On a crisp afternoon in November 2009 I was hiking along Pretty Hollow Creek in the Great Smokies when I heard voices up ahead. I looked up to see three backpackers, two on the far side of the creek, a third, wearing a jester’s hat, tiptoeing her way over the creek atop a downed hemlock. The two who had successfully made the passage were offering their … encouragement to the one in transit. Then, one yelled about the last two words I was expecting to hear.
Monday — never an easy time for the outdoors enthusiast. After a weekend of adventure, returning to the humdrum work-a-day world can make one melancholy. To help ease the transition, every Monday we feature a 90 Second Escape — essentially, a 90-second video of a place you’d probably rather be: a trail, a park, a greenway, a lake … anywhere as long as it’s not under a fluorescent bulb.
Beavers can be quick to judge.
I realized this Sunday at Falls Lake as I crossed a lengthy boardwalk leading to the footbridge over Little Lick Creek. Normally, Lick Creek is maybe 12 to 15 feet across. But after a good rain, like we’d had the past two days, the surrounding wetlands are flooded. Hence, the lead-up boardwalk on this section of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail in Durham County.
I heard a spectacular splash and looked up to see a radiating circle of disturbed water about 25 yards north of the bridge. At the base of the bridge, on a spit of land that wasn’t submerged, stood a man holding loppers who also was checking out the splash. Moments later the beaver slapped again.
“She’s mad at me,” offered Gregory Scott. Undeservedly so.
Scott is one of the hundreds of volunteers responsible for blazing and maintaining the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, the 950-mile work-in-progress that will one day link Clingman’s Dome on the Tennessee line with Jockey’s Ridge
Monday — never an easy time for the outdoors enthusiast. After a weekend of adventure, returning to the humdrum work-a-day world can make one melancholy. To help ease the transition, every Monday we feature a 90 Second Escape — essentially, a 90-second video of a place you’d probably rather be: a trail, a park, a greenway, a lake … anywhere as long as it’s not under a fluorescent bulb.
A lot of great stories emerged from Saturday’s annual meeting of the Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail in Saxapahaw.
There was the story of Scott “Taba” Ward, who crossed the 950-mile Mountains-to-Sea Trail for the fourth time in 2012. This time, for variety, he did the 500-or-so miles still on paved roads on a skateboard.