Most of us hike in the protective bubble of a group, and that’s a good thing. You have people around should anything happen: a twisted ankle, overheating, you emerge from deep conversation to discover you have no idea where you are. Critters, including the few potentially harmful ones, are more likely to scatter when they hear a group approach. Strangers present less of a danger when you’re in a group. And there’s the social element.

All good things. Usually.

But consider: Those critters that scatter when they hear a mob approach? That’s one less coveted experience you’ll have in nature. Strangers present far less of a danger on the trail; in fact, they’re likely to advise you about something up ahead that you shouldn’t miss; at the very least, you’ll probably get a smile and a hello. And frankly, sometimes, you don’t want the constant squawk of conversation: You want that disconnected solitude that is such plus when you’re in the woods.

And yet, there’s that nagging fear factor. A factor likely born of the unknown, since you likely haven’t tried it yet. As Irish author James Stephens once noted, “Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will.”
So, aren’t you the least bit curious about what hiking alone is like? You must be if you’ve read this far.

Today, we offer some quick tips about hiking alone, then an opportunity to explore solo hiking further.

When to hike

At least at first, hike when you know there will be other people on the trail. Yes, a goal of hiking alone is to be alone But initially, you’ll want the assurance of others nearby. Here’s when hikers are more likely to be on the trail:

• Winter: Saturday 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.; Sunday afternoon.
• Spring: All day Saturday and Sunday; early evenings weekdays one Daylight Saving Time kicks in.
• Fall: All day Saturday and Sunday
• Summer: mornings between 7 and 9 a.m.; evenings from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday morning, Sunday morning.

Where to hike

Where’s  a good place to hike solo? Start with:

• Trails you know. You’re familiar with these trails; even if you’ve only hiked them with a group and you’ve followed the leader, you still have a better chance of recognizing and following the trail, even a trail that’s crossed multiple times, or a route consisting of multiple trails. 
• Trails with a cell signal. Even in an urban area, not all trails have cell service — and thus, a way to summon help if the need arises. Eventually, you may feel comfortable enough to hike remote locations without service. When that happens, you’ll want to invest in a GPS tracking system, such as Spot, In-Reach or Zoleo.

Always take the 10 Essentials

Hiking with a group, if you scrape a knee or run out of sunlight, someone on the hike likely has  a bandage or an extra headlamp. When you’re on your own, you need to be prepared. In your pack — you should always hike with a pack, no matter how short a hike — you should have these 10 essentials:

1. Water
2. Snacks
3. Map
4. Compass
5. First-aid kit
6. Headlamp/flashlight
7. Rain gear/extra clothes
8. Matches, fire starter
9. Duct tape
10. Knife/multi-tool

Safety

• Listen and be aware. If you must wear headphones, wear cheap ones that don’t cancel the noise around you. Rattlesnakes make noise for a reason: to advise you to back off.
• Let someone know where you’re hiking and when you plan to be back. And when you do get back, let them know you’ve returned safely.
• Take medications. Both yours (you might end up in the woods past your scheduled administering time) and Zyrtec or a comparable non-drowsy antihistamine in the event you have an allergic reaction, and ibuprofen, which can mean the difference between hobbling back to the trailhead and maybe getting in an extra mile or two. Also wear a Medic Alert bracelet, or take comparable identification alerting others to any conditions you might have.
• Take a first-aid kit.  Even the basic $10 pre-packaged kit has most of what you might need to handle minor injuries.

Watch the time

True, you’re in the woods to escape the constraints of time, but you also need to be cognizant of it, lest you discover the sun is about to set and you’re still an hour from the trailhead.

Watch the weather

When hiking on your own it’s especially important to check the weather forecast before heading out. If it looks like rain moving in around 3, plan to be back by 2:30. Keep an eye on the radar. Before heading out, check the radar (most weather apps offer that option) to make sure nothing unexpected is moving in. (Keep in mind that on a hot summer day thunderstorms can pop up out of nowhere.) And above all, keep an eye on the sky. This can be especially challenging in summer, when the canopy is leafed out and long views are a challenge. Check it out when you can.

Trouble?

Despite the best preparation and planning, trouble can arise. The good news is that regardless of where you’re hiking, you only need to know one phone number to summon help: 911. Call 911, and they will not only dispatch help, they will notify the appropriate land manager who can respond as well.

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Hike Solo (with us!)

