It’s been — and continues to be — a rough week for a lot of folks in North Carolina, especially down east. For the weekend, we recommend the best therapy we know: a walk in the woods. Today, we pull hikes from Hike NC!, our statewide hiking collaboration with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina. For more information on Hike NC! go here.
That breath of fresh air you inhaled coming out of the house Monday morning — a breath devoid of hot, of wet, of recreational despair — convinced our GetHiking! crews that there’s no need to wait for fall in order to take a fall-like hike. Let’s do it now, our hike leaders declared. Or at least this weekend.
So we will.
This weekend, GetHiking! Charlotte, GetHiking! Triad and GetHiking! Triangle will all exceed the 10-mile mark, a distance typically not contemplated by most until it’s time to toss a fleece into the daypack. Fleece be danged, let’s hike!
Here’s what our three hiking groups have planned for the weekend:
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 or slide show 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.
On a weekend that may be wet in spots but will also be cool (and who knows how much longer this will last?), we’re advocating exploring by foot. At the coast, you can truly get away from it all (on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail’s Coastal Crescent route). In the Piedmont, it may be your last chance for a cool-weather hike. And in the mountains, you have a chance to sample a 54-mile route you probably don’t know exists.
Reduce your bucket list with a mountain polar plunge, get up to speed on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, or run for chocolate: they’re all options this weekend in North Carolina.
Mountains: 4th Annual Polar Plunge
One of the iconic winter sporting events that might be on a bucket list or two is the polar plunge. If you find the prospect of immersing your already cold body into cold water intriguing, check out this weekend’s 4th Annual Polar Plunge Benefit-t-t-t-ing Kids in the Creek and Youth Education at Lake Junaluska benefitting Kids in the Creek and Environmental Education.