Normally, we celebrate this occurrence with getting to sleep an extra hour. But it’s true import? Instead of the sun rising at 7:42 a.m., it will be up at 6:42 a.m. Meaning … ? 

Meaning that if you’re a clock-puncher, you’ll now have time to get in a little quality trail time before work! 

Why hike first thing? 

In addition to the obvious “Why not?”, here’s why:

• You get to see sunrise. It’s like sunset, only in reverse.
• You get to hear the day come to life. Even on a cold morning, there’s a good deal of woodland chatter as the natural world wakes up.
• Start cool, end less cool. There’s something about knowing you’ll likely get warmer as the hike progresses that makes heading out at dawn less daunting.
• It gets your motor revved for the day. You know how some mornings it can be 10:30, 11 by the time you’re fully engaged? A brisk hike in brisk weather will get your juices flowing pronto (and you can tell your boss that!).
• It sets an upbeat tone for your day. 

Tips for an early hike

A few quick things to keep in mind on an early hike.

• Check not only sunrise, but also the start of twilight. As we mentioned earlier, sunrise today was at 7:03 p.m., but twilight — first light — began at 6:36 a.m. Use sunrise as your ultimate guide for being on the trail, but keep in mind it will start getting light about 25 minutes before that. Unless … 
• It’s cloudy. Thus, you’ll want to do the same thing you do for an evening hike: take a headlamp.
• Check the hours of the trail you’ll be hiking. Nearly all municipal and county parks have hours, ditto state parks and national parks, as well as land trust preserves. Some of them have nebulous “dawn-to-dusk” hours, most employ actual hours. Some have gates, some do not. National forests and game lands are about the only public lands that generally don’t have posted hours. Technically, you are trespassing if you are on a trail beyond its posted hours.
• Be content with a shorter hike. Odds are if you’re hitting the trail early it’s because you need to be somewhere in the morning — like work or school. Be realistic about your morning hike.
• Know your pace. Part of being realistic about how far you can hike is knowing how fast you hike. Let’s put that 8th grade algebra to the test: If it takes you 25 minutes to hike a mile and you need to be to be off the trail by 8 so you can get to work by 9, starting at sunrise, how far can you hike if you start at 6:50 a.m. (Answer: 3.)
• Eat breakfast first! It’s likely been at least 8 hours since you last ate. Even if you’re not a breakfast person, you need some fuel on board for the hike.

One last thought for those of you who still mope about not having sunlight after work. The winter solstice this year occurs on Dec. 21 (at 10:03 a.m. EST). That’s the day we have the least amount of sunlight (9 hours, 42 minutes, 59 seconds). However, through a quirk of astrosomethingorother, the sun will actually start setting later beginning Dec. 7 (at 5:04:54 p.m. as opposed to 5:04:52 the day before). By Dec. 21 it will be setting 3 minutes and 57 seconds later, and come the last day of the year, sunset won’t be until 5:15:12 p.m. 

You’ll be hiking after work again before you know it.

The post Fall back — and hike in the AM appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

It’s true that if you punch out at 5 this afternoon you’ll only have 3 minutes before sunset, and maybe 25 minutes of useable light total. It’s also true that the issue is less a matter of available sunlight, more a matter of not looking for it in the right place. 

Like, in the morning.

For instance, this morning sunrise was at 7:03, and we started seeing light at 6:36 a.m. If you had your act together and could be at the trailhead at 7, you could probably get in those same 3 miles and still be to work by 9. 

Why hike first thing? 

In addition to the obvious Why not?, here’s why:

• You get to see sunrise. It’s like sunset, only in reverse.
• You get to hear the day come to life. Even on a cold morning, there’s a good deal of woodland chatter as the natural world wakes up.
• Start cool, end less cool. There’s something about knowing you’ll likely get warmer as the hike progresses that makes heading out at dawn less daunting.
• It gets your motor revved for the day. You know how some mornings it can be 10:30, 11 by the time you’re fully engaged? A brisk hike in brisk weather will get your juices flowing pronto (and you can tell your boss that!).
• It sets an upbeat tone for your day. 

Tips for an early hike

A few quick things to keep in mind on an early hike.

• Check not only sunrise, but also the start of twilight. As we mentioned earlier, sunrise today was at 7:03 p.m., but twilight — first light — began at 6:36 a.m. Use sunrise as your ultimate guide for being on the trail, but keep in mind it will start getting light about 25 minutes before that. Unless … 
• It’s cloudy. Thus, you’ll want to do the same thing you do for an evening hike: take a headlamp.
• Check the hours of the trail you’ll be hiking. Nearly all municipal and county parks have hours, ditto state parks and national parks, as well as land trust preserves. Some of them have nebulous “dawn-to-dusk” hours, most employ actual hours. Some have gates, some do not. National forests and game lands are about the only public lands that generally don’t have posted hours. Technically, you are trespassing if you are on a trail beyond its posted hours.
• Be content with a shorter hike. Odds are if you’re hitting the trail early it’s because you need to be somewhere in the morning — like work or school. Be realistic about your morning hike.
• Know your pace. Part of being realistic about how far you can hike is knowing how fast you hike. Let’s put that 8th grade algebra to the test: If it takes you 25 minutes to hike a mile and you need to be to be off the trail by 8 so you can get to work by 9, starting at sunrise, how far can you hike if you start at 6:50 a.m. (Answer: 3.)
• Eat breakfast first! It’s likely been at least 8 hours since you last ate. Even if you’re not a breakfast person, you need some fuel on board for the hike.

