Coast

Normally, when we think of paddling we think of an intimate escape on placid waters, perhaps with a friend or two, perhaps alone. We usually don’t think of rubbing blades with several hundred fellow paddlers. But if you plan on participating in Saturday’s Annual Paddle for the Border, you best change your mindset.

Now in its 12th year, the paddle attracts hundreds who make the 7.5-mile trip on the Dismal Swamp Canal from South Mills in North Carolina to Chesapeake in Virginia. It’s a paddlepalooza, a celebration of paddling that includes a shuttle and an apres paddle picnic.

Logistics: Saturday, May 2, 8 a.m., Dismal Swamp State Park, South Mills. $40 registration includes shuttle and picnic lunch. For more information, go here.

Saturday forecast: Sunny, high of 72.

Piedmont

Friday kicks off the 10-day celebration of cycling known as the Oaks & Spokes Festival in Raleigh.

A range of events are on tap (as are a range of beers, in some instances), from Friday’s Capital City Ride and Raleigh Bikes Art Show, to Sunday’s Crit de Mayo and Triangle Tweed Ride, to a Bike-In Movie, a Bike Prom, a FrankenBike Block Party and more. If you like bikes, you’ve got 10 days of celebrating ahead of you.

Logistics: The 3rd Annual Oaks & Spokes Festival starts Friday, May 1, and runs through Sunday, May 10. For a complete rundown of events, visit the Oaks & Spokes website.

Weekend forecast: At present, WRAL says rain should leave the area by noonish Friday, leaving clear skies and temperatures in the mid 70s to low 80s into midweek of next week.

Mountains

Like to explore the lesser-visited features of the North Carolina high country? Then check out the High Peaks Association, which, among other things, leads regular hikes to some of the mountains’ less-appreciated sites.

This Saturday, for instance, the High Peaks Association will lead a 5-mile hike on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail over Blackstock Knob in Yancey County. Blackstock tops out at 6,320 feet, and in addition to the potential for great views, the spring wildflowers are just beginning to pop at this altitude.

Logistics: Saturday, May 2, 8:30 a.m., meet in Burnsville and shuttle to trailhead. $5 covers cost of shuttle. For more info and to sign up, go here, or call 828.675.9384 or email mikew3000@gmail.com.

Sunday forecast: Sunny, high of 70.

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

The post This weekend: Boat, bike, hike appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Coast

One of the things we love about paddling the eastern part of the state is the intimacy. Swamps and waterways rimmed with giant bald cypress and tupelo gum escorting you through some of the wildest terrain on the East Coast. Just you, an amazing assortment of critters both seen and unseen, and, this Saturday at least, several hundred of your paddling brethren. (And sisteren, since paddling is gender neutral.)

The anomaly this Saturday is the 11th Annual Paddle for the Border, in which a whole bunch of kayakers (and some canoeists) will put in on the Dismal Swamp Canal at the Dismal Swamp Welcome Center in South Mills (Camden County) and paddle north to Chesapeake, Va. It’s BYOB, with breakfast and lunch included in the registration fee. A great opportunity to paddle some water you might not otherwise paddle.

Logistics: Saturday, May 3, 8 a.m. Dismal Swamp Welcome Center, South Mills. $45. More info here.

Saturday forecast: Partly cloudy, high of 73.

Piedmont

Perhaps you’ve heard of the Carolina Thread Trail, the 15-county effort to weave trail throughout the Charlotte area. But do you know much more about it? Like, where the trail will run and, more importantly, where it runs now that you can hike? Or, as is the case Saturday, run?

Saturday, you can experience a prime stretch of the existing Thread Trail at the Tread The Thread 5K and 10K. This fundraiser for the trail explores the 390-acre Buffalo Creek Preserve in Mt. Pleasant, taking in a restored oak savannah, active farmland and forested bluffs along Adams Creek. Live music, too.

Logistics: Saturday, May 3, 8 a.m., Buffalo Creek Preserve, Mt. Pleasant. $30 for either race. More info here.

Saturday forecast: Partly sunny, high of 74.

Mountains

Got a friend who’s been boasting about all the great trail race times he/she has been posting? Then suggest the two of you run Sunday’s Bearwallow Beast 5K. As the website notes, “ … the Bearwallow Beast 5k features one of the most unrelenting climbs you’ll find in the Appalachians — over 1,400 feet. Traversing asphalt, forest service roads and single-track trail, the course will offer a challenge for even the most experienced runner.”

