It was still on the murky side of sun-up when we gathered this morning for our weekly GetHiking! Friday Morning Hike. As we fine-tuned our clothing strategies for dealing with the cold — at 30 degrees, the coldest morning since April — we scanned the eastern sky for signs of the type of day ahead. Gradually, the rising sun revealed a mostly clear sky as it lit the autumn canopy above.
Tag Archives: guided hike
Friday Morning Hikes: Why wait to start your weekend?
Why wait for Saturday to kick off the weekend when you can start with a Friday Morning Hike. We’re on the trail at 7:30, off by 9, and even if there’s a day of work ahead, we’ve got our weekend mojo humming!
On this Friday Morning Hike — literally this Friday morning — we kick off the weekend with a 3-mile hike at the Triangle Land Conservancy’s Horton Grove Nature Preserve in Bahama, N.C., which is brimming with fall color.
GetOut! A Fall-like Weekend Awaits
Now’s the time our thoughts begin to turn toward catching some color on the trail, even in the Piedmont.
Though conditions haven’t been ideal for spotting early fall color — warm, sunny, dry days followed by cool nights — we are beginning to see some change. Last weekend, we saw sourwoods and dogwoods aflame at South Mountains State Park (a popular and close destination for Charlotte hikers), and even this week we’ve seen those first responders of fall start to light up the woods along the Eno River in Durham and Orange counties. With fall color in mind, we offer our thoughts on the weekend.
A Sunday awash in spring
There were only two hours of sun on Sunday, but man, did our GetHiking! Sunday hikers ever take advantage. We hiked about 5 miles on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail upstream along the Eno River from Penny’s Bend Nature Preserve in Durham, taking in one of the best spring unveilings we’ve seen in years. We saw vast carpets of spring beauties, their little satellite petals of white and pink scanning the sky for sun. We saw the slightly larger rue-anenome, then their less-common cousin, the Dutchman’s breeches, a small hillside of them looking like clusters of pulled teeth (only stunning). There were violets, there were bluets, there were mayapples about to do their thing, there were trout lilies that already had.
This weekend: winter curious?
The natural world presents many questions in winter. This weekend, you have a chance to learn many answers.
Coast
When you head to the coast, hiking often isn’t atop your list of things to do. It should be, especially this time of year. The bugs are at bay (or at least at a minimum), the temperatures aren’t stifling, and, perhaps most significantly, it is serene, the calm before the summer crowds descend.