The holidays are upon us — and so, too, are our holiday visitors. 

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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Tips for hiking with family and friends

A reminder to join us today at noon for Lunch with GetHiking!, when we’ll share tips for hiking with visiting friends and family. You can join that Zoom session by clicking here.

The post 10 HIKES FOR HOLIDAY VISITORS appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Tuesday, we gave you 10 options across the state for hikes suitable for an outing with visiting friends and family that may not be regular hikers. Or regular anythings when it comes to exercise. Hikes that are generally short, are flat (or flatish), and that have some sort of esthetic payoff (a critical lure when trying to pry a recalcitrant participant off the couch). You can find that post — “10 Hikes for Holiday Visitors” — here. You can find additional hike options in our Hiking Guide library, here. And check out one visitor-friendly hike in the video above.

Whatever you do this Thanksgiving weekend, GetOut! 

And enjoy.

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In today’s North Carolina Observers (Charlotte and Raleigh) I have a story about the Big Muddy Challenge, an obstacle race for families started last year by Adam Spisak of Raleigh. Spisak started the race after looking around for an obstacle race he could someday do with his newborn daughter — and finding there were none. You can read that story here.

As is the case with most stories that need to fit in a finite space, there’s always a good story that gets left out. In this case, it’s the story of Dave Case, who did last year’s inaugural Big Muddy in Youngsville with his oldest son, Owen, who was 7 at the time. Case was an unlikely Big Muddy candidate in two regards.

The first requires taking us back to the Dave Case of two years ago. At that time, his story was a familiar one: active in high school and college, Case got married, started a business, had kids. Two years ago, at the age of 37, he realized he was woefully out of shape and overweight. (This despite owning a landscaping business that once kept Case in shape, but as it grew he found himself spending less time in the field, more time in the office and behind the wheel quoting and following up on jobs.)

So Case enrolled in boot camp, Chris Isotolp’s Isotolp Fitness in Apex. “I went three times a week, I followed their nutrition plan,” says Case. “And I lost a lot of weight.” Fifty-five pounds, according to the scale.

One day Isotolp told Case about about obstacle racing. “‘You should try it,’ he told me,” Case says.

Case did, and he became hooked. Last year, he participated in four Spartan races, one of the more prominent international obstacle races. That earned him Spartan’s coveted “Trifecta” designation. This year, he’s shooting for the “Double Trifecta,” by participating in six races, which will require him to travel as far as Southern California.

“I can get competitive,” he acknowledges.

Which brings us to the second curious thing about Case and the Big Muddy. Big Muddy deemphasizes the competitive aspect of racing; according to Spisak it’s more about families working and playing together. Which is fine with Trifecta Dave.

“My son saw my races and wanted to do the same things I was doing,” says Case. “With the Big Muddy, the difficulty level was just right for kids. It was neat helping him through some of the things and to see his sense of accomplishment when we were done.

“My competitiveness,” he adds, “that was all out the window. It was kind of a refreshing feeling, actually.”

So refreshing, that Case will be back at this Saturday’s Big Muddy Challenge, this time competing with Owen as well as son Andrew, who is six, and his wife, Rebecca.

For more information and to register for Saturday’s Big Muddy Challenge in Youngsville, for the June 28 race in Charlotte, or any of the other five races scheduled for this year, go here.

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Update: Today’s story said more than 900 had registered for Saturday’s race; this morning, Spisak reports that number has topped 1,200.

