And if you aren’t?

If lethargy has you bound to the couch, think about this: Today sets the tone for the next 364 days. Which isn’t to say that if you’re sick you should drag your butt outside anyway. Rather, if you’re simply suffering from a touch of malaise, a year-starting hike — even a walk through the neighborhood — could be just the thing to snap you out of your funk. No need to make a big deal of it, to go 10 miles or set a 4-mile-per-hour pace. Just get out and enjoy. 

Need a little more inspiration? Then consider today’s hike a down payment on an adventure you’d like have this year, an adventure that would best be served by moving today, rather than not moving.

To that end, we share a trip GetBackpacking! did three years ago, Virginia’s Triple Crown, that we plan to do again this year. A 37-mile, 4-day trip that offers all the motivation we need to get in some trail time on this, the first day of the new year. 

The post Welcome your year of adventure with a hike appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Taking a brisk hike to welcome the new year is a long-standing tradition. It became formalized a few years back when American State Parks challenged state parks across the country to hold First Day events. Today, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a state park in the U.S. that doesn’t hold a First Day Hike. That’s especially true in North Carolina and Virginia, where 113 First Day events are planned in state parks; some parks are even celebrating with two or three events.

We won’t provide a complete rundown of options; you can find a list of First Day Hikes here for North Carolina, here for Virginia. We will, however, give you a quick sense of the types of events planned.

North Carolina

While most of the state’s 53 hikes are straightforward, ranger-led nature hikes, some have a twist.

First Day Bingo. At Pilot Mountain State Park north of Winston-Salem you can swing by the the Visitor Center, pick up a bingo card, then take a self-guided hike to record what you find. Details here.

First Day Scavenger Hike. There’s a similar theme at William B. Umstead State Park in Raleigh, where you can tale a self-guided hike on the trail of your choice, tick off items from a list provided, get a sticker. Details here.

Go long or short. At Fort Macon State Park you have the option of two ranger-led hikes: at 9 a.m. you can take either a 0.75-mile stroll on the Yarrow’s Loop Trail and the beach inlet, or check out the 3.2-mile Elliot Coues Trail. Details here.

Go high. Mount Mitchell State Park, the highest state park in the East, is banking on Mother Nature to keep the roads open for three hikes it has planned: a 6-mile hike around the park at 9 a.m. (details here), a family-friendly hike on the 1-mile Balsam Nature Trail at 10 a.m. (details here), and a challenging 2.6-mile hike to Mount Craig and back at 11 a.m. (details here).

Two states, three parks. Looking for a bit of novelty in your hike? Crowders Mountain State Park and its neighbor across the state line, South Carolina’s Kings Mountain State Park, host a 5.6-mile hike on the Ridgeline Trail joining the parks (and Kings Mountain National Military Park to boot). Details here.

Hike an island. Hammocks Beach State Park offers a rare opportunity to hike Bear Island in winter, rare because the ferry, which doesn’t normally run in winter, will be fired up to shuttle hikers across the Intercostal Waterway. Details here.

Find all North Carolina First Day events here.

Virginia

Virginia has 60 First Day events planned at its 42 state parks, and they aren’t planning to wait around for the new year to get underway. At Natural Tunnel State Park hikers can hike in the New Year with a 1-mile hike beginning at 11 p.m. on Dec. 31. The 1-mile hike is on birding and wildlife trails. Details here.

At Sky Meadows State Park they’ll wait until sunup for their First Day Hike, reflecting the practice of certain cultures by welcoming the new year at dawn. Gates open at 5:30 a.m., hikes are scheduled past 1 p.m. Details here.

One of the coolest parks in the state, False Cape State Park in Virginia Beach, is holding a Bay to Beach hike, taking in Back Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Two miles, but some of it is in soft sand. Details here.

The First Day of hiking in Virginia State Parks ends where it began, at Natural Tunnel with a hike to Lovers’ Leap. That hike begins at 3 p.m. Details here.

Find all Virginia First Day hikes here.

As for us …

We plan to attend the First Day hike at Mayo River State Park, where the long-awaited Fox Trail will finally open. Details here.

Exploring a new trail. Hard to imagine a better way to welcome the new year!

The post First Day, First Hike appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

If you’re looking for a time of year that’s hardest on your body, you’d be hard-pressed to beat the one that kicked off with pants-unbuckling Thanksgiving and ends with a cold pack on your head New Year’s Day. Think about the damage alone done by the one-two punch of Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

Thanksgiving: overeating. Estimates place the typical holiday meal at 3,000-plus calories, or closing in on twice the recommended daily calorie intake for the average person. And that’s just for the main meal; in the case of Thanksgiving you can nearly double that amount if you throw in the follow-up leftover meals that will be consumed by day’s end.

Black Friday: stress. First, there’s the business of consuming nearly 6,000 calories on Thanksgiving, then heading out at midnight to elbow your way to the $2 waffle irons table. Add to that your wacko fellow shoppers — a female shopper at a California Walmart used pepper spray to keep her competitors at bay — and you’ve pretty much taken 10 years off your life with those two days alone. And the bulk of the holiday season remains.

You want a truly happy holidays, or at least a holiday season that won’t do you in? Then you need to do something that helps you deal with both overeating and stress. Lucky for you that some thing is one thing:

Going for a walk.

Walking is the nation’s most popular form of exercise. According to the National Sporting Goods Association, 95.8 million Americans walked for exercise in 2010 (exercising with equipment was a distant second, with 55.3 million participants). There’s good reason for this: most people can walk, it doesn’t require special equipment, you can do it spontaneously, out your front door, so it can be done quickly.

There’s more reasons to walk. According to the Mayo Clinic, walking can:

• Lower low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (the “bad” cholesterol)
• Raise high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (the “good” cholesterol)
• Lower your blood pressure
• Reduce your risk of or manage type 2 diabetes
• Manage your weight
• Improve your mood
• Keep you strong and fit

Walking isn’t a magic bullet. It won’t completely diffuse the stress of the holidays; but it will take the edges off and make the season more manageable. And it won’t exactly act as a cross to that batch of Christmas fudge your vampire coworkers bring in, but it will help in keeping the damage to a minimum. And, truly, a half hour at lunch, after work or at some point during the day can make a huge difference.

That said, are you ready to commit to a daily walk? And if not daily, then what is a realistic goal? Take our survey and we’ll report back in a week or so with the results. And take a minute to tell us your favorite place to walk. It could serve as inspiration to others.

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[highlight]Survey says: Are you ready to commit to walking daily through the holidays? If not, then how many times, realistically, do you think you can vow to hit the trail? Take our survey and let us know. Click here to take survey [/highlight]

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