Hiking alone for the first time needn’t be a lonely experience. Not when you start without GetHiking! Hiking Solo class. Here’s what it entails:

• GetHiking! Guide to Hiking Solo. Our tips sheet covers everything, from the Advantages of hiking alone to everything you need to bring with you, including Zyrtec.
• Zoom tutorial session. In this half-hour Zoom session we look at the main concerns of hiking solo, then go over what to expect on your first solo hike and how to prepare for it.
• Solo Hike (sorta). We meet at a local trailhead, review the key elements of hiking on your own, then go for a solo hike. With a maximum of 7 hikers, we send hikers off in two-minute intervals, with the hike leader two minutes behind the last student. We meet at the midpoint to see how everyone is faring and answer questions, then set off again, in two-minute intervals.

Fee: $75

Our next session begins with the Zoom gathering Thursday, July 14, at 6 p.m., and the hike on Saturday, July 16, at 9 a.m. at Eno River State Park in Durham.

Sign up to join us here.

The post Hiking solo tips (and a class) appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

That said, today we crib from our GetHiking! Spring Wildflowers tip sheet and share some insights into where to look for spring and what it is you’re looking for.

First responders

In the Piedmont, the trout lily and spring beauty are among the first prominent wildflowers to reveal themselves. 

We typically start looking both after the first warm, sunny day of February. Warmth and sunlight kickstart the process, a process that may be slowed by February’s subsequent

cold, but a process worth catching in its initial phases.

Shortly after the trout lily and spring beauties we typically see periwinkle and chickweed, then a burst of flowers that can be difficult to tell apart.

Where to look

Wildflowers can be hard to find. Some thoughts on where to look:

Deciduous woods. A good place to find the earliest spring wildflowers is in a deciduous forest. Wildflowers bloom early so they can soak up the sun and do their life-sustaining business before the hardwoods leaf out and blot out the sun. Typically, you won’t find them in woods dominated by pines, for the very reason that evergreens maintain a full canopy year round, frustrating the efforts of wildflowers to find the sunlight they need.

Bottomland forest. Especially fruitful for some spring wildflowers are flat bottomland forests of deciduous trees. The soil is typically fertile and the bottomlands more mature woods more spaced apart, allowing more pre-canopy sunshine to filter in.

Park or forest website .Often, if you go on the website for where you plan to hike, they will mention when and where you can find wildflower blooms, and what to look for. Spring wildflowers may not have quite the cache of fall color, but parks do recognize their strong draw and will do their best to help you out. Another option is to call the visitor center or park office. I’ve found some of the most knowledgable people in a park or forest to be the ones on the front lines — at the reception desk.

IDing your wildflowers

It’s pretty, but what is it? Some good ways to identify your find.

A Virtual Wildflower Garden Across Time, part of the Field and Swamp website. We like this site for several reasons. One, it’s local, originating out of Durham, N.C.. Two, it lets you identify wildflowers in two critical ways. First, by color: white, yellow, orange/yellow-orange, red, pink or purplish pink, purple or blue, green, brown dn black. But then, and this is the part we really like, by time of bloom. The site has photos of each plant from around the region, along with when and where the photo was taken. And the arrangement isn’t by name, but rather by the flower’s seasonal debut into the world. It can be a little disorienting: chickweed appears in January, spring beauties afterward (we almost always see them in reverse order). But such arranging helps you keep from mistaking a spring beauty from the later blooming field pansy. Find this guide here.

Other options:

• 

  Apps. wildflowermd.com sites seven apps is likes in this post. Most employ some technology, but follow a format similar to traditional print guides, requiring you pursue a line of taxonomy to narrow down your options and identify your flower. Our favorite is Picture This. Simply take a picture and the app uses artificial intelligence to match it up with more than 10,000 plants in its database. The app claims a 99 percent accuracy rate. We’ve been using it a couple years know and find that percentage to be pretty accurate. It also lets you create your own “garden” of saved photos for future reference, or if you’re into keeping track of sightings. The only drawback: you need a signal for it to work (though if you don’t, you can save the plant’s photo and ID it when you do have a signal). 

• Guidebooks. Traditionally, we would tote a thick guidebook into the woods and attempt to make an ID based primarily on color, then on visual conformation. It’s quite a skill to pull off such a  feat, especially with white wildflowers, which are prolific and exhibit have subtle differences. Apps such as Picture This make field ID much simpler. But if you prefer the challenge of using a guidebook, use one that’s specific to your area. In our case, we suggest  “Wildflowers and Plant Communities of the Southern Appalachians and Piedmont: A Naturalist’s Guide to the Carolinas, Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia.” A head’s up: it’s 539 pages. Find it here.
• Guided hikes. Guided wildflower hikes abound this time of year. Most state parks have ranger-led hikes, as do some county and municipal parks. Nature conservancies, land trusts and other preserves make use of the showy spring displays to showcase their work. Most such hikes are free.

