We’ll ‘fess up up front: We’ve been working with the Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail to help them promote MST in a day, what the American Hiking Society believes would be the first time a long trail in the United States has had every inch hiked in a single day.

That would be quite an achievement, and one we don’t want to leave to chance. As of Thursday afternoon, 245 legs of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail had multiple hikers signed up to hike. The remaining 55 each had one hiker, which is leaving the milestone to chance. So today, we’re going to identify the 55 legs with a lone hiker, give you a sense of what those legs are like, then let you know where you can sign up to give those legs some added support.

Coast

The legs:

• Segment 12B/Agricultural Heartland – Legs 3, 9
• Segment 13B/Carolina Bay Country – Legs 4, 7
• Segment 14B/Land of History – Legs 2, 7, 8, 12, 14
• Segment 15B/Onslow Bight and Jacksonville – Legs 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20
• Segment 16B/The Croatan -Legs 7
• Segment 17/The Neusiok and Cedar Island – Legs 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
• Segment 18/Outer Banks – Legs  10, 11

The skinny: As you may know, not all of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail is complete. Of the current 1,175-mile route, about 680 miles is actual trail or beach hiking; the remainder is temporarily routed on roads. The one-hiker legs at the coast fall largely into that category. So it’s a different type of hiking we’re talking here. More walking, really. If you go back far enough, think hitchhiking without the thumb.

Which isn’t to say there isn’t a lot to see. Au contraire, from Civil War battlefields, to a former Rosenwald school, to museums that tell the story of the last two or three hundred years of living Down East, there is plenty to see. There are carrots on these hikes, carrots especially worth the hiking (or whatever) on a gorgeous late summer day (see forecast below).

Saturday forecast: Sunny, with highs in the mid-70s.

How and where to sign up: Go to MSTinaday.org, scroll down to the trail map divided into segments, click on your segment-of-interest. You’ll be whisked to the page for that segment, where you’ll find information on each leg: length, difficulty, surface type, start and end points. You’ll also find the Eastbound Trail Guide Miles: go to the online trail guide section, click on your segment, then find the ETGMs; there, you’ll get a more detailed sense of what the leg is like. Back to the MSTinaDay segment page, click on “Sign Up Now” and you’ll be taken to the Meetup registration site (it’s free and relatively hassle free).

Piedmont

The legs:

• Segment 6: Elkin Valley – Legs 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17
• Segment 11A-16A: Neuse River Paddle Route – Legs 5, 8, 11-13, 16, 17

The skinny: Segment 11A-16A is a paddle route on the Neuse River, from the Falls Lake dam in Raleigh to just below New Bern. The upper legs of the Neuse have a detectable current (even an easy rapid or two), things slow down as you reach the coastal plain. The legs here are long (most have double-digit mileages), remote, peaceful. If you’re looking to take advantage of Saturday’s fall-like weather (see “Saturday forescast” below), sign up!

In the beautiful Elkin Valley, in an area bridging Stone Mountain State Park with its sister Pilot Mountain, these sections are also on country roads, but country roads that visit places such as Shorty’s Country Store and the Grassy Creek Vineyard and Winery. And, Legs 8 and 9 visit Elkin, currently the premier trail town on the MST.

Saturday forecast: Sunny with highs in the mid- to upper-70s.

How and where to sign up: Go to MSTinaday.org, scroll down to the trail map divided into segments, click on your segment-of-interest. You’ll be whisked to the page for that segment, where you’ll find information on each leg: length, difficulty, surface type, start and end points. You’ll also find the Eastbound Trail Guide Miles: go to the online trail guide section, click on your segment, then find the ETGMs; there, you’ll get a more detailed sense of what the leg is like. Back to the MSTinaDay segment page, click on “Sign Up Now” and you’ll be taken to the Meetup registration site (it’s free and relatively hassle free).

