The one thing you probably don’t want to do this weekend?
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:
With another steamy summer weekend coming up, rather than think about how to deal with the heat, why not think about how to embrace it instead? A couple thoughts on the subject, both of which involve water.
North Carolina State Parks offers two ways to beat the heat this weekend on the water.
You can tell the hot days of summer are upon us when the night events start popping up at our State Parks. Such as:
Stars and Planets, Saturday, 9 p.m., Mayo River State Park, Mayodan. The Greensboro Astronomy Club lets you take a peek through their lenses to see what’s up in the sky above. More info here.
The signs of re-emergence continue this weekend, with North Carolina State Parks hosting some of the more ambitious — and larger hikes — that they’ve done since the pandemic, including:
3 Parks — 2 States — 1 Hike, Saturday, 8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., Crowders Mountain State Park/Boulders Access, Kings Mountain. This 10-mile out-and-back, co-sponsored by the Friends of Crowders Mountain, takes the Ridgeline Trail south into South Carolina’s Kings Mountain State Park and Kings Mountain National Military Park. A long hike, but it flattens after crossing into the Palmetto State. The hike is limited to 30 (been a while since we’ve seen a hike that big), and drinks and snacks will be available through the Friends prior to the hike. Free, but a donation to support the work of the Friends would be appreciated. Register by calling 704.853.5375; learn more here.
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.
