With Joe as my stepdad, it’s no surprise that I grew up in the woods. My senior year of high school, he brought a couple of my friends and me backpacking with one of his groups. I caught the backpacking bug immediately.

My love for hiking fueled a senior year full of trips with my friends, as well as some solo trips. The summer before my freshman year at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I spent a month on the Appalachian Trail, hiking just about all of Virginia. I find myself back on the trail every time I need space to reset.

During my freshman year at UNC I struggled to find a community of folks who shared my love for getting outside. So I founded the Carolina Adventure Club, a university-registered club for outdoor adventure lovers of all experience levels. Many participants were new to hiking and backpacking, so we worked to secure loaner gear and learn best practices.

When Joe asked me to help lead the Sunday Series hikes, I leaped at the opportunity. The hikers generally have more experience than my club hikers and have a range of motivations for getting out. Most hikers want to stay active; some are pushing themselves to try something new; many have been yearning for a community with which to share their love for hiking – just as I was!

I love getting out every Sunday to trek and catch up with the hikers. I’ve loved meeting people I might not otherwise meet, over a common appreciation for being active outdoors. I enjoy our wide range of conversations – from the highlights of their last big trip to recipes to hidden talents and untold stories. I love watching their love for the outdoors grow as they become stronger hikers – a pairing that has them eager to start packing on the miles.

Plus, the Sunday Series seems to have been in cahoots with Mother Nature because we’ve had impeccable weather every Sunday afternoon, which only sweetens the deal — a deal that didn’t need sweetening to begin with.

Interested?

Think you might be interested in leading a hike for one of our 8 GetHiking! Chapters, in North Carolina and Virginia? Express your interest by emailing us at info@getgoingnc.com. We’ll send you our Hike Leader Guidelines and a short questionnaire.

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Thus began the evaluation process we go through when deciding whether the weather will affect a planned hike. It’s a process that goes something like this:

• Check the forecast. I started following the forecast for Tuesday night a week ago. There was a suggestion of weekend snow at the time, though, as is often the case with snow, the amounts were vague, as were the locations to be affected. Usually for a day hike, I don’t start checking the forecast until two or three days out; for overnight trips, I begin checking about a week in advance to get a general idea of what might be coming. Three days out I will take a second, more serious look. If it appears weather could be an issue, I’ll …
• Consider the nature of the trip and who’s on it. The Tuesday Night Hike roster is a mix of experienced and less-so hikers. A decision about whether to hike in this case is complicated by the fact that the hike is at night, and not all the hikers — even the experienced ones — are as comfortable hiking under the lights. In general, if it’s an entry level trip I’ll judge the weather with a more critical eye for two reasons: 1) these are beginners, just starting out and might not have the gear to deal with rain, with cold or less- than-ideal conditions; 2) We want beginners to have a good first experience. You do an overnight trip with daytime temperatures around 70, overnight lows around 50 and clear skies, and who isn’t going to want to come back? On the other hand, if it’s an experienced group, we’re more likely to proceed if the weather isn’t optimal. About the only two things that will scuttle a trip for experienced folks is extreme cold (15 F or less) and a high likelihood of electrical storms.
• Revisit the forecast three days out. Three days, because if the weather looks convincingly grim, this is when you need to begin alerting people that the hike may not happen, less so for a shorter day hike, but certainly for an overnight trip that people have to make plans in advance for, like canceling a pet sitter. I usually don’t make a final call this far out, but will let people know that the trip is in jeopardy and when we will let them know if it’s still on. In the  case of our Tuesday Night Hike, on Saturday, milk, bread and eggs were flying off the shelf as the forecasters were growing more certain of snow, and lots of it.
• Revisit the forecast a day out. On Monday, it was less the forecast for Tuesday night and more the reality of the day. I wasn’t sure how much snow had fallen at the trailhead, but it was likely between 8 and 13 inches. The forecast called for some warming Monday and afternoon and Tuesday, but refreezing overnight: this snow wasn’t going anywhere soon. And what did melt was likely to turn to ice once the sun set. Usually, we’ll wait until the day before, at the earliest, to call a hike. Much can change in a forecast, which is why we sometimes will wait up until three hours before a hike to make a final call (in such cases, that’s often because we’re waiting to see what the weather radar, the final arbiter, indicates). A day out is when we start to consider our four cancellation factors: 
  • Cancellation factor I: Cold. We usually don’t cancel a hike because of extreme cold, but we will let people who have signed up know what kind of gear they will need to survive — yes, survive — a very cold hike.
  • Cancellation factor II: Rain. I personally love hiking in the rain, even a sustained rain. But then, I’ve got the gear for it. A forecast that looks reliably wet warrants an email to those who’ve signed up as to the rain gear they will need if they don’t want to wind up damp and dour.
  • Cancellation factor III: Road conditions. This is a big one. If just getting to the trailhead could be treacherous, we’ll cancel a hike.
  • Cancellation factor IV: Trail conditions. This is more a question of what’s going on in the days preceding a hike. For instance, if we see monsoon rains the week leading up to a hike, but a big smiling sun the day of the hike, we aren’t automatically going ahead with the hike. This is where a hike leader’s knowledge of the trail is key: Are there lots of low spots? Rock-hop creek crossings that may be running high? Places where the trail runs alongside a lake or creek? If the hike leader isn’t intimately familiar with the trail, then he/she should get the opinion of someone who is.

