Here are a few things to keep in mind with the time change: 

• We have an hour more daylight in the morning. The extra hour is nice if you like to get in a morning run, ride or walk before work. On Saturday, sunrise is at 7:38:19 a.m.; Sunday, it’s 6:39:17 a.m.
• Plan your afternoon adventures accordingly. It’s easy to keep thinking, “Ahh, I’ll be done by 6.” But if you’re done at 6 p.m. on Sunday, the sun already set 45 minutes earlier and you’ll be 20 minutes past twilight. It will be dark. Better bring a headlamp.
• Don’t despair: it won’t last long. We will only lose another 15 minutes of afternoon sunlight before the tide turns. Though overall daylight keeps diminishing until Dec. 21, the first day of winter, we actually start regaining afternoon sun on Dec. 7. In fact, by the time December is over we will have gained back 10 minutes of afternoon sunlight.
• Don’t be afraid of the dark. We love going out at night, especially with the aid of today’s versatile and lightweight headlamps. It’s probably not something you want to do on your own row first time or two. Luckily, you can join us on one of our GetHiking! Fall Night Hikes, held on different trail around the Triangle. You’ll get a guide with tips for hiking at night, a map and route description of that night’s hike, a loaner headlamp, and the assurance that a guide will get you safely back to the trailhead. It’s a great way to get on the trail during winter. Learn more and sign up here.
• March 10 is only 140 days away. March 10, at 2 a.m. — that’s when Daylight Saving Time returns.

Come explore with us on the dark side!

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GetHiking! at Night

GetHiking! Fall Night Hikes are held on different trail around the Triangle. You’ll get a guide with tips for hiking at night, a map and route description of that night’s hike, a loaner headlamp, and the assurance that a guide will get you safely back to the trailhead. There are three hikes in the series, all on Wednesdays: Nov. 8, Nov. 15, Nov. 29.

Learn more and sign up here.

The post Sunday we fall back; here’s how to cope appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

It was a late November night in the late 1990s and Alan and I were hiking a stretch of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail along Falls Lake. Though we’d been mountain biking at night for two or three years, the notion of hiking in the dark had only recently occurred to us. Making our way through the woods in the quiet of night made us a bit giddy; instead of two guys in their late 40s, we were like a couple of 10-year-olds who’d snuck out of our bedroom windows on a clandestine adventure.

Clandestine, in part, because the end of Daylight Saving Time traditionally meant the end of getting in a midweek hike after work. We were supposed to concede to the night, to restrict ourselves weekend hikes only. We were expected to go into midweek hibernation.

Instead, we were reinventing the notion of winter hiking.

Cone of Solitude

On a night hike, your world is reduced to the 20-foot-or-so beam of light cast by your headlamp. Your world is shrunk to what your lumens can illuminate, and there’s a certain degree of comfort in that. Think of how overwhelming it can be navigating a crowded downtown street at lunch, or making your way through the mall on a Saturday afternoon. On the trail at night, your headlamp reduces your world to an impenetrable fortress. Maxwell Smart had his Cone of Silence, a night hike offers a cone of solitude.    

Another curious thing about your 20-foot world? It actually makes hiking safer. People fear they’ll be stumbling and bumbling down the trail on a night hike, that hiking in the dark isn’t only unsafe, it’s insane. In reality, with your world reduced to the 20 feet of trail in front of you, you’re less likely to be distracted by the visual temptations beyond. At night, it’s almost instinctual that you stop whenever you’re tempted to look off trail. You trip over far fewer rocks and roots in the dark.

That said …

Not every trail is meant for a night hike. Many, for instance, have hours and it’s considered trespassing if you disregard them. Trails that have steep drops or that aren’t particularly well blazed may be off the trail as well: there’s a good deal of looking down on a night hike, making it easy to miss a subtle turn. On a night hike, you stop and take stock of your location, checking for blazes more often than you do during the day. You do a number of things differently on a night hike (for tips on how to best approach a night hike see the link to a post from last year, below).

All of this is why we suggest you tag along with us on our new monthly night hike series, which begins this month and runs through the last week of Standard Time. We know the places that are legal to hike between dusk and dawn, and for the places where it’s not allowed, we get permission. We have extra headlamps, we have extra batteries, and we’ll share some thoughts about navigating at night. If you’re intrigued by the idea of getting in a midweek hike year-round, but are hesitant about hiking in the dark on your own, it’s a good opportunity. 

Besides, when was the last time you snuck out your bedroom window at night to have a little fun?

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Come night hike with us

In the Triangle, we’re about to launch our Fall Night Hikes series, one night hike a a week, most on Wednesdays, at a different spot around the Triangle. It’s a good introduction for the night-hike curious. Learn more and register here.

Learn more about night hiking

Check out our post from last week, Fall on the Trail is even better with a Night Hike,, where you’ll find tips on night hiking, from the gear you need to evaluating a good trail for night hiking, to the assorted benefits of hiking under the stars. Check it out.

Cone of Silence?

See this marvel of Cold War spy technology in action here.

The post Enjoy the solitude of a night hike appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Why?