Mountains

The legs:

• Segment 1A/Great Smoky Mountains – Legs 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10
• Segment 1B/Tuckaseegee River Valley Route – Legs 2, 3,4, 5, 7

The skinny: How are there neglected legs in the mountains? you ask, in the Smokies, no less? In the case of Section 1A, because of the lack of access, some of the legs are especially long: Leg 2 is 21.5 miles; Leg 3, 14.3 miles — and these are Smokies’ legs. And eight of the legs are on paved roads. But in the Smokies! And, again, on a day forecast to be more fall-like than summery (see Saturday forecast, below).

Saturday forecast: Sunny, highs from the 50s to low 70s.

How and where to sign up: Go to MSTinaday.org, scroll down to the trail map divided into segments, click on your segment-of-interest. You’ll be whisked to the page for that segment, where you’ll find information on each leg: length, difficulty, surface type, start and end points. You’ll also find the Eastbound Trail Guide Miles: go to the online trail guide section, click on your segment, then find the ETGMs; there, you’ll get a more detailed sense of what the leg is like. Back to the MSTinaDay segment page, click on “Sign Up Now” and you’ll be taken to the Meetup registration site (it’s free and relatively hassle free).

* * *

Those are our thoughts on the weekend. Find more options at the sources listed below. 

Coast

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The post This weekend: MST in a Day  appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

On Saturday, September 9, the Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail is celebrating the trail’s 40th anniversary with MST in a Day—an event that invites hikers to join together to cover every inch of the trail, from Clingman’s Dome on the Tennessee line to Jockey’s Ridge on the coast.

This is an awesome goal. The 1,175 miles of the trail is divided into 20 segments, which are further divided into 300 legs which are between 3 and 5 miles long. Right now, 223 legs have hikers committed to hiking on September 9. But 77 legs of the trail still need your hiking boots on the ground!

Today, to celebrate the reopening of the Outer Banks, we’re focusing on the open legs on the easternmost reach of the trail, Segment 18.

Catherine Peele, the leader coordinating hikers for the 20 legs of Segment 18, reports that all but four of the legs have hikers. Here are her descriptions of the legs in need of legs:

Leg 4: Cape Hatteras Ferry Terminal to Parking on NC 12. – 4.0 miles. After you have watched the choreographed dance of ferries leaving and tourists making their way to Ocracoke, you can leave the parking lot and stop at the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum to learn more about the history and culture of the area. Make your way to the beach and start enjoying the nice ocean view.

Leg 5: Frisco Bath House to the Frisco Campground. 2.7 miles. On this segment you end up passing under the Frisco Pier, which is now falling into the water but at one time was a busy spot! Many people still use the area for a good beach day. Coming into the campground you will get to see the Billy Mitchell Airport, the only airport in the area!

Leg 8: Haulover Day-Use Area to Avon Pier. 3.5 miles. The Haulover Day-Use Area is locally known as Canadian Hole (a lot of kiteboarders seem to be Canadian). (I actually had to look at a map to see what day use area they were referring to…I am just used to using the nickname!) On a nice windy day the sky can be filled with a hundred or more kiteboarders and it is a sight to be seen! The end point for this segment is the Avon Pier, where you can grab a fishing pole, walk onto the pier and see if you can catch anything or just ask some locals or tourists how their catch is going.

Leg 12: ORV Ramp #23 to Rodanthe Beach Access. 4.4 miles. A nice sandy beach walk where just like the others you can see all sorts of wildlife – crabs, turtles, maybe spot a whale out in the ocean! You will pass under the Rodanthe Pier, where again you can walk out and fish or just admire the view.

To learn more about these legs and link to the sign-up page on Meetup, go here. (Note that the signup on the Meetup site will indicate that the hike starts at 7 a.m. In fact, these hikes, which are self-led, can occur any time between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. So, it’s possible to do a day trip to the coast to hike your leg or you might choose to fit the hike into a beach getaway weekend.)

You can learn about any of the other remaining legs at the MST in a Day page of the Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail website. You’ll also find descriptions of other legs here.

