We’ve run this post before. It’s what we call an “evergreen,” meaning, with a tweak or two, it stands the test of time: What held true when it first rain — the hikes we thought were classic fall hikes then — we feel remain the classics.
This year, though, we run it with added enthusiasm because one of the trails mentioned has just reopened after being closed for nearly a year: the Mount Mitchell Trail at Mount Mitchell State Park. A couple quick caveats:
For the past decade or so, the highlight of my hiking year has also been a bit of a lowlight.
The first weekend in November our GetHiking! group traditionally has a grand finale in Hot Springs, NC, hiking the Appalachian Trail from Garenflo Gap into Hot Springs on Saturday, and from Tanyard Gap into Hot Springs on Sunday.
Editor’s note: This is a piece we run annually around this time. It has been tweaked, updated and massaged.
When it comes to fall color, outdoors types take the changing of the leaves pretty seriously.
How seriously?
Virginia has a fall foliage hotline — 800.424.5683 — that you can call for the latest breaking fall color news. Operators standing by; in our book, that’s quite serious. And, curiously, quite practical.
Today we revisit a topic we first wrote in 2012: 10 of our favorite winter hikes. Hikes that, for various reasons, are especially good hiked in cold weather. For some (at the coast, for instance, it’s the only time you can hike them, lest you have an immunity to squadrons of dive-bombing mosquitoes and an unusually high tolerance for things that slither. For others, it may be a view otherwise obscured by a lush, full forest, or for the opportunity to hike in evergreen conditions, or because of exposed terrain that lets winter’s warming sun shine in.
We’ve got a lot going on this fall, for hikers, campers and backpackers.
You love a mountain hike in the fall. What you don’t love is driving there and back in a day. Or paying leaf season rates for a motel. So don’t.
This fall, we’ve got four weekend camping/hiking trips planned to some of the best hiking in the mountains, and one late fall trip to some pretty cool hiking at the coast.
