The following is part of GetGoingNC.com’s ongoing collaboration with Great Outdoor Provision Co. To keep reading, click on “Keep reading here.” You’ll be taken to the rest of the story, plus a list of 10 Can’t-Miss Paddling Destinations in Eastern North Carolina.
Plan A bombed out. So it was on to … to, well, there wasn’t really a backup plan. And that was fine, because don’t we do our best exploring when there is no backup plan?
Plan A had been to paddle the 5.5-mile stretch of the Haw River from Saxapahaw to the take-out at Greensboro/Chapel Hill Road. Trouble was, I discovered, there is no takeout at Greensboro/Chapel Hill Road (though I’m told there will be sometime this year.) Had I been 20 and naive, I might have tried to fashion a take-out from the cliff that dropped down river left and, for the final plunge, included a tattered belay rope. Being nearly three times 20 and keenly aware of my medical deductible, I opted to punt.
We tend to think of paddle trips as epic affairs: get out the maps, surf the internet, pick a spot, pack a lunch, load the boat and go. Whew! No wonder we don’t get out as often as we’d like: it takes a lot of work to get out on the water.
But it doesn’t have to.
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 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.