Lots of hikers from the GetHiking! and GetBackpacking! programs will be hiking MST-in-a-Day. And we’ll be posting pictures to Facebook and Instagram pages with the hashtag #mstinaday. We’d sure be happy if you joined us.

Happy trails,

Joe

The post Calling All Hikers! Mark Your Calendars for Sept. 9! appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

On this Sept. 9, the Friends of the MST will celebrate the trail’s anniversary with MST in a Day, an attempt to have the entire trail hiked in one day. An attempt you should be involved in.

To get you in the mood for Sept. 9, we offer three opportunities to hike the MST. Do the hike, get in the mood, then head to the Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail website to see how you can be part of this 40^th anniversary celebration.

Coast

Did you know that the eastern terminus of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail is a moving target? It ends atop the highest dune in Jockey’s Ridge State Park, a point that changes with the whim of the wind and can be hard to determine with the naked eye. Fortunately, park rangers do not have naked eyes.

Using their ranger vision, let a park ranger lead you to the true end of the MST Friday on MST Hike celebrating the trail’s 40^th anniversary. It won’t be a long hike, but it will be a great photo op: who doesn’t want their social media lit with selfies from the MST’s eastern extent?

Logistics: MST Hike, Friday, Aug. 4, 9 a.m., Jockey’s Ridge State Park, Nags Head. More info here.

Saturday forecast: Morning high in the mid-70s, chance of thunderstorms.

* * *

Looking ahead: Love the idea of standing atop the highest dune in Jockey’s Ridge? Imagine standing there at dusk: check out this schedule of regular Sunset on the Ridge hikes at the park.

Piedmont

Officially, the Mountains-to-Sea Trail leaves the mountains at the Devil’s Garden Overlook, where it spills down the Blue Ridge Escarpment to Stone Mountain State Park. It revisits mountainous terrain at Pilot Mountain State Park and again, about 20 miles later, at Hanging Rock State Park. Most people think that’s where any MST semblance to the mountains ends.

Until they reach Eno River State Park.

You won’t find the elevation of Appalachians in the park outside Durham, but you will find a rocky stream that makes you certain you’ve been teleported to higher terrain. Learn more about those rocks Saturday when a ranger leads River’s Rock, a look into how the Eno got so rocky.

Logistics: River’s Rock, Saturday, Aug. 5, 2:30 p.m., Eno River State Park/Fews Ford Access, Durham. More info here.

Saturday forecast: Sunny with a high of 88.

* * *

Looking ahead: Ghosts of the Eno, Aug. 8, Eno River State Park, Durham. More info here.

Mountains

The Mountains-to-Sea Trail crosses not only the highest spot in the state, not only the highest spot in the East, but the highest spot east of South Dakota’s Black Hills! It’s wild territory atop 6,684-foot Mount Mitchell. With forests of red spruce and Fraser fir, the flora is much different than you’ll find just 1,000 feet below. Different, too, is the wildlife.

Learn what lives atop the highest point on the trail Saturday at Wildlife at the Highest Peak, a ranger-led program that begins from the Upper Summit Parking Lot, at 11 a.m. Allow time for a little MST hike, too.

Logistics: Wildlife at the Highest Peak, Saturday, Aug. 5, 11 a.m., Mount Mitchell State Park, Burnsville. More info here.

Saturday forecast: High of 60, sunny.

* * *

Looking ahead: Guided Commissary Trail Hike, August 11, 3 p.m., Mount Mitchell State Park. More info here.

* * *

Those are our thoughts on the weekend. Find more options at the sources listed below. 

Those are our thoughts on the weekend. Find more options at the sources listed below. 

Coast

Like us on Facebook and get health, fitness and outdoors news throughout the day.

