Today’s five hikes are all at the coast, and best hiked during the cooler, less buggy, less snaky months of November through mid-March. You’ll find find a different sort of escape on these hikes, a certain calm that you’ll only find here, now. The seemingly constant breeze lets the trees, the grass, the plants tell their stories. Stories that began with a colorful birth in March, that celebrated the lazy days of summer, that grew melancholy come early fall and that ended, much like they began, in an explosion of color. The circle of life lived in just eight months. But what a story to be told at season’s end.

It’s a story told in one of three ways.

Long trails

If you’ve got the time, two coastal trails would love you stay a spell and listen.

• Neusiok Trail, 22 miles, Croatan National Forest, Havelock. The Neusiok runs from the Pine Cliffs Recreation Area southeast to Oyster Point Landing. No need to rush: there are three shelters/camping areas along the way where you can camp and take the time necessary to experience the pine savannah, the bay woods, the bluff overlooking the mile-wide Neuse River, the boggy areas traveled (mostly) by boardwalk. It can also be hiked in sections, the most diverse of which is the northernmost 6.8 miles, from Pine Cliffs south and east to NC 306. Read more here.
• Weetock Trail, 11 miles, Croatan National Forest, Maysville. Such a tease, the Weetock. From its northern trailhead of N.C. 58 south of Maysville, it’s an open book for the first 6 miles. Maybe

  

  there’s a time or two where it plays coy and becomes discrete. But for the most part, no secrets. Then, right when you think you’ve got it understood, it crosses the gravel Jones Landing Road and spends the rest of its way trying to ditch you. This part of the Croatan has been ravaged by numerous hurricanes, the downfall covering large swaths of trail. Seemingly important swaths, because the only clues the trail shares from here on out are the unique metal-strip blazes (old newspaper printing plates) that catch the sun here and there. A challenge, but hey, who doesn’t love a good mystery? Read more here.

Easy beach hikes

• Just as we love a good novel to read at the beach, so, too, do we love an easy winter hike — easy in the sense that it’s simple to follow but has a compelling plot. Some of our favorites:
  Carolina Beach State Park, 9 trails, 9 miles, Carolina Beach. Carolina Beach is the Reader’s Digest condensed version of exploring the coast: in just 761 acres nestled between the Cape Fear River and Atlantic Ocean you’ll hike over forested dunes, through forests of turkey oak and live oak, around pocosins, past cypress swamps and through a carpet of carnivorous plants. The ecological sampling here is not to be matched. Learn more here.
• Fort Fisher Hermit Trail (a k a Basin Trail), 2 miles, Fort Fisher State Recreation Area, Kure Beach. Just down the road from

  

  Carolina Beach is a trail that exposes you to one of the more unique views in the state: water in nearly every direction. At the midpoint, the trail passes a World War II bunker, a sturdy concrete structure that, after housing ordnance in WW II, housed Robert E. Harrill, the Fort Fisher hermit who fled here in 1956 and stayed until his unexplained death in 1972. More info here.

• Cedar Point Tideland Trail, Croatan National Forest, Cedar Point, 1.3 miles. No need to get your shoes mucky—an elevated boardwalk traverses much of the 1.3-mile Cedar Point Tideland Trail, in the wetlands where Dibbling and Boathouse creeks dissolve into the White Oak River (then, shortly, into Bogue Sound). In addition to keeping you dry, the boardwalk gives you get a bird’s-eye view of the fiddler crabs and other marsh life below. It is also an especially good spot for birding. More info here.
• Nags Head Woods Ecological Preserve, 4 miles, Kill Devil Hills. At 1,100 acres, Nags Head Woods wrote the book on maritime forests. It’s one of the best examples of such along the East Coast, hence the reason The Nature Conservancy elected to save it beginning in the 1970s. Nearly four miles of trail take you through densely vegetated terrain that includes 11 separate species of oak alone. Also calling the preserve home are 5 species of salamander, 14  species of frogs and toads, at least 50 nesting birds, assorted turtles, lizards and snakes. More info here.
• Patsy Pond Nature Trail, 4.5 miles, Newport. Before the European invasion, about 90 million acres of the Southeast were covered with longleaf pines. Today, that number is closer to 3.3 million. Which makes walking the Patsy Pond Nature Trail like diving into a good history book. A good history in that the forest isn’t just about the longleaf, but also about its supporting characters, including the red-cockaded woodpecker, Carolina gopher frog, bladderwort, sundew and a cast, literally, of thousands. Learn more here.

