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  One, to expose the already adventurous to the multitude of opportunities east of I-95. For instance, the region includes more than 2,500 miles of mapped paddle trails. There are 10 National Wildlife Refuges protecting 365,000 acres and a national forest, the Croatan, covering 160,000 acres. Local land trusts lead by the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust have protected another 60,000 acres, much of which is open to exploration. You can take a long hike (the 20-mile Neusiok Trail), you can go backpacking (Merchants Millpond State Park), you can go mountain biking (The Bicycle Post trails northwest of town).

• We also want to provide a supportive and instructive environment for fledgling adventurers, those folks who are intrigued by the notion of outdoor adventure but haven’t taken those first footsteps into the wild. We’ll show you where to go, we’ll go there with you, and we’ll hang with you so you don’t feel abandoned.

You can learn more about the GetExploring! Greenville program in a post we wrote for the Great Outdoor Provision Co. blog. You can learn about our adventures, including a kick-off gathering Thursday evening at the Great Outdoor Provision Co. shop in Greenville, on the group’s Meetup page.
We’re looking forward to exploring more of Eastern North Carolina. We hope you’ll join us on the adventure.

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Paddling

Rent a boat: Don’t have a canoe or kayak (or stand-up paddleboard)? No problem. We’ve found 52 places across North Carolina where you can rent a canoe, kayak or SUP — and for as little as a couple bucks an hour. A paddle is within reach! Info here.

Got a boat (close to home): … but aren’t sure where to paddle? In our joint effort with Great Outdoor Provision Co. we’ve identified 35 places to paddle near seven of the state’s largest metropolitan areas. Find everything you need to know, here.

Got a boat (eastern N.C.): Eastern North Carolina has some of the best flat-water paddling around. Anywhere. Period. Throw the boat on the roof rack and check out one of these 10 prime trips.

Whitewater: Playboater, are you? We’ve got 35 trips close to home for you as well.

Hiking

Close to home: So you’ve got house chores that need getting done. Surely you can carve out a couple hours of trail time close to home. Here are five hikes each close to seven of the state’s larger metro areas.

Farther afield: North Carolina has some of the best hiking in the country. Some of it is close to home (see above), a lot of it is in the high country. Find 20 of the state’s classic hikes here.

Camping

Close to home: For us, the temperature needs to be no higher than the upper 60s to sleep in a tent. The Piedmont will be right at that magical mark this weekend, deeming it camping weather in our book. If you’re looking for a place to camp close to home, look here.

Backpacking: Personally, we’ll be doing a little backpacking this weekend. We’ve got a recommendation or two on that as well.

Make the most of the first weekend of summer!

The post It’s Summer! appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Today’s 90-Second Escape: Contentnea Creek

Summertime, and an adventurous type’s thoughts turn to anything involving water. In my case, paddling on that water rises to the top of the list.

This summer, we’re making an effort to explore the plethora of paddling options in eastern North Carolina. N.C. State University’s Coastal Paddle Trails project lists more than 2,500 miles of documented paddle trail in the area largely defined as east of I-95. We paddled a stretch downstream from Grifton (and, because of the mild current, we were able to avoid a shuttle and paddle back up) shortly before it becomes part of the Neuse River. The Father’s Day paddle, a tradition with my daughter, Hana, was made more special by meeting Brian at the put-in. (That’s Brian in the yellow kayak.)

Enjoy the ride. We’ll be sharing more from eastern North Carolina’s waterways throughout the summer.

Learn more about paddling Contentnea Creek, and other eastern North Carolina waterways, by visiting the Great Outdoor Provision Co. online adventure guide.

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The sun was unimpeded in chasing off the morning chill, a gentle breeze played in the marsh grass and my swamp kayak rocked ever-so-slightly in the near-still water. Fifteen feet off my starboard bow, an alligator dozed. I watched for several minutes, expecting him to blink. He never did. Apparently, he, too, was savoring the delayed start to spring.
My opening day on the water with the help of SimbaSeaTrips for the  2014 paddling season, and it was hard to picture a better start.
I started paddling Milltail Creek in the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in the mid-1990s, drawn both by the refuge’s well-deserved reputation for being some of the wildest 152,000 acres around, and also by the promise — guarantee, practically — of seeing an alligator. The wild was hard to miss: the impenetrable tanglescape beyond the creek’s banks, the cacophony of bird song and assorted other swamp noises, the realization that alligators, bears, red wolves, three types of venomous snakes (cottonmouth, copperhead and timber rattler) and who knows what else roamed the reserve. Yet I’d never seen an alligator. At least that I was aware of.
In 2006 I took one of the guided paddles led by the NWR between June and August. Twenty minutes into the trip, someone asked, “How come there aren’t any alligators?”
The ranger got us to raft up about 20 yards from the south bank. “Watch those ‘logs,’” he advised. After a minute or so, one blinked. Then another. Before long, about a half dozen logs had revealed themselves. I’ve since seen a number of alligators along Milltail Creek.
As I was loading my boat, a guide with two clients arrived at the put-in. He’d been on Milltail

Creek six times this year; this was the first gator sighting. I took that as an omen for the coming paddling season.
In the late afternoon I drove north of Edenton and spent the last two hours of daylight exploring Dimmicks Creek, one of several intimate and accessible creeks that feed the Chowan River. I paddled leisurely, watching the sunlight gradually climb the trunks of bald cypress. When I got back to the put-in, I was tempted to paddle to the middle of the nearby millpond and watch the stars rise. But it had been a full day already and I still had a three-hour drive home. Best not to be too greedy on opening day.

