is planned, along with links for additional information and to sign up.

The post A Weekend Trail Festival for the Great Dismal and Elizabeth City appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Until this year.

This year, as part of North Carolina’s observance of Year of the Trail, among the hundreds of Year of the Trail events are 11 weekend trail festivals. Most will follow this format:

• Friday evening: a night hike, maybe a downtown concert, an introductory remark or two. 
• Saturday: Guided hikes, paddle trips, mountain bike rides. We’ll start around 9 a.m., go until 5 p.m. or so. There will also be a downtown festival, with craft and outdoor vendors, food and live music. There might well be more live music Saturday evening.
• Sunday: Sunday started out as a EIY (Explore It Yourself) day, with guide material supplied for select adventures. and that will still be the case. But we’re finding we have more and more to offer, so some structured events are sneaking into the mix. Volunteer service events (trail maintenance, trail building, etc.), for one. And we may be adding birding to the mix.

A quick explanation of what I mean by “we.” The 11 events are hosted by the communities and by the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources’ Hometown Strong initiative. Hometown Strong was created by Gov. Roy Cooper to help the state’s 80 rural counties boost their economies. I joined Hometown Strong last summer to help communities in those counties do just that by helping them showcase their, in my opinion, largely under-appreciated outdoor recreation assets. Hence the 11 Weekend Trail Days Festivals, which are shown below with their festival dates:

• Elizabethtown/White Lake, Feb. 17-19
• Morganton, March 3-5
• Eden, April 21-23
• Sanford, May 12-14
• Elizabeth City, June 2-4
• Old Fort, June 2-4
• Edenton, July 21-23
• West Jefferson, Aug. 4-6
• Shelby, Oct. 13-15
• Robbinsville, Oct. 27-28

First Festival: Elizabethtown/White Lake

What will these festivals look like? They continue to evolve, but the first one, in Elizabethtown/White Lake southeast of Fayetteville, looks like this:

Friday, Feb. 17

• 3-7 p.m. –  Check-in at the Trail Weekend Headquarters at the Cape Fear Farmers Market, where you’ll find food, vendors and information on the weekend’s events.
• 6:30 p.m. – Night hike at Jones Lake State Park, Cedar Loop Trail

Saturday, Feb. 18

• 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. – Food, vendors, information on events available at the aforementioned Cape Fear Farmer’s Market.
• 10 a.m. – Hike at Jones Lake State Park on the 4-mile Bay Trail
• 11 a.m. – Guided mountain bike ride at Browns Creek Nature Park and Bike Trail
• 12:30 p.m. – Guided paddle on Jones Lake State Park
• 1 p.m. – Reading by local author at Bladen County Public Library
• 2 p.m. – Guided hike on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail
• 3 p.m. – Guided hike at Bay Tree Lake State Natural Area
• 4 p.m. – Guided hike at Singletary Lake State Park
• 4-8 p.m.  Trail Weekend Headquarters moves to White Lake. 
• 4 p.m. – Guided hike on White Lake multi-use path
• 5:30-7:30 p.m. — Southern comfort cuisine dinner/fundraiser for the Mountains-to-Sea Trail
• 6-8 p.m.  Live music, White Lake

Sunday, Feb. 19

Sunday is a do-it-yourself day. We will provide maps and route descriptions.  A “hike board” will be at the Trail Weekend Headquarter for people to organize and hike together. Potential hikes include:

• Through the vines at Lu Mil vineyard
• Paved trail around Greene’s Lake and Cape Fear Winery & Distillery
• Tour and hike at Harmony Hall National Historic site open from 1-4pm
• 9 holes of disc golf at Tory Hole Park
• Jones Lake State Park
• Turnbull Creek Educational State Forest
• Bay Tree Lake State Natural Area

More info and registration

Events are free, but registration is suggested since most events are capped. You can also find more information on each event at the registration site, which resides here. Two more sites to be aware of:

• GetGoingNC.com YOTT page. You can find more information including upcoming Year of the Trail events and news, at our YOTT page, here.
• Greattrailsnc.com. And, you can find a comprehensive Year of the Trail calendar of events at greattrailsnc.com, the official event aggregator for Year of the Trail.

One last thing. These events are for everyone. We don’t care about your experience level, we don’t care if you’ve been in seclusion for the past three years (which some of you have). The goal of Year of the Trail is to develop a keen appreciation for the outdoors in every North Carolinian, all 10.7 million of us.

Join us.

The post A Year of Weekend Festivals Celebrating Trails appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Wednesday evening, after seeing that the temperature had dropped to 73, I did just that — abandoned whatever it was I was doing and headed to Umstead State Park. A 10-minute drive, the 5,700-acre forest in the heart of the Triangle is a handy escape, especially at times like this.

By 7 on a summer’s weeknight the parking lot is usually near empty, a half dozen cars, 10 tops. This evening, there are 30 cars in the lot. Many are trail runners (I cross paths with several on the trail). Some are cyclists (at least based on their car racks) and the rest are hikers. Some of the latter, bearing heavy packs, appear to be training for backpack trips, but most seem like me, taking advantage of the first cool summer weather in a long while to enjoy eventide.

At this time of year, the evening forest light is indecisive. The summer solstice is nearly two months past, and the grace period when we’re not getting perceptively short-changed on sunlight is starting to pass. Yet we’re still not to the point where the end of every day signals the imminent end of after work daylight. For a good hour the light is consistent, muted by a milky cover of high clouds. Occasionally, there’s a break and the treetops take on a brilliant glow. Little direct sunlight reaches the forest floor; creeks run dark, underscoring the cool of the evening.

The canopy remains a healthy green, the understory as well; thus, despite the cool air the woods retain a summery feel. Listen, though, and you’ll pick up on another hint of fall. On a typically hot summer evening these woods, near the creeks and ponds, would be humming with a chorus of frogs. Tonight, only a handful — less, probably — of northern cricket frogs can be heard, their distinctive chirp, a glick-glick-glick, penetrating the quiet. Come October, the occasional, chirp of a lone holdout is one of the truest signs of fall.

Somewhere down the trail I remember the trailhead sign advising that the park closes at 9 p.m. In another couple weeks, the diminishing daylight will close the gates at 8; come November and throughout the winter the park’s official day will be over at 6, eliminating these after work escapes altogether. I check my watch and estimate how much farther I can hike and still make it back to the car by 9. I’m not wasting a moment of this evening.

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The post A cold front, a hike, a reminder that summer is passing appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Today’s 90-Second Escape: Sunset (on another busy day of hiking, biking, paddling and running at Lake Crabtree)

One of the joys of an after work workout is getting to take in the sunset. At Lake Crabtree County Park in Morrisville, that’s an especially nice treat, especially in the fall, when you can do your thing for an hour and a half, watch the sunset and still be home in time for “The Big Bang Theory” reruns.

Get a jump on sunset now, with today’s 90 Second Escape.

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