Memorial Day offers no shortage of ways to celebrate the free, active life in North Carolina. In Asheville, the Mountain Sports Festival kicks off Friday and runs through Sunday, while the National Whitewater Center in Charlotte starts the day running on Sunday and never slows up.
Tag Archives: Charlotte
90 Second Escape: The boat (& board) demo
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 or slide show 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.
Today’s 90-Second Escape: The boat (& board) demo
Runs for Boston
We run for various reasons. Over the next few days, we’ll run for Boston.
Memorial runs in support of the victims of Monday’s bombings at the Boston Marathon — a phrase that is still incomprehensible to read or hear — are springing up all over the country. Here are the runs we know about in North Carolina:
This weekend: We’ve got the runs
It’s a big weekend in North Carolina for runs, especially those of the trail variety.
Coast
One thing runners love about trail races is that natural surface trails are easier on the body, especially everything from the waist down. One thing runners aren’t always crazy about: the races tend to be in hilly areas where the prospects of a PR are slim. That’s not an issue with Saturday’s Roanoke Canal Half Marathon & 8K, with follows the historic, flat and natural surface Roanoke Canal Trail. Promises event organizer the Tar River Running Company: “It is honestly a course that is waiting for you to set a PR.” Also recommending the race is the great scenery, both natural and human: the trail takes in the Roanoke River and several lakes, crosses an aqueduct dating to the 1800s, and passes the remains of an old power generation plant. Lots of distractions.
Local campground, local escape
There are times when you flat-out need to sleep in a tent but don’t have time to get out of town.
Like when the first warm days of the year present themselves and you realize it’s been … how long since you’ve been camping?
Or when you realize the kids have been hibernating behind their screens all winter and need some fresh air.
Or when you’ve had it with work and need to be as far from any electronic reminders of civilization as possible.
Times that you need to be encased in ripstop nylon but don’t have time to be encased in steel, glass and plastic to get there.
For those times, you have your local campground.
You might be surprised at how close the nearest campground is. In the Triangle, for instance, between Jordan Lake and Falls Lake alone, there are more than 1,300 campsites at six campgrounds. And the Triangle is not unique. Charlotte, Greenville, the Triad and Wilmington all have camping opportunities within their city limits.
In our ongoing collaboration with Great Outdoor Provision Co., we have identified five top campgrounds in each of the outdoor retailer’s seven markets (Chapel Hill, Charlotte, Greensboro, Greenville, Raleigh, Wilmington and Winston-Salem). We’ve compiled everything you need to know — from location (down to the latitude and longitude) to number and type of campsites to cost to what activities you can do nearby — to plan a quick trip.
You can find the information in one of two places.