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And yet for a variety of reasons you haven’t made it happen. When I ask people what outdoor activity they’ve wanted to try but haven’t, the most common response is camping. There’s always an excuse, usually built on speculation:
I’m not sure about sleeping on the hard ground
I can’t imagine going to bed dirty
It seems like a lot of work
Raccoons! I worry about marauding raccoons!
Well, the time for speculative abstention is over. This weekend, EarthShare North Carolina sponsors CampOut! Carolina, a push to get you fence-sitters off the fence and into a tent.
You can participate in one of two ways. If part of camping’s appeal is the desire to survive on your own, to erect your own shelter (a roomy eight-person tent with separate living and sleeping quarters) and forage for your own food (or at least the firewood to fuel the fire to cook your straight-from-the-butcher steaks over), the CampOut! Carolina website has all kinds of helpful first-timer information.
If you have no illusions about your capacity to rough it,  you can take part in one of seven organized events being held statewide. One such events is the Fourth Annual CampOut! Carolina Jamboree this Saturday and Sunday at West Point on the Eno city park in Durham. Sponsored by Durham Parks and Recreation and the Triangle area REI stores, the event will feature helpful information on camping, hikes, storytelling around a campfire, s’mores and more. A limited number of tents and sleeping bags are available free of charge. The event is free, but space is limited; register by calling 919.560.4405.
If you are interested in camping out on your own this weekend but aren’t sure where to go, our friends at Great Outdoor Provision Co. have you covered. Their website includes 35 prime campgrounds near seven of the state’s metropolitan areas (Chapel Hill, Charlotte, Greensboro, Greenville, Raleigh, Wilmington, Winston-Salem), plus another 15 campgrounds in the mountains that are open year-round. The descriptions include all the details you need to plan a great overnight in the wild.
Looks like you’re finally out of excuses, procasticampers. Enjoy your weekend under the stars.

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“It was last fall and I had run the Tough Mudder in South Carolina earlier in the day,” says Spisak, who lives in Raleigh. “It’s 2:30 in the morning and I’m up with my daughter, trying to get her to sleep.” The obstacle race is going through his head, he’s experiencing the joys of fatherhood, he’s reflecting on his active past — he played soccer through his freshman year at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia and has since evolved into a runner — and he’s contemplating the future.

“I realize I want to incorporate an active lifestyle into my daughter’s life, but I don’t want it to be where she’s doing a sport and I’m on the sidelines cheering her on, or I’m doing something and she’s cheering me on,” says Spisak. What he really wants to do with his daughter, he realizes, are events like the Tough Mudder.

Problem is, he discovers Googling around over the next few days, there are precious few adventure races that cater to families. “Some have a kid element, but it’s basically a playground for them while you do the race. It’s almost a secondary thought to the main event.”

That realization lead to the creation of the Big Muddy Challenge, which makes its debut at Hill Ridge Farms in Raleigh on Sept. 7.

The Big Muddy Challenge is geared to parents and kids between ages 6 and 12. The race will be a scaled down version of the grown-up-geared obstacle and mud races that have mushroomed in popularity over the past five years. The Tough Mudder series alone has grown from 50,000 participants in 2010, its first year, to a half million last year. Most races are so overwhelmed with participants that racers are sent off in waves every 15 minutes or so. Often, the events take two days or more.

Spisak says the Big Muddy Challenge course will be two miles and have 10 obstacles. Some hay bales to scramble over, water and plenty of mud, assures Spisak, but, “It will not be purely physical. We want to make sure the children have an opportunity to take the lead.”

For instance, there will be something called “Two Eyes, Four Legs.” “The adults will be blindfolded and the child will have to guide them through a maze.”

There will be no fire or electricity.

Participants are welcome to be competitive, but Spisak says the race will not be timed. “We don’t want to target endurance athletes, but we do want to attract them,” says Spisak. “What we really want to do is promote family togetherness and physical activity.”

Spisak, who manages a software development firm by day, is relying on his experience running soccer camps and as an efficiency expert, as well as three dedicated volunteers to pull off a race that he believes could attract as many as 3,500 participants. Already, more than two months out and with little promotion, the Big Muddy Challenge has 150 registered.

Cost to participate is $63 for a parent/child team. You can add another kid for $30, another adult for $33. Proceeds benefit the Rex Healthcare Foundation, Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Triangle and Playworks of Durham.

Tough the Big Muddy has grown from Spisak’s personal wants, he believes the race will resonate with other parents.

“Right now, the reality for me is that we’re looking for things that are fun do to, that are healthy and safe, and that we can do with friends and families. To me,” he says, “this checks all those boxes.”

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For more information on the Big Muddy Challenge, go here.

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