You could explore standup paddleboarding at Wrightsville Beach this weekend, you could take a  yoga hike near Charlotte. Or, you could join us on a GetGoingNC/NCHikes-sponsored, day-long hike along the mile-high portion of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail through the Pisgah National Forest.

Coast

You keep hearing about standup paddleboarding,  you keep meaning to find out more about it. You won’t find a much better opportunity than Saturday’s NC Surf to Sound Challenge & Paddleboard Expo In Wrightsville Beach. On tap: a pair of races — Elite & Intermediate Standup Paddling categories — and a Waterman’s Expo from noon to 6 p.m. featuring products, supplies and accessories for water sports including SUP, surfing, kayak, fly fishing, sailing, boating, and much, much more! (Sorry. Got carried away with our used car salesman pitch there.)

The Expo is free, ya gotta pay to race. More info here or by calling 910.256.2545. And for a refresher on what standup paddleboarding is about, go here.

Piedmont

Yoga Hike: sounds a little … off, at first. But if you think about why you hike (in part, to free your mind) and why you do yoga (in part, to free your mind), well … .

Judge this combination for yourself Saturday at 10 a.m. at Latta Plantation Nature Center when yoga instructor and Carolina Mountain Club member William DeGrauw leads a yoga hike through the 1,351-acre preserve. The hike, according to the sponsor, will “begin and end with a yoga sequence and incorporate poses along the trail as we stretch our body and mind.” Sounds good. “Further explore the fundamentals of meditation and mindful meditation as we discover the change of seasons within ourselves.” Huh.

$10. 704.8751391 to register, go here for more information on the Mecklenburg County preserve, at 6211 Sample Road in Huntersville.

Mountains

Thirty miles of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail — in the mountains — in one day? Who in their right mind would organize a trip like that?

That would be me. On the heels of two 28-mile Ultimate Hikes in the past month and a half, the urge to go long remains. So Saturday, at least three of my long-hiking brethren — Robert Williams and the Jons Cochran and Holiday — and me will set off from the Pisgah Inn and hike west to Bearpen Gap on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. You’re welcome to come along.

This is a scenically stunning hike. There’s high ridge hiking, there’s waterfall hiking, there’s Graveyard Fields, there’s a brush with the Shining Rock Wildneress, a climb through Black Balsam, and a nice stretch through the Middle Prong Wilderness. Much of the hike is above 5,000 feet; it tops out just below 6,214-foot Black Balsam Knob. And the forecast for Saturday couldn’t be better: a low of 41, daytime high of 55 and nothing but sun.

If you’re not up for all 30 miles, feel free to meet up with us along the way. The route follows the Blue Ridge Parkway, which offers several meeting points. By my rough estimate, we’ll pass just south of Wagon Road Gap around 8:15 a.m., Tunnel Gap at 9:30 a.m., hit the Black Balsam Forest Service parking area around 11:30, cross NC 2:15 around 1:30, emerge at Haywood Gap around 3 and finish up at Bearpen Gap around 5. (Follow along using the Trails Illustrated Pisgah Ranger District map from National Geographic.) If you’re interested in meeting up with us, leave a message below and I will make arrangements to put you on our contact list.

Scenic hike, great weather — it’s a can’t miss. And if you can’t make it, you can hike vicariously: I’ll be Tweeting along the way, where cell coverage allows; follow along at JoeAGoGo.

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Those are GGNC’s thoughts for an active weekend. Find out other ways you can get out this weekend by browsing our super calendar, a collection of events calendars from throughout the state, below.

Coast

CapeFearCoast.com
Comprehensive calendar for the Cape Fear/Wilmington/southern N.C. coast searchable by date and event name.

Coastal Guide
Comprehensive calendar including nature programs from a variety of costal conservation and research agencies that offer nature programs. Covers the entire coast.

Crystal Cost Tourism Authority
Comprehensive calendar focusing on the Crystal Coast. Good source for programs offered by N.C. Coastal Federation, Cape Lookout National Park, N.C. National Estuarine Research Reserve and other costal conservation and research agencies that offer nature programs.

NCCoast.com
Comprehensive calendar including programs for the Outer Banks and Crystal Coast.