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Spend spring with us

We’ve got a variety of hiking programs planned for spring, including 10-week series for Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon, a 10-week Tuesday Evening hike series and a Wednesday evening program for beginning hikers. Got a group or business team you’d like to get hiking? We can help you with that, too. Learn about our spring lineup here.

The post This week, it’s all about welcoming Spring appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Fall Wonder Hike, Saturday, 10 a.m., Morrow Mountain State Park, Albemarle. Fall color is the focus of this 1-hour hike on the 0.8-mile Mountain Loop Trail at the Scenic Vista, Morrow’s window to the Uwharrie Mountains and Piedmont below. Catch the beginning of the fall Piedmont leaf-peep show. Learn more here.

Occoneechee Mountain Geology Hike, Saturday, 2 p.m., Occoneechee Mountain State Natural Area, Hillsborough. The color change has commenced atop 867-foot Occoneechee, and while the focus of this hike is quartz and pyrophyllite, you can bet the sourwoods and sweet gums will be vying for attention. Learn more here.

Fall Foliage, Sunday, 3 p.m., Stone Mountain State Park, Roaring Gap. Stone Mountain, at the base of the Blue Ridge escarpment, is the vanguard of Piedmont fall color, the Paul Revere of Piedmont State Parks, shouting, “The colors are coming! The colors are coming!” Be the first to heed the call on this hike, Sunday at 3. Learn more here.

Personally,  to us it feels like a great HIY (hike it yourself) weekend. And one of the best options for catching fall color is along water — Falls Lake in the Triangle, for instance, where you can get a front seat to the action on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, which follows the lake’s south shoreline for 60 miles. Below are 5 of our favorite sections of the MST along Falls Lake, with a quick description of why. We have hiking guides for each; click the link for more information.

• Day-hike Section B, Raven Ridge Road to Possum Track Road, Raleigh, 2.5 miles (one way). A nearly unblemished run through mature hardwood forest with little understory, affording good views into the surrounding woods. Find our GetHiking! guide here.
• Day-hike Section L, Rollingview Recreation Area, Durham, 3.2 miles (one way). Another stretch flush with mature hardwoods and great nightlines — and rarely any other hikers. Find our GetHiking! guide here.
• Day-hike Section P, Hickory Hill Boat Ramp, Durham, 2.9-miles (one way). This stretch is about as flat as the trail gets along Falls Lake, with several spots where the trail sidles up to the lake for some nice views. Find our GetHiking! guide here.
• Day-hike Section S, Red Mill Road, Durham, 4.8 miles (one way). Surprisingly flat, surprisingly diverse; you’ll encounter bottomland woods, farm ponds, meadows, bluffs an old farm and more on this hike. Find our GetHiking! guide here.
• Day-hike Section T, Red Mill Road, Durham, 4.1 miles (one way). A floodplain forest near the start, a bluff 80 feet above the Eno midway, more typical Piedmont forest near the west end — there’s a lot to enjoy about this stretch of trail. Find our GetHiking! guide here.

Fall won’t last forever. This weekend, GetOut! And enjoy.

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Save on GetHiking! guides

Those GetHiking! Guides for the MST along Falls Lake mentioned above? Download them this weekend, enter the coupon code fabfall at checkout and get 50 percent off.

The post GetOut! Fall continues to be fabulous this weekend appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Go to the mountains. At least to the Pisgah National Forest.

Fred’s devastating visit to the mountains earlier this week caused flooding and downed trees that initially closed the entire Pisgah Ranger District of the Pisgah National Forest. As of today, these areas had reopened:

Pisgah Visitor Center

• Davidson River Campground

• North Mills River Campground

• Lake Powhatan Campground

• Sunburst Campground

• Wash Creek Horse Campground

• Kuykendall Group Campground

• Coontree Picnic Area (restrooms closed)

• Pink Beds Picnic Area

Many areas remained closed, as are the following roads:

• Davidson River Road (FS 475); (multiple slides, long term closure anticipated)
• Courthouse Creek Road (FS 140); (multiple slides, long term closure anticipated)

• Yellow Gap Road (FS 1206)

• Pilot Mountain Road (FS 229)

• Avery Creek Road (FS 477)

• Headwaters Road (FS 475B)

• Bent Creek (FS 479)

• Wash Creek (FS 5000)

If you do plan to head to the mountains, you would be well advised to check with the appropriate land manager to make sure that you can access your destination. Below are links to the more prominent public land managers:

• North Carolina State Parks
• Blue Ridge Parkway
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park
• Croatan, Nantahala, Pisgah and Uwharrie National Forests
• Shenandoah National Park
• George Washington and Jefferson National Forests
• Virginia State Parks
• Appalachian Trail

