Same thing the annual Profile Trail Wildflower hikes at Grandfather Mountain, which kick off this weekend. For us flatlanders it’s the spring wildflower season all over again. And while the 3-hour hike is listed as covering 3 miles, you needn’t hike that far before you start seeing some spring sensations beneath the barren canopy along the Watauga River. If you miss this Saturday’s hike, there will be more. Learn more here.

If you’ve been keeping up with spring and wonder what’s next, then check out Sunday afternoon’s weekly Spring Wildflower Hike along the Eno, with the Eno River Association. This week’s hike is at Eno River State Park’s Fews Ford Access, starting from the Piper Cox House and heading out the Buckquarter Creek Trail. This hike will cover about a mile and will check out the wildflowers displays in a variety of habitats, including field, forest and river floodplain. Learn more and sign up here.

Most of the hikes offered through N.C. State Parks have an educational focus, cover short distances, and go at a snail’s pace. But sometimes you just feel like pulling out the stops and giving those Vasques some vroom. If you’re of such a mind this Saturday, check out The Triangle Land Conservancy’s weekly Speed Hike, at Johnston Mill Nature Preserve. A 3-mile hike at a 20-minute-per-mile pace — allow 1 hour for this hike. Learn more and sign up here.

Weatherwise, we’re looking at a cool Saturday (highs in the 60s) and a warmer Sunday, with a high topping 80 and a chance of thunderstorms, mostly in the afternoon.

Spring won’t be here forever. Take that as added incentive this weekend to GetOut!

And enjoy!

The post GetOut! Check out spring now (and a month ago) appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

• First Saturday Hike at Horton Grove, Horton Grove Nature Preserve, Bahama. Saturday, 10 a.m. to noon. 
• First Saturday Hike at White Pines, White Pines Nature Preserve, Pittsboro, Saturday, 10 a.m. to noon.

Both hikes are billed as “social” hikes and both are lead by TLC guides. That means you can expect to learn a good deal about both properties — Horton Grove with its prairie (pictured above) and beech woods, White Pines with its replication of a montane environment in the heart of the Piedmont — while getting a chance to chat with fellow hikers. The best of both worlds.

Learn more about both hikes and their pandemic-related requirements, and register here. 

The forecast is good news, too, for the Eno River Association and its weekly Sunday Winter Hike Series hike. This Sunday: the Pump Station Access to Eno River State Park. This 1.5-mile hike is one of the best mixes of natural and human history you’ll find on a hike. The main attraction is the remains of Durham’s first public drinking water source; those remains include the brick foundation of the treatment plant and an impressive stone dam. A bit of off-trail on this hike as well. Learn more and register here.

Speaking of learning a thing or two, Saturday you can do just that at Pilot Mountain State Park when a ranger leads a Winter Tree ID hike to help you identify the local arboreal population. Anyone can ID trees in spring, summer or fall — the leaves are usually a dead giveaway. But in winter, when all you have to go by is bark, branch and twig configuration and tree shape? Check it out, at 3 p.m., by heading here for meeting location and additional info.

It’s shaping up to be a classic winter weekend, southern style! GetOut! And enjoy.

* * *

More options

You can find additional options for the weekend by tapping the following links:

• Triangle Land Conservancy here
• Eno River Association here
• NC Parks here
• N.C. Office of Environmental Education here

The post GetOut! Enjoy a snow-free weekend (finally) appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

You’re eager to show your visiting friends and family why you love living in the region: the outdoor opportunities that make this such a wonderful place to explore. You also don’t want to alienate your guests — or worse, harm them! — by taking them on an outing beyond their capabilities. Fortunately, you can do the former while avoiding the latter with the 10 hikes below, hikes that offer considerable esthetic bang for minimal physical exertion. 

We give a short description of why these hikes are suitable for the non-adventurous in your life, then provide a link for additional information.

