As Mike, Jennifer and Karen will attest, enjoying a rainy day on the trail is all about your gear.
The weekend forecast, no matter where you live in North Carolina, is essentially this: daytime high of 80, a good chance of rain.
We’ve had a fair amount of rain this year: in the Triangle, 31.58 inches of rain have fallen at Raleigh-Durham International Airport since the first of the year, more than six inches above the normal. Fortunately, though, much of that rain has come during the week.
Not, apparently, the case this weekend.
So what are your rainy day options?
There’s always the climbing gym, and with 14 across the state, odds are there’s one near you. Check out your options at our list of climbing gyms in North Carolina.
One of our favorite outdoor options in the rain: a hike. If you’ve got even the basic gear to keep dry, a hike in the rain can be a revelatory experience. First, though, you need that basic gear; this post from March 2012 gives you that direction.
Then, because some hikes are better hiked wet that others, here’s a rundown of seven of our favorite wet hikes near the state’s urban centers.read more
Horses take beach vacations, too? Learn the true story behind the horses of Shackleford Banks on Saturday.
Are the horses on the Outer Banks on your list of mysteries of the universe? Are you perplexed by pickelball? And what’s the deal with the Graveyard Fields Overlook, anyway?
Answers to these and other questions on how to spend your weekend follow.
It wasn’t so much an “ah-ha!” moment. It was more of an “ah-ha!” day.
Saturday, our GetHiking! group spent the day exploring the Shining Rock Wilderness region along the Pisgah Ridge west of Asheville. The wilderness itself is 18,483 acres; the immediately adjoining Pisgah National Forest (including the Middle Prong Wilderness) is at least three times that. Shining Rock is known for its high elevations (our travels ranged from 5,000 to over 6,000 feet) and its never-ending supply of views. On a day like Saturday, mostly sunny with clouds scudding in the distance, it is a rare hiking experience in the Southeast. It’s also why we hike.read more
Monday — never an easy time for the outdoors enthusiast. After a weekend of adventure, returning to the humdrum work-a-day world can make one melancholy. To help ease the transition, every Monday we feature a 90 Second Escape — essentially, a 90-second video or slide show of a place you’d probably rather be: a trail, a park, a greenway, a lake … anywhere as long as it’s not under a fluorescent bulb.read more
The MST through Doughton Park on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
We have this remarkable path working its way across the state called the Mountains-to-Sea-Trail. It’s western end is atop Clingman’s Dome, on the Tennessee state line in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. To the east, it ends (or begins) atop Jockey’s Ridge — whichever dune happens to be highest on the day in question. About 550 miles of the estimated 1,150-mile trail is complete.read more