GetGoingNC.com

Promote Your Page Too

The post This weekend: Make it an MST in a Day warmup appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

This year, we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the statewide Mountains-to-Sea Trail, its birth dating to Sept. 9, 1977, when Howard Lee, then Secretary of the N.C. Department of Natural Resources and Community Development, told a National Trails Symposium in Waynesville that North Carolina should blaze a “state trail from the mountains to the coast, leading through communities as well as natural areas.”

To commemorate Lee’s challenge of 40 years ago, the Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail is organizing an effort on Sept. 9 — 45 days from now — to have hikers on every inch of the trail, which currently totals 1,175 miles. It’s a monumental effort and one that could use your help, by signing up to hike a leg — there are 300 to choose from, ranging in length from about 2 miles to 25. One of the main goals of the Sept. 9 hike and other events celebrating the MST’s 40th is to expedite the process of getting as much of the trail onto actual trail as possible: currently, of the 1,175 miles of MST, 680 miles is on what we would think of as trail, the remainder temporarily routed onto country roads.

When the trail is, in fact, trail, it will be much easier for the rest of us to do what Sharon McCarthy (a k a Smoky Scout) did in 2011: hike the entire MST. We spent Sharon’s last day on the MST with her and recounted her journey in a post from August 2011. As an introduction to those of you who may not be familiar with the trail — as well as for those of you looking to explore it further — we rerun Sharon’s story today. A few things have changed in the intervening years: the “trail” portion of the hike has grown by more than 80 miles, the number of hikers who have done the entire trail is 70, and the trail now has a paddle option, from Smithfield to New Bern.

Read Sharon’s story. Be inspired. Sign up to join us on Sept. 9 to hike the MST. (Start that process, starting here.)

* * *

Yesterday, Sharon McCarthy stopped to look at the white dot on the tree trunk, the last of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of such white dots she had seen over the past 22 months.

Well? 

Robert Williams and I waited. Sharon, a k a Smoky Scout, was yards away from becoming the sixth person this year and only the 25th total to complete the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. She was staring down her last blaze, and the two of us, her escorts for her final day, were expecting a profound statement. Maybe not “One-small-step …” profound, but something worthy of completing a nearly 1,000-mile journey.

“I’m verklempt,” the 53-year-old Charlotte resident finally offered. “Talk amongst yourselves.”

Traveling 600 miles across North Carolina on foot and another 350 by bike (tracing the temporary road route the MST follows until its completion as a statewide foot trail joining Clingman’s Dome to the west with Jockey’s Ridge to the east) wasn’t something Sharon  envisioned herself doing before she turned 50 three years ago. Not that she was unfamiliar with the outdoors. Her family camped and hiked, and she’d been active in the Girl Scouts in outdoor adventures, but she’d never done anything on the order of hiking across a state. But it was a tumultuous time in her life: her mother had died and the last of her three kids was leaving home for college. And there was the turning-50 thing.

“It was my midlife crisis,” she said of her decision to hike nonstop into middle age.

On her 50th birthday she started her quest to join the Great Smoky Mountains 900-Miler Club, membership for which requires hiking all 900 miles of trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. She officially joined the club exactly a year later, on her 51st birthday. Meanwhile, she signed on to lead a group training to hike the Grand Canyon as part of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training program. That involved whipping the group into shape on weekly hikes over a four-month period. In the process of expanding her hiking horizons she caught wind of the group hikes led by the Carolina Mountain Club.

“I am a social person and it’s more enjoyable to hike with others and share the experience, the sights, the sounds, the isn’t-this-awesome feeling — and sometimes the shared misery of isn’t-this-awful!” she adds. One CMC hike in particular caught her eye: a trek on the Appalachian Trail that included Charlie’s Bunion. The hike leader was Danny Bernstein who quickly sensed Sharon’s zeal and made a proposal: “I just started hiking the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. Why don’t you join me?”

It sounded like a good encore to the 900-Miler Club, so she signed on. That was in October of 2009.