One last thought for those of you who still mope about not having sunlight after work. The winter solstice this year occurs on Dec. 21 (at 4:19 a.m. EST). That’s the day we have the least amount of sunlight (9 hours, 45 minutes, 39 seconds). However, through a quirk of astrosomething, the sun will actually start setting later beginning Dec. 6 (at 5:02:41 p.m. as opposed to 5:02:39 the day before). By Dec. 21 it will be setting 4 minutes and 11 seconds later, and come the last day of the year, sunset won’t be until 5:13:13 p.m. 

You’ll be hiking after work again before you know it.

The post This winter, hike at sunrise appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

As summer and its 90-degree temperatures near, hiking midday can be one sweaty undertaking. That leaves the evenings and early mornings, when temperatures in the 70s seem downright fall-like. Today, we revisit a piece from May 6, 2011, that expounds  upon the delights — and challenges — of the early morning hike.

I bolted upright, wide awake, at 4:45, 15 minutes before the alarm was scheduled to do its ugly business. In 10 minutes I was dressed, had my daypack packed, poured a mug of coffee and was ready to go. I wasn’t my usual morning self.

But then, on this morning I wasn’t going about my usual morning routine.

For the past several years, my friend Alan and I have attempted to beat the winter blues by taking night hikes. Starting in October, as the sun starts to play hard-to-get and temperatures dip into the fleece zone, we head out at dusk for three hours or so of headlamp-guided night hiking. It’s not a substitute for day hiking, when you can see things. Rather, with both of us entrenched in our 50s it’s a way to keep our legs and hearts in shape for those long hikes we hope to keep taking years from now. And as challenges go, we find we hike faster without the distraction of nature, an acceleration aided by the cold, which inspires a peppy, heat-producing pace.

Usually, our night hiking season runs through March. Cold snaps willing, we can sometimes push it into April. May, though, is a stretch, and when I suggested to Alan last week that we might take advantage of a coming cold front he asked just how cold it was supposed to get. I consulted the iPhone weather app.

“Overnight low of 45,” I said.

“But in the evening it’ll probably still be in the 60s,” he replied. “In the morning, on the other hand … .”

Our turnaround point presented a dilemma: Do we head back and go to work or do we join the great blue herons for breakfast?

Morning hikes offer a chance to settle your day before it gets started. A brisk morning walk around the neighborhood or 30 minutes on the treadmill certainly achieve the goal of waking you up and jump-starting your system. But throw in the predawn sun casting its pink glow, mist hovering above a pond, the first rays of sun knifing sideways through a hardwood forest and the sounds of a woodland slowly coming to life, and you’ve pretty much assured yourself that while today can’t get any better you’re not of a frame of mind to let it get worse.

Three challenges associated with the morning hike:

Challenge: A lot of our public forests aren’t officially open before dawn. North Carolina’s state parks, for instance, don’t officially open until 8 a.m. That’s the bewitching hour for many parks and forested areas run by municipalities as well (others observe the less-formal dawn-to-dusk schedule). Notable exceptions are lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service, of which there are more than 18 million acres, and the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, which manages more than 2 million acres in the state. (Our hike last week was on gamelands, on a section of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail along Falls Lake.) This said, note how many times I’ve used the word “officially.” Then drive to, say, Umstead State Park at 6:30 a.m. on a weekday morning and see how many cars are parked outside the main entrance off Harrison Avenue, or the neighborhood entrance near Lake Crabtree. I’m just saying.

Challenge: It will be warmer than 45 degrees most mornings from now until October. It will be warmer come summer, even in the 70s. But that’s still the coolest part of the day, and you can get in a good hour’s hike before there’s an appreciable rise in temperature. (On our hike last Thursday morning, the temperature was 44 at 6 a.m. and still hadn’t topped 50 by the time we came off the trail at 8.)

Leaves of three reasons to wear long pants on a summer hike.

Challenge: Though the morning temps will be hotter in the days ahead, resist the temptation to wear shorts. Two main reasons: ticks and poison ivy (see photo). A long-sleeve shirt isn’t a bad idea, either.

There’s a final challenge. When Alan and I reached our agreed-upon turnaround point, we stopped and took in our surroundings on a modest bluff overlooking a wetland where five great blue herons were searching for breakfast. After a couple minutes of silence, Alan finally said, “Well … I guess we should be getting back.”

Final challenge: Getting to work on time.

The post Wake Up and Hike appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Today’s 90-Second Escape: Early Morning Hike

We’re getting to that time of year when something’s happening that none of us want to acknowledge: our allotment of daily sunlight is getting smaller. True, this has been happening since June 22, but the amount we’ve been getting incrementally short-changed has been minimal. That started changing toward the end of August, and now you’ll really start to notice the change.

In practical terms, for the outdoorsy type that means less time to get out and play after work. Official sunset today in Raleigh, for instance, is 7:30 p.m. If you can scoot out of work by 5:30, you can get in a decent run or a short ride. By the end of the month, though, the sun will officially set before 7 p.m.

So what are your options? Well, the sun is also coming up a little later, but there’s something different about starting in lowlight and hiking into daylight. Thus, our solution is the early-morning excursion. We promote such early birding today with a 90 Second Escape in the form of a an early morning hike.

Tag along and you’ll see that once you pull yourself out of bed, early morning can be a pretty good option.

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Today’s 90-Second Escape: Early morning hike

The urge to start hiking again usually kicks in before the weather is ready to cooperate. Call me a fair weather hiker, but when I can’t see because sweat is stinging my eyes and my flailing arms are blocking the view anyway as they try to clear the curtain of cobwebs crossing the trail, then the experience is diminished.

Before those first cooling days of September sweep through the region, though, there is one option for partial respite: the early morning hike. True, the handiwork of spiders is still an issue, but being part of the world coming to life more than compensates.

Dipping into the archive one more time, GetGoingNC brings you 90 seconds of a morning hike, this one along Falls Lake.

Enjoy.

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