Coast, coastal plain

The Basin Trail

2.2 miles (out and back)

Fort Fisher State Recreation Area, Kure Beach

Spending time at the coast this holiday season? This hike, just outside Wilmington, starts at the Atlantic Ocean and makes its way through open marsh (the soggier parts are on elevated boardwalk) to The Basin on the sound side. At the midpoint, visit an old World War II munitions bunker that was later home, for more than a decade, to the Fort Fisher Hermit.

More info here.

Bay Trail

4 miles

Jones Lake State Park, Elizabethtown

Need to get your beloved visitors out of the house for the day? Send them to Jones Lake southeast of Fayetteville for a 4-mile meander around a regional oddity: a Carolina bay. No one is quite sure how these shallow, oval-shaped bays originated (the result of a meteor shower is the best bet), but there were once a half million of them along the East Coast. The hike around this surviving bay is half pine savanna, half swampy bay forest, all flat.

More info here.

Charlotte area

The Boulders Access

0.5 miles

Crowders Mountain State Park, Kings Mountain

Lure your hiking-recalcitrant crew to The Boulders with the promise of seeing the boulders just a short hike from the car. Then, when they’re smitten, suggest hiking just a little farther, a little farther, a little farther on the Ridgeline Trail, which will take you either south into South Carolina or north for about six miles to the main part of Crowders Mountain State Park.

More info here.

Triangle

The Peaks Loop

1/2 mile

Horton Grove Nature Preserve, Bahama

This half-mile trail is especially alluring in late fall, with the mature beech forest casting a brilliant yellow glow over a carpet of copper leaves. Ridgeline and valley hiking, with a short drop in, a short climb out on well-groomed trail. Want more? Tack on the 0.8-mile Holman Loop through a recovering Piedmont prairie.

More info here. 

Seven Mile Creek Natural Area

2 miles

Orange County southwest of Hillsborough

You’ll find some of the foot-friendliest trail around on this ramble through mature upland woods and down to Seven Mile Creek, a spritely creek that, shortly, feeds into the Eno River. The preserve’s difficult-to-find trailhead all but insures you’ll avoid holiday crowds.

More info here.

Pump Station Trail

1.5 miles

Pump Station Access, Eno River State Park, Durham

An especially good hike for kids — closely supervised kids — because it takes in the ruins of the old Durham waterworks. Brick foundations, an old dam, and other remnants of the long-abandoned water plant make for great kid exploring. The trail includes a stretch along a particularly rocky run of the Eno.

More info here.

De hart Botanical Garden

up to 4 miles

Louisburg

A short hike in gets you to a waterfall, a bamboo garden and a lake with a rock outcrop perfect for hanging out on. Venture farther and you’ll find another waterfall and one of the oldest white oak trees in the region. Something is always in bloom at this 92-acre preserve off U.S. 401 between Raleigh and Louisburg.

More info here.

Triad

Cane Creek Mountains Natural Area

2.5 miles

Snow Camp

Live in the Triad or Triangle and don’t have time to visit the mountains? How about the mountains in our midst, the Cane Creek Mountains south of Burlington? You’ll get an Appalachian-type experience on this 2.5-mile loop that traverses surprisingly rocky terrain before topping out just below 1,000 feet. A bit more of a physical investment, but the payoff is worth it.

More info here. 

Horne Creek Trail

2.5 miles

Bean Shoals Access, Pilot Mountain State Park, Pinnacle

The main parking area atop Pilot Mountain gets so crowded on weekends that hikers are now shuttled from the base to the summit. Avoid Pilot’s plenty by heading to the Bean Shoals Access and hiking this flatter stretch of trail that includes intimate Horne Creek and the expansive Yadkiin River.

More info here.