Over the next 22 months she would cover the MST’s 1,000-mile route in pieces, with day hikes here and there, and in chunks. Some of those chunks involved backpack trips with Danny (which is where I first met Sharon, gingerly toeing her way across a log bridging Pretty Hollow Creek in the Smokies). Some, covering roughly 350 miles of the MST’s temporary road route, were by bike, often with husband Jim, an avid cyclist, as support. (She subsequently returned the favor for his midlife crisis: a 9-day bike tour of the Blue Ridge Parkway.)

The bike sections were her least favorite — and not because of inconsiderate motorists. “Although there were a few drivers who took risks, the vast majority of drivers are very cautious and courteous to cyclists.”

Rather, it was the chase canines who frequently escorted her down country roads. Some only wanted to make sure she didn’t intrude on their master’s territory. Others seemed interested in tasting her bike shoes.

Her quest left her with a smorgasbord of good stories.

The amusing. One night in the Smokies it was frigid cold. She and her hiking partner, a guy she’d only just met, were on the second floor of the Derrick Knob shelter; on the first floor, six Boy Scout leaders pooled their collective heat by snuggling together. “You do whatever you need to to stay warm tonight,” her partner said. She thought for a moment, then gathered  her sleeping bag, moved down a floor and asked the Scout leaders to make room.

The scary. On a winter trip in the Smokies she and a friend where supposed to meet a boat shuttle on a finger of Fontana Lake. When they arrived, the lake had been drawn down, making it impossible to meet the shuttle. The original creek remained, however, and it was running hip deep. Not sure what to do, they decided to cross. Her friend slipped and was swept downstream. Fortunately, Sharon was able to help fish her out, but both emerged soaked and cold. They spent the night in a nearby abandoned house and hiked out the way they’d come in the next day, a day later than they’d told friends and family.

“Watching my friend nearly drown was scary.”

The frustrating. Twice, Sharon and Danny were thwarted in their attempt to cross the Linville River at the mouth of Linville Gorge, where the river spreads to the width of a football field. “Both times the water was up, it was cloudy. We didn’t have a good feel about it.” While they weren’t necessarily on a schedule, it was annoying all the same. Even though Danny makes a living writing about hiking, and Sharon is an empty-nester who describes herself as self-employed in a field rapidly becoming obsolete (transcribing depositions), there’s still a limit to how many times you can attempt the same trip. The third time, though, did indeed prove a charm. Knee-deep water, sunny skies … “[it] turned out to be just delightful, standing in the middle of the river and laughing at how fun it was.”

The days that made it all worthwhile. “One moment that really stands out for me is a solo hike” — during a non-MST day — “when I sat down on the trail for a short break.  It was fall in the Smokies, dappled sunlight, and every leaf was a shade of yellow.  A strong breeze kicked up and I was suddenly showered with acorns, including a hard smack on top of my head. I remember laughing out loud there all by myself on that trail, a very special moment.”

It’s not the moments that yielded a good tale that keep Sharon McCarthy on the trail. Rather, it’s the simple mind-clearing escape of escaping into the woods. “My troubles are guaranteed to disappear for a few hours when I’m on a trail because I simply cannot worry and walk at the same time. I come back sweaty and exhausted and renewed.”

So when she comes up short on a way to verbally express her MST conquest, it’s because it’s not the end. “Next month I’m planning to hike in Death Valley National Park and then climb Mount Whitney, the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states.” This weekend she’ll be back in the high country knocking off a couple of 6,000-foot peaks, toward the possible goal of joining another club: the Carolina Mountain Club’s South Beyond 6,000 Feet for folks who bag all 40 of the South’s peaks above 6,000 feet.

“I have the burning desire to be outside,” Sharon explains, “and the fire is fed every time I go on a hike.” It’s then that she comes up with some words, borrowed from an 82-year-old hiking/biking buddy, that sum up her philosophy for life on the trail and beyond.

“If you want to keep going, you gotta keep going.”

The post The Mountains-to-Sea Trail: in a day, or over 22 months appeared first on GetGoing NC!.