Tag Archives: Hiking

A Year of Weekend Festivals Celebrating Trails

Weekend trail festivals — a weekend devoted to all things trails — are great fun. Trouble is, what trail festivals there are in the area — AT Trail Days in Damascus, Va.; NC Trail Days in Elkin — are few and far between.

Until this year.

This year, as part of North Carolina’s observance of Year of the Trail, among the hundreds of Year of the Trail events are 11 weekend trail festivals. Most will follow this format: read more

Long hikes for a cold winter’s day

The best thing about hiking on a cold winter’s day? You can hike forever.

For starters, the cold itself is good incentive to keep moving. And the more you move down the trail the more you realize what a magical time of year this is in the woods. Winter’s sunlight knifes bright through a leafless canopy, illuminating a forest floor littered with coppery leaves. Somehow, those gray tree trunks manage to evoke a sparkle. Winter’s dry air cranks up the volume the season’s quiet. It’s an experience you don’t want prematurely ended on a 3-mile trail. read more

10 HIKES FOR HOLIDAY VISITORS

In today’s Lunch with GetHiking! session, we share tips for hiking with visiting friends and family. You can join that Zoom session at noon by clicking here. In today’s blog, which is suspiciously similar to a blog we ran this time last year, we share 10 hikes we think are especially well-suited for visitors who might not have their hiking legs under them, but might well enjoy a venture into the woods.

The holidays are upon us — and so, too, are our holiday visitors. 

You’re eager to show your visiting friends and family why you love living in the region: the outdoor opportunities that make this such a wonderful place to explore. You also don’t want to alienate your guests — or worse, harm them! — by taking them on an outing beyond their capabilities. Fortunately, you can do the former while avoiding the latter with the 10 hikes below, hikes that offer considerable esthetic bang for minimal physical exertion.  read more

Jump-start 2023 with a year-end 2022 adventure

Another year, another year of … .

If your knee-jerk response to finish this thought is “… not enough adventure,” we hear you. It’s a common sentiment this time of year. The leaves nearly gone, the cycle of another calendar year is fast coming to a close. We begin looking ahead to next year with thoughts of big plans for the year ahead. And that’s when it hit: “What were our plans for this year?” And what the heck happened to them? read more