What can you do on a weekend with a typical summer forecast (high around 90, chance of afternoon thunderstorms)? Some opportunities from North Carolina State Parks:

• Trees through the Eyes of Early American Woodworkers, Saturday, 9:30 a.m., Pilot Mountain State Park, Pilot Creek Access, Pinnacle. Hike the Pilot Creek Trail with a park ranger who identifies trees along the way and discusses their value to early woodworkers. Since you’re only hiking a small stretch of the trail, allow time afterward to hike the entire 3.3-mile trail, a quiet path on the north flank of the mountain. Learn more here.
• Tools of the Turpentine Trade, Sunday, 2 p.m., Weymouth Woods Sandhills Nature Preserve, Southern Pines. Tree utility for $400, Alex. Which industry made great use of the longleaf pines that once dominated the Southeast? What is the turpentine industry? That is correct! On this short walk you’ll learn how the naval stores industry thrived (while the longleaf did not) for more than a century. Learn more here. (See photo above.)
• Tracks and Scat at Occoneechee, Saturday, 10 a.m., Occoneechee State Natural Area, Hillsborough. When it comes to critters, we’re all aspiring Encyclopedia Browns.This 2-hour session will give you a chance to confirm your suppositions on scat, your theories on tracks. Learn more here.

GetOut! And enjoy!

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Do your own adventure

Looking to do your own adventure, but not sure where to go or the best way to make it happen? Check out our guides to the places we most love to hike by going here.

The post GetOut! (But maybe not to the Pisgah) appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

A traditionally popular way to observe the weekend is to go camping, and before you say, “Wish I’d thought of that before: there won’t be any campsites left. Besides, I don’t have the key camping gear” be advised that neither are an issue. For starters, reserveamerica.com. reports that plenty of campsites remain available throughout the state. As for the requisite camping gear, look no further than the GetCamping! program we run with our partners at Great Outdoor Provision Co. Six-person tent, sleeping pads, hammock, two-burner camp stove, two rocking camp chairs, a hammock, lights — all the key camping gear. And what we don’t provide, you likely already have; we’ll include a list of suitable household substitutes, stuff you likely already have around the house that works well for camping.

If you’re in the Triangle area, the EnoFest (formerly known as Festival for the Eno) is back after a pandemic-year hiatus. Live music (more than 40 performers), more than 50 craft booths, food, libations — all kinds of fun to support the Eno River Association and its land preservation efforts along the Eno and its tributaries. Learn more here.

Ranger-led hikes

It’s also a great weekend to summit a peak in a North Carolina State Park on one of these ranger-led hikes:

• Jomeokee Trail Hike, Saturday, 9 a.m., Pilot Mountain State Park, Pinnacle. This hike of just under a mile takes you as close as you’re gonna get to Pilot Mountain’s top spot. Learn more here.
• Mount Craig Hike, Saturday, 11 a.m., Mount Mitchell State Park, Burnsville. It’s only a mile hike out to 6,647-foot Mount Craig, slightly lower than its 6,684-foot neighbor, Mount Mitchell, but what a rocky, rollicking mile it is. A ranger leads the way, discussing the geology and history of the area. Learn more here.

More in a water mood? Then check out:

• Canoe Hike, Sunday, 6 p.m., Carvers Creek State Park, Spring Lake. Paddle a cypress swamp with a ranger. No experience necessary and it’s free, but space is limited and preregistration is required. Learn more here.

If you’re up for a hike but need some direction, check out one of our guides to hikes of various lengths for various ability levels and interests. You can find them on our GetGoingNC.com site, here.

Weather

As for the weather, after a cool and rainy Friday, Saturday looks especially nice, with temperatures in the low 80s throughout much of the area, rising into the mid 80s on Sunday and close to 90 on Monday. After Friday’s rain, there’s no precipitation in the forecast.

You were cooped up last Fourth of July, you aren’t this year. GetOut! and enjoy!

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Campsites

Go to reserveamerica.com, and in the search bar (where it says “Where do you want to explore?”) type “North Carolina.” Enter the dates you’re interested — July 2 and July 4, in this case — and your options will appear.

GetCamping! gear

Six-person tent, sleeping pads, hammock, two-burner camp stove, two rocking camp chairs, a hammock, lights — all the key camping gear is included in our GetCamping! kit. What we don’t provide, you likely already have; we’ll include a list of suitable household substitutes, stuff you likely already have around the house that works well for camping. Learn more and reserve a kit for this weekend here.

The post GetOut! Celebrate this July 4th appeared first on GetGoing NC!.