Using the above criteria, here’s the decision we came to regarding our Tuesday Night Hike. The temperature was looking favorable, topping 40 the afternoon of the hike, then staying above freezing until hike’s end, at about 8:30 p.m. However, the hike was in a bit of a snowfall-reporting no man’s land, somewhere between our 13 inches and RDU’s 7. With sunny skies and above-freezing temperatures, that meant some melt, but a fair amount of snow likely remaining. Slushy trails, basically. While the temperature appeared to be staying above freezing, it wasn’t by much. With the rural roads leading to the trailhead rimmed by shade-casting trees, icy spots on the drive home remain a possibility.

Still undecided, I put out a call on our GetGoingNC Facebook page for input from folks living near the trailhead. Our friend Carrie Bonds hooked us up with about the most knowledgable source on things MST that we could imagine, Jeff Brewer, a former Friends of the MST President and a longtime overseer of trail maintenance and construction. “I would postpone the hike if I were in charge,” Jeff responded. So we have. 

Now, we turn our attention to Saturday’s hike on the coastal Weetock Trail, where Weather Underground tells us to expect rain beginning Friday afternoon and lasting into Saturday. How much rain they don’t say, and frankly, three days out, we aren’t concerned.

At least we won’t be until tomorrow.

Happy Trails,

Joe

Join us

Learn more about the trips mentioned today: 

• GetHiking! Tuesday Night Hikes series here.
• GetOriented! Finding Your Way on the Weetock Trail, here.

Check out our GetGoingNC Facebook page and follow us, here.

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So, with an upcoming trip to the Uwharries, I took note that the last time I took a group there was in February, in the dead of winter with an absence of undergrowth. On that trip, everyone slept in the mountaintop shelter and we didn’t need firewood. This upcoming trip has different requirements: space for seven tents, access to water, and enough firewood to cook a meal for fifteen people.

So, I headed on down to the Uwharries to scout.

And I discovered several key things that should make this trip go smoothly:

• Tent space. I was able to identify nine solid campsites. Woohoo!
• Firewood. Our destination is a mountaintop bald; there’s some decent wood on the east-facing slope, but it’s not a bad idea to haul in some dried, cut oak, just in case.
• Fire ring. In February, we were too tired to build a fire, so I didn’t really take note of the campsite fire ring. It turns out it’s a good one, with sturdy walls and a sufficient draft.
• Water. The nicest discovery on my scouting trip: A spring has been identified about three-tenths of a mile below the summit, and it has a white-pipe stream that’s almost like having running water at the site.
• Trailhead. I viewed the trailhead as a place that will be new to the backpackers, rather than as an access I’d been to several times. And I decided that the unmarked road will be a challenge to find to newcomers. So we’ll bring a signboard to flag down our crew.
• Vista. The view from the summit was every bit as wonderful as I remembered—we can catch sunrise over the Uwharries to the east, and sunset over the mountains to the west. And the night sky, clear of light (and, we hope, clouds) should be worth hanging out under into the wee hours.

I expect to sleep well on this trip. And, because of my early-morning scouting, I should sleep well on the nights leading up to our weekend trip.

To find a well-scouted GetHiking! trip near you, and to subscribe for our weekly GetHiking! enewsletter, go here.

Happy trails,

Joe

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