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As a result, I find myself in a paddling frame of mind and believe you might like to be in one as well. Here are two options to check out:

• 

  Our list of  “51 Places to Rent a Canoe, Kayak or Stand up Paddleboard in North Carolina.” Not all may be operating this early in the season, but most should be on the first decent weekend of spring.

• Roanoke River Partners Paddle Days 2014, which is this Sunday. Paddle Days starts in Jamesville with coffee and snacks before putting in between 8:30 and 9 a.m. Then there’s the 12-mile paddle down the Roanoke River to Plymouth — with a stop on one of the Roanoke’s camping platforms — followed by lunch at the Cypress Grill back in Jamesville. The $35 fee goes toward the Roanoke River Partners, a non-profit aimed at protecting and promoting the Roanoke. It’s a great way to discover the Roanoke, and access to scores of local paddlers, a good way to learn about the other paddling secrets of eastern North Carolina. Learn more here.

Enjoy the weekend! And feel free to share your adventures on our Facebook page, where we’ll be sharing an adventure or two ourselves.

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Of course, I said. “So you’re in town for the weekend?,” I asked, being the sociable — and a little nosy — hike leader. “What else are you doing?”

“No,” she replied. “We just drove down to hike. We’re driving back afterward.”

Eight hours of driving to hike at Umstead State Park? Now, I love Umstead: I hike, run or bike there two or three times a week. But it’s 10 minutes from my house. Would I put in eight hours behind the wheel for a day trip?

Why Umstead? I asked.

“It was the closest place I could find,” she replied.

For future reference, I rattled off several alternatives much closer to her home:

• Merchants Millpond State Park, 9 miles of hiking trail just 1 hour 15 minutes from Virginia Beach.
• Medoc Mountain State Park, 10 miles of trail, 2 hours 20 minutes.
• Goose Creek State Park: 8 miles, 2 hours, 30 minutes.
• Nags Head Woods Ecological Preserve:  5 miles, 1 hour, 40 minutes
• Alligator River and Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuges, both with miles of gravel roads, both within a couple hours.

She was surprised. None of those options turned up in her Google search.

I shared this story last Wednesday with members of the Northeast Commission, one of seven statewide regional economic development organizations created in the 1990s by the General Assembly (and defunded as of June 30 this year by the same). The Northeast Commission represents 16 counties in the northeast corner of the state, and one of their focus areas has been figuring out how to boost ecotourism in the region. Hence, the preponderance of shaking heads at the table.

Getting the message out about northeast North Carolina’s adventure potential has been an ongoing challenge.

The woman from Virginia Beach should have quickly learned of the hiking options in her own North Carolina backyard. She should also have learned that there was no better time to hike a coastal swamp or forest than on a day when the daytime high wouldn’t get much above 60, remaining just cool enough to keep the local pest population from activating.

And hiking isn’t even what the region is known for. Or should be known for.

It’s a paddling paradise.

Paddling intimate blackwater creeks; paddling lazy rivers, paddling mysterious swamps, paddling marshes, sounds, the ocean. Some of the best flat-water paddling in the country, and it remains a well-kept secret, much to the Northeast Commission’s dismay.

There are hundreds of miles of designated paddle trails in the northeast region. For years, access was pretty much by word-of-mouth; only the locals knew which underpass made for a good put-in, which little-known boat ramp a decent take-out. Then, in the 1990s came the North Carolina Coastal Plain Paddle Trails guide, which identified access points on more than 2,500 miles of waterways in the coastal plain. Helpful, but it doesn’t offer a sense of what each section is like. You get more of that in Paul Ferguson’s “Paddle Trails of Eastern North Carolina.” But as I told the NEC, in order to lure folks you need to give them a good sense of what they’re driving from, say, Philadelphia — or even Raleigh — for.

There are some sparks of that.

• Roanoke River. It doesn’t take but 30 seconds on the Roanoke River Partners website before you’re ready to reserve one (or several) of the 16 camping platforms on the river. For each platform there are photos, details about the campsite and an enticing description. You can reserve a site immediate, online.
• Pamlico County Paddle Trails. This site includes the necessary details and esthetic insights helpful in planning a trip. Waterways coverd are the Bay River, Goose Creek, Bay River to Oriental, Oriental, Oriental to Upper Broad Creek.
• Albemarle Regional Paddle Trails. This site acts as a clearinghouse for more localized maps in the Albemarle region.

That’s a start to help you plan a paddle trip to the northeast part of the state.

Another way to learn the area? Attend an event, where you’ll be guided and have the opportunity to rub shoulders with local paddlers, who may, if you seem like a decent sort, share a local favorite trip or two.

Two upcoming events we know of:

• Roanoke River Paddle Days, Sunday, April 6, 7:30 a.m. Coffee and “breakfast snacks” start the day, followed by a 12-mile paddle from Jamesville to Plymouth. There’s a rest stop at the Bear Run Camping Platform (so you can check and see what that’s about), followed by lunch back in Jamesville, at the Cypress Grill. Cost is $35, with proceeds benefitting the Roanoke River Partners. A great introduction to the Roanoke.
• Paddle for the Border, Saturday, May 3, 8 a.m., Dismal Swamp Canal. You know those promotions where someone dumps about 400 little rubber ducks into a river for comic effect? That’s the image that comes to mind with Paddle for the Border, an annual occurrence where 375 canoes and kayaks paddle the 7.5 miles from North Carolina’s Dismal Swamp State Park in South Mills north to Chesapeake, Va. $40 fee includes shuttle, breakfast and lunch. Adding to the paddle’s allure is the Great Dismal’s colorful past. If you sign up, plan to read Bland Simpson’s “The Great Dismal: A Carolinian’s Swamp Memoir”beforehand.

This is the tip of the iceberg, but it’s a start. We’ll work to explore beneath the northeast’s surface in the months ahead.

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