Coastal plain

• There’s nothing plain about these hikes, other than their coastal plain setting.Merchants Millpond State Park, 9 miles, Gatesville. Every time I visit I think of the 1950s schlock sci-fi flick, “Creature from the Black Lagoon.” Although there might be alligators here, there have been no confirmed Gill-Man sightings at Merchants Millpond, despite the eerie similarity in swampy surroundings. The park may be known for canoeing on its 760-acre millpond, but the hiking here exposes you to some of the same treats, including bay woods and cypress and tupelo gum swamps. A great day trip. Learn more here.
• Pettrigrew State Park, 4.2 miles. Creswell,. When it comes to hiking you can go for distance or you can go to be awed. At Pettigrew State Park on the shores of Lake Phelps, the Morotoc Trail will certainly awe you with a collection of some of the oldest and largest trees of their kind in the state. Among the ancient oddities are various bay trees, sweet gums, persimmons, and pawpaws; the trunks of some bald cypress trees measure up to 10 feet in diameter; and, poplar trunks exceed six feet. “Vines as wide as human thighs wind their ways up trees as tall as 130 feet.” You’ll also see Atlantic white cedars that reach heights of 100 feet. Prepare for the slowest 2.8 miles of hiking in your life. Learn more here.

The post 10 Coastal Escapes Made for These Times appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

• North Carolina ranks 9th nationally in number of telecommuting jobs, a position bolstered largely by the state’s high-tech industry, which is more likely to let employees work from home. (Jobs that are most likely to support telecommuting — software programming, information security, data analyst, technical writer — are common here, especially in the Triangle.) Further, the trend is growing: the number of regular telecommuting employees nationwide has increased by 115 percent since 2005, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
• Between 2000 and 2010, the Raleigh-Cary area had the fastest growing retiree population in the country; the state’s Division of Aging and Adult Services says the senior population in Wake County alone will increase by 163 percent over the next two decades.

Telecommuters with more flexible work schedules and retirees whose time is likewise more malleable means that these two sizable demographics aren’t relegated to just getting out on weekends. Add in a sizable service industry with varied working hours that can leave time off during the day, and we’ve got a seemingly sizable number of candidates for midweek escapes.

Based on your input and these evolving social trends, we’re starting to play with the idea of offering more midweek hikes and trips. During the summer, we’ve offered our midweek Evening Wanders, 3- to 5-mile hikes that take advantage of extended evening daylight, and they’ve been well attended. Now, as the sun sets earlier and earlier, we’re wondering if y’all might be interested in midweek hikes during the day. Maybe even a midweek trip to the mountains, which in the fall would offer relief from the leaf-peeping masses.

We’ve already got one midweek escape planned, our Midweek Assault on Mount Mitchell scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 22 thru Thursday, Oct. 24. On that trip, we’ll basecamp out of the Black Mountain Campground, do the 5.5-mile, 3,700-vertical-foot climb up to Mount Mitchell on Day One, then drive up to Mount Mitchell State Park on Day Two and explore the rocky spine of the Black Mountain Crest. We’ll likely have one of the state’s most popular fall destinations to ourselves.

We offer this escape on a hunch. But we’d rather see what works for you. Are you up for taking two or three hours midweek for a 5-mile hike? What about a day trip, say, to the Uwharries, or Stone Mountain, or Doughton Park? And how about the idea of a midweek camping trip? What works for you?

We’d like your input. We’ve put together a short, six-question survey to gauge your interest (keep in mind that to participate, you needn’t be retired, or telecommute or be in the service industry; practitioners of the hooky arts are just as welcome).

As added incentive to take the poll, leave your email address and you’ll be entered into a drawing for a free Osprey day pack, courtesy Great Outdoor Provision Co. 

Take the survey, let us know what you think. We’ll share the results in two weeks.

Take our survey

Take our survey — it’ll only cost you 3 minutes tops — to help us better meet your hiking needs. The survey closes Oct. 4. Take the survey and leave your email address, and we’ll enter you in a drawing for a free Osprey day pack, courtesy our friends at Great Outdoor Provision Co. We’ll report results of the survey on Oct. 9.

Take the survey here.

The post Up for a Midweek Escape? Take Our Survey appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

We are, in case you’ve been trying to ignore it, on the cusp of the holiday season. The crazy, demanding, nerve-wracking, gift-wrapping, inlaw-visiting, party-attending, work-must-go-on-and-then-some holiday season.
Which is to say, we’re entering a time of elevated stress and precious little time to do anything about it.
Or so you think.
True, you may not have time to burn a day, head to the mountains and hike 12 miles. But that’s not necessarily what you need. Sometimes, just an hour in the wild can ease your defcon level and reestablish you as a functioning member of society. And the good news: there’s likely one of these restorative escapes — a sliver of wild terrain that not many people may know about — close to you.
Throughout the holidays, we’re going to share some of these retreats statewide on the BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina blog.  We’ll do five posts in all, each focused in a geographic area, each with five escapes. Our first post, on escapes at the coast, runs today. You can find it here.
Here’s a look at our upcoming posts:

Nov. 26: Triangle
Dec. 1: Triad
Dec. 15: Charlotte
Dec. 29: Asheville

Stressed by the holidays? Relief is a quick natural retreat away.

The post Serenity now! Natural holiday escapes just minutes away appeared first on GetGoing NC!.