Little Long Mountain

1.6 miles (out and back) 

Uwharrie National Forest, Asheboro

From the Joe Moffitt Trailhead it’s a 0.8-mile hike up the north side of the 922-foot mountain (you’ll pass a spring midway, on your left) to the best on-trail view in the Uwharrie range. From the summit meadow you have a 240-degree view from the east to the south to the west; early risers can catch sunrise, night-owls sunset and the rest of us an expansive view of this relict central North Carolina mountain range.

More info here.

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“I love the morning,” Lisa said.

“Me, too,” agreed Karen.

The good news? With the end of Daylight Saving Time this Sunday, we’ll get to love the mornings an hour earlier. 

Sunday at 2 a.m., Eastern Standard Time kicks in. Traditionally, we bemoan the fact that we lose an hour of daylight in the afternoon. (Saturday, the sun will set at 6:15 p.m.; Sunday, it’s down at 5:14 p.m.)

This year, let’s instead celebrate that extra hour of morning sunlight. This morning, we had to wait until 7:41 a.m. for sunrise; Sunday, it will be light at 6:43 a.m. That means you can get in a nice adventure before your day begins. Even if it’s just a quick hour or half hour of hiking or poking around a local greenspace, there’s no better way to start your day.

Obviously, we think the best way to make that happen is on our GetHiking! Friday Morning hike  series. And it just so happens that our next session, our Holiday Friday Hiker session, starts next Friday, Nov. 12. Our Friday morning hikes start at 7:30, end around 9 and cover about 3 miles. You get to experience that early morning sunlight, and it’s a great way to launch your Friday. We hike a different trail every week, so you’ll likely learn some new terrain. We take a leisurely pace, with a no-drop policy. You can learn more about our Friday morning hike series here.

(And if you like the idea of a weekly morning hike and would like more options for hiking through the busy holiday season, check out our GetHiking! Hike Through the Holidays series, which includes 16 hikes, including the Friday morning hikes, plus hikes on Sunday afternoons, Tuesday evenings and two Wednesdays around Christmas and New Years. Check out that series here.)

This weekend

As for this weekend, here are three options:

• Guided Bird Walk, Sunday, 9 a.m., Carolina Beach State Park, Carolina Beach. 9 a.m. seem too early to rise, especially on a Sunday? With the time change it will feel more like 10 a.m., and that’s a perfectly civil time to follow a ranger for two miles checking out the coast’s arriving winter migrants. Learn more here.
• Alder Trail Hike, Sunday, 10 a.m., Lake Norman State Park, Troutman. Likewise, the start time for this hike will seem downright decadent while allowing you to be wide awake as you walk the banks of Norwood and Hicks creeks learning about the local flora and fauna. Learn more here.
• History of Holden Mill, Saturday, 9 a.m. to noon, Eno River State Park, Durham. Looking for a longer hike with some history? This 4.1-mile hike to the location of the old Holden Mill on the Eno River should be just the ticket. If you’ve hiked the Holden Mill Trail you’ve likely been curious about the stone wall that marks the old dam and spillway; now’s your chance to learn the story behind it. Learn more and sign up (it’s free, but space is limited) here.

Those are our thoughts on the weekend — and mornings —ahead. Make sure you GetOut! and enjoy.

The post GetOut! Time to Fall Back in Love with Morning appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Who wants to wait until Saturday to kick off the weekend? Especially when you have the option for a Friday Morning Hike.

We launch our new GetHiking! Fall Friday Morning  Hike Series a week from today (Sept. 10), with a 4-mile hike on the Cox Mountain Trail at Eno River State Trail — the very same trail that we hiked this morning — in long sleeves and a vest, which one does when the temperature is just 48 degrees! That’s a good omen for our 8-week series, which gives you a jump on the weekend without playing hooky (the hikes start at 7:30 a.m., we’re done by 9).

We can’t guarantee that every hike will be 48 degrees. But we’re pretty darn sure you won’t find a better way to start your fall weekends. Learn more and sign up to join us here.

The post Get a jump on your weekend with a Friday Morning Hike appeared first on GetGoing NC!.