When Hurricane Helene hit Western North Carolina last September, we were awed by the destruction. How would places such as Lansing and Chimney Rock and Marshall, to name a few, get back to a semblance of normal?
Normal may still be a ways off in some cases, but the recovery has been remarkably swift. From what I’d seen of Hot Springs, a town that I’ve been leading hiking trips to for years, I was certain it could be years before we would return to hike on the Appalachian Trail, which runs through downtown. read more
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
In the 30 years that I’ve been either telling people about places to explore, or actually taking them there, I’ve had a singular focus: the trails less traveled. My very first piece, written for the Travel section of The News & Observer in Raleigh in February 1992, was about Raven Rock State Park. Scouting trail there on a cold but brilliantly blue Sunday afternoon, I hiked to the park’s namesake, a bluff 150 feet above the Cape Fear River, and saw nary a soul. The quiet, the view … . read more
Explore the outdoors, discover yourself.