Because if I kick my day off any other way it doesn’t go as smoothly. Here’s what the routine of that walk, also 45 minutes, does for me:

• Gets my juices flowing. Both physically and mentally there are chemically related things going on that rev our bodies. I can’t readily explain them — but our friends at WebMD.com can; read about here. 
• Gets the day in order. In a previous life, I wrote a daily newspaper column, and I wrote it at 4:30 in the morning, while my mind was blank and before my brain had a chance to get in the way. Same here. Before the clutter sets in, I have a chance to plot the day.
• Establishes a can-do sense for the rest of the day. Though my ramble is rote, I still take satisfaction in the fact I’ve launched the day with a 45-minute aerobic activity. Even — especially! — on a cold morning, even on a drizzly morning. I’ve walked three miles — what else can I get done?
• Sets a healthy tone for the day. If I start the day with a brisk hike, I’m more likely to come home and have a breakfast of yogurt and banana, rather than a PopTart two-pack. That trend carries throughout the day. Part of the reason, in my case, is that I’m an anxious eater and if I’ve worked off some of that anxiety on a walk, that’s one less sleeve of Nutter Butters I’m likely to devour.
• Jumpstarts my energy level. It’s a curious thing that expending energy actually boosts energy. Again, not sure why energy begets energy, but it’s true. Granted, I may end up going to sleep a few minutes earlier by day’s end, but it will be a sound sleep.
• Sets a positive tone for the day. Based on all of the above, how could it not?

And frankly, heading out first — OK, second — thing is no hardship, especially come summer. Two main reasons:

• It’s the coolest part of the day. On a day that could top 90 you might start out in the upper 60s.
• Early morning light. The beauty of which can’t be explained. You simply have to see it for yourself.

That said, the sun rises right now shortly before 6 a.m. Imagine getting a hike in, every morning, before 8.

Try it and you’ll see how easy it is to make a first-thing hike a first-rate routine.

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Hike with us!

Sound appealing but not sure you’ve got the discipline to make it happen on your own, at least not at the start? Then join us on our …

GetHiking! Friday Morning Hike Series. Every Friday morning, starting June 10 through July 29, we hike 3-4 miles starting at 8 a.m. at a different location in the Triangle. Learn more and sign up to join us here.

The post Hiking: The Routine Way to Start the Day appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Basin Hike, Saturday, 10 a.m., Fort Fisher State Recreation Area, Kure Beach. This is about the time when we start getting excited about hiking at the coast. I know, we’re just hitting peak color in the Piedmont, but the cool temperatures and clear skies are made for a coastal adventure. And this hike is always the first one that comes to mind: the 1.1-mile hike starting on the beach, heading inland through salt marsh, past a World War II bunker that once housed something of a celebrity, and finally to an overlook overlooking The Basin and Zeke’s Island beyond. Some of the most wide-open space you’ll encounter on trail in North Carolina. Space is limited, reserve a spot by calling 919.458.5798. Learn more here.

Fall Birdwatching Hike, Saturday, 2 p.m., Lake James State Park, Nemo. As the event description accurately notes, the Paddy’s Creek area, where the hike will be held, “offers just the right mix of open water, shoreline woods and fields to see lots of species ….” And on this guided hike, with Ranger Jamie Cameron as your guide, you’ll learn what those species are. Bring binos and a field guide, if you have ‘em. Learn more here.

Birding and Nature Hike, Sunday, 8 a.m., New River State Park, Laurel Springs. Often in the deep woods, you hear birds, but you don’t always see them. Thus, a more useful way to ID a bird is by its call. That’s the goal on this 2-mile hike: learning to identify a call and understand what it likely means. Learn more here.

Hike DIY

Three more options, all DIY (with a little direction):

• The weekend’s weather begs for a long day on the trail. A reminder that we wrote about long trails in the region on Oct. 20. Find “Long Hikes for Cool Fall Days” here.
• You can find 5 more long hikes in our eguide, “5 Long Hikes for Getting in Shape,” available in our store, here.
• If you’re looking for a hike that’s more season-specific, check out our “3 Hikes for Mid Fall,” also available in our store, here.

Whatever you do this weekend, GetOut! And enjoy.

The post GetOut! Another great weekend to fall for fall appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

After paying weekly visits to Seven Mile Creek Natural Area west of Hillsborough for eight months, last week I finally had the chance to share this find with other hikers. They were equally impressed.

It was the first of our weekly GetHiking Sunrise, Sunset Summer Beat the Heat Hikes, and it lived up to the hype. Thunderstorms that had been threatening to flare throughout the afternoon vanished by hike time (7 p.m.) and we were treated to the late day light that’s special to the season. As the light faded, over rocky Seven Mile Creek and the surrounding low hills, we could feel it taking the temperature with it. We weren’t exactly chilled by hike’s end — the temperature was 89 less than an hour before the hike — but between the sheltering canopy above and a 7-degree drop by hikes end, we were no longer melting into our boots. You can see a video of that hike last Wednesday on Friday’s post.

Today, we offer a peak at this week’s Sunrise, Sunset hike, this one on the front end of the day, on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail at Falls Lake. We’ll greet the day at 6:30 a.m., with a hike on one of the curiously less-frequented sections of the MST along Falls Lake, the stretch between Red Mill Road and Old Oxford Road in Durham. We’ll hike a 3-mile stretch of the trail (6 miles total, out-and-back) that includes bottomland forest and climbing a bluff overlooking the Eno River. The temperature around hike time should be around 70. The temperature and the emerging light should be more than enough incentive to rouse ourselves awake before sunup.

Sunrise, sunset: the two best times of day to be on the trail in summer.

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Join us

While our Wednesday GetHiking! Sunrise, Sunset Summer Beat the Hear Hike Series is full, we still have a few slots remaining for our Tuesday edition, which begins this Tuesday with the aforementioned Seven Mile Creek sunset hike. The hikes are limited to 8 hikers, masks are required at the trailhead, social distancing is enforced on the trail. There are eight hikes in the series, six at sunset, two at sunrise. Hikes range in distance from 2 to 6 miles. Sunset hikes begin at 7 p.m., sunrise hikes at 6:30 a.m. Cost is $95, and includes a guide (including map and detailed route description) for each hike, a copy of “Explore Your Neighborhood: A Guide to Discovering the World Immediately Around You,” and loaner headlamps. Learn more and sign up to join us here.

The post Monday, Monday: A week of early and late hikes appeared first on GetGoing NC!.