North Carolina Coast Host
Comprehensive calendar for the entire coast that lets you search for events by day, by region, by county, by city or by event (based on key word).

This Week Magazine
Primary focus is the Crystal Coast (North Carolina’s coastal midsection).

Mountains

Asheville Citizen-Times
From the main page, click on “Outdoors,” then WNC Outdoors calendar.

Blue Ridge Outdoors
Searchable calendar lets you extend your reach to events throughout the mid-Atlantic and Southeast (or you can just limit it to North Carolina). Also lets you search a boatload of categories, ranging from Hiking, Mountain Biking and Climbing to Trail Running, Triathlon and Road Walking.

The Mountain Times
From the main page, click on “Calendars,” then Main Events.

Todd’s Calendar

Piedmont

Charlotte

Charlotte Observer events calendar
Comprehensive calendar searchable by category, including Nature, Recreation, Recreation & Wellness, Running

Charlotte Parent
Comprehensive calendar concentrating on things the family can do together.

Triad

GoTriad.com
Comprehensive calendar includes a Sports & Recreation category.

Piedmont Parent
Comprehensive calendar concentrating on things the family can do together.

Triangle

Triangle.com
Comprehensive calendar searchable by category, including: Birding, Boating, Cycling, Nature, Rec & Wellness, Recreation, Running, Swimming, Tennis, Yoga.

Carolina Parent
Comprehensive calendar concentrating on things the family can do together.

Statewide

Office of Environmental Education
One calendar for the numerous Environmental Education Centers statewide.

North Carolina State Parks
Lets you search for programs at the state’s parks, recreation areas and natural areas by location, by month, by topic. To reach the calendar from the home page, click on “Education,” then “Fun & Free Programs at Parks.”

National Forests in North Carolina
From the home page, click on Carolina Connections for news updates on the state’s four national forests as well as hints on recreational opportunities and a detailed rundown of recreation areas and the amenities at each.

The post This weekend: Paddleboard, yoga hike, or take a mile-high hike with us appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Which isn’t to disparage the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. Far from it. In these days of financial worry, an economy adrift and overall uncertainty, the MST is a rare constant, continuing to plow across the state. In the Triangle alone, the MST could be complete from Hillsborough to Clayton in two years. But it takes more than trail and the promise of trail-to-come to get me excited. It takes something along the lines of 300 miles of continuous, non-stop, no-reason-to-detour-for-a-bit-along-this-four-lane-divided-highway natural surface trail.

And that’s what we should see on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail come mid-July.

On the weekend of July 16 and 17 — billed as the Big Dig — volunteers will converge near milepost 290.3 on the Blue Ridge Parkway to punch through a five-mile stretch of trail. That link will create an unbroken pathway running 300 miles, from Soco Gap near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to the visitor center at Stone Mountain State Park. Provided, of course, enough volunteers chip in to make it happen.

“This is a chance to be part of history and leave a legacy for future generations,” says John Lanman, leader of the Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail Watauga Task Force, which is organizing the event. Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail is the nearly all-volunteer non-profit behind the trail’s development.

As I mentioned earlier this month commenting on National Trails Day, it’s hard to find a better workout than working on a trail. Using a rake to clear trail, a mattocks to break up the dirt and rock, a shovel to clear and level the broken up dirt and rock, another rake to clear the remaining debris … (anyone else feel like breaking into “Sixteen Tons”?).  Not to mention that feeling of accomplishment you’ll feel sometime Sunday afternoon when east meets west. Think Promontory Point, Utah, 1869.

This 300-mile stretch may be the most scenic portion of the MST, tracing the Blue Ridge Parkway through the likes of the Middle Prong Wilderness, Graveyard Fields, Pink Beds, Mt. Pisgah, down into the French Broad River valley at Asheville, the long climb up to Mount Mitchell through Craggy Gardens, then descending across the Blue Ridge escarpment through the Linville Gorge Wilderness, across the base of Grandfather Mountain, through Doughton Park and down into Stone Mountain State Park. If you were contemplating a long getaway with your backpack in North Carolina, this would be your route.

The ideal way to start training for such a rigorous trek? By grabbing a shovel and helping to get that last five miles done.

Here’s how you can help:

• Let either John Lanman (jelanman@charter.net) or Allen de Hart (adh4771@aol.com) know you’ll be there.
• Plan to be at the Thunderhill Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway at milepost 290.3 by 8:30 on both July 16 and 17. (That’s 1.5 miles north of where U.S. 321 crosses the parkway.)
• If you don’t live in the immediate region and need overnight accommodations, camp sites are being reserved at the Price Lake campground (the camping fee is waived for participants). Allen de Hart can reserve a spot for you if you let him know by July 6.
• Wear sturdy shoes, gloves and work clothes.
• Bring lunch, snacks and plenty of water.

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Wilderness areas shouldn’t be the private domain of only the most intrepid swashbuckling types who have no compunction about pushing through where the trail disappears, about fording waist-deep streams, about scrambling through rhododendron hells ever-so-deserving of the name. They shouldn’t be their private playground and they needn’t be. Provided you know how to get in the back door.

At the beginning of the week I made a two-day escape to the Middle Prong Wilderness Area at the western edge of the Pisgah National Forest. If you haven’t heard of Middle Prong that’s likely because it lives in the shadow of its adjacent, better-known wildnerness, Shining Rock. Shining Rock, at 18,483 acres is more than twice the size of Middle Prong (7,460 acres). It’s got stellar mountaintop meadows, hosts the Art Loeb Trail, is home to the famous Cold Mountain and, of course, has Shining Rock itself.

And Middle Prong? It’s got a key ingredient missing at Shining Rock: solitude. And, it that back door.

I discovered Middle Prong’s secret entrance through process of elimination. Six years ago, I was part of a small expedition that tried to go up the gut of Middle Prong in mid-winter. We were rebuffed at our first crossing of Middle Prong, which was running high and cold. In summer, a refreshing crossing. In winter, a frigid hazard that could make us miserable for the rest of the trip, at best. We retreated next door to Shining Rock.

Same thing Sunday, but on a different approach. My plan was to take the 6-mile Fork Mountain Trail — technically in the Shining Rock Wilderness but on its less popular west flank — to near Ivestor Gap, hike west out of the wilderness through the Sam Knob/Flat Laurel Creek area, enter Middle Prong on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, hike three miles to the Green Mountain Trail, then take it five miles down the ridgeline back to the trailhead. Just one problem: The Fork Mountain trailhead was on the opposite side of the West Fork of the Pigeon River, and the Pigeon was up — way up.

I sat, studied the map, saw the back door into Middle Prong: the Mountains-to-Sea Trail.

More than six miles of the MST — a trail-in-progress that will one day run 1,000 miles, from Clingman’s Dome on the Tennessee border east to Jockey’s Ridge on the Atlantic — runs through the south end of Middle Prong. And while Middle Prong is a wilderness, the MST is one of the state’s Cadillac trail systems. It’s well maintained, easy to follow. Granted, through a wilderness it must forgo blazes and signs (for the most part), but that’s small concession for this impeccably groomed path. Plus, the MST traces the top of the Blue Ridge; what water there is this high up (between 5,500 and 6,000 feet) would be easy to hop across. And according to the topo, there was surprisingly little elevation gain.

The MST, I discovered, also allowed access to the upper reaches of the Middle Prong trails that are impassable below with winter and high water: Haywood Gap Trail, squeezing through a steep canyon choked with rhododendron; Buckeye Gap Trail, a mellow hike along an old roadbed before it drops nearly straight down the mountain; and Green Mountain Trail, which hangs out for a mile or so in ridgeline forest dominated by balsams.

Stunning hiking. And you don’t have to be intrepid to try it. Check out the slideshow.

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Middle Prong Wilderness
Access: From NC 215 south of Canton (take exit 33 off I-40 and closely follow the signs)  catch the lower trails near the Sunburst campground (closed in winter), catch the MST about 8 miles up the road.
Map: Don’t even think about going without “Shining Rock & Middle Prong Wilderness: Pisgah National Forest,” USDA Forest Service, 50-foot contours, 1:24,000. Available at Great Outdoor Provision Co., REI and other outfitters.
More info: Check out the Middle Prong page on Wilderness.net.

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