And since the Beast climbs Bearwallow Mountain, you’ll be assured of great scenery (if you dare to look up) as well. Bearwallow Mountain is gorgeous part of the Upper Hickory Nut Gorge that was conserved by the Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy in 2009. You can learn more about Bearwallow Mountain and the CMLC’s other handiwork in the high country here.  Live music and a complimentary beer await at the finish.

Logistics: Sunday, May 4, 2 p.m. (late registration commences at 11:30 a.m.), Gerton. More info here.

Sunday forecast: Sunny, high of 76.

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

The post This weekend: A prolific paddle, a beastly run appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Of course, I said. “So you’re in town for the weekend?,” I asked, being the sociable — and a little nosy — hike leader. “What else are you doing?”

“No,” she replied. “We just drove down to hike. We’re driving back afterward.”

Eight hours of driving to hike at Umstead State Park? Now, I love Umstead: I hike, run or bike there two or three times a week. But it’s 10 minutes from my house. Would I put in eight hours behind the wheel for a day trip?

Why Umstead? I asked.

“It was the closest place I could find,” she replied.

For future reference, I rattled off several alternatives much closer to her home:

• Merchants Millpond State Park, 9 miles of hiking trail just 1 hour 15 minutes from Virginia Beach.
• Medoc Mountain State Park, 10 miles of trail, 2 hours 20 minutes.
• Goose Creek State Park: 8 miles, 2 hours, 30 minutes.
• Nags Head Woods Ecological Preserve:  5 miles, 1 hour, 40 minutes
• Alligator River and Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuges, both with miles of gravel roads, both within a couple hours.

She was surprised. None of those options turned up in her Google search.

I shared this story last Wednesday with members of the Northeast Commission, one of seven statewide regional economic development organizations created in the 1990s by the General Assembly (and defunded as of June 30 this year by the same). The Northeast Commission represents 16 counties in the northeast corner of the state, and one of their focus areas has been figuring out how to boost ecotourism in the region. Hence, the preponderance of shaking heads at the table.

Getting the message out about northeast North Carolina’s adventure potential has been an ongoing challenge.

The woman from Virginia Beach should have quickly learned of the hiking options in her own North Carolina backyard. She should also have learned that there was no better time to hike a coastal swamp or forest than on a day when the daytime high wouldn’t get much above 60, remaining just cool enough to keep the local pest population from activating.

And hiking isn’t even what the region is known for. Or should be known for.

It’s a paddling paradise.

Paddling intimate blackwater creeks; paddling lazy rivers, paddling mysterious swamps, paddling marshes, sounds, the ocean. Some of the best flat-water paddling in the country, and it remains a well-kept secret, much to the Northeast Commission’s dismay.

There are hundreds of miles of designated paddle trails in the northeast region. For years, access was pretty much by word-of-mouth; only the locals knew which underpass made for a good put-in, which little-known boat ramp a decent take-out. Then, in the 1990s came the North Carolina Coastal Plain Paddle Trails guide, which identified access points on more than 2,500 miles of waterways in the coastal plain. Helpful, but it doesn’t offer a sense of what each section is like. You get more of that in Paul Ferguson’s “Paddle Trails of Eastern North Carolina.” But as I told the NEC, in order to lure folks you need to give them a good sense of what they’re driving from, say, Philadelphia — or even Raleigh — for.

There are some sparks of that.

• Roanoke River. It doesn’t take but 30 seconds on the Roanoke River Partners website before you’re ready to reserve one (or several) of the 16 camping platforms on the river. For each platform there are photos, details about the campsite and an enticing description. You can reserve a site immediate, online.
• Pamlico County Paddle Trails. This site includes the necessary details and esthetic insights helpful in planning a trip. Waterways coverd are the Bay River, Goose Creek, Bay River to Oriental, Oriental, Oriental to Upper Broad Creek.
• Albemarle Regional Paddle Trails. This site acts as a clearinghouse for more localized maps in the Albemarle region.

That’s a start to help you plan a paddle trip to the northeast part of the state.

Another way to learn the area? Attend an event, where you’ll be guided and have the opportunity to rub shoulders with local paddlers, who may, if you seem like a decent sort, share a local favorite trip or two.

Two upcoming events we know of:

• Roanoke River Paddle Days, Sunday, April 6, 7:30 a.m. Coffee and “breakfast snacks” start the day, followed by a 12-mile paddle from Jamesville to Plymouth. There’s a rest stop at the Bear Run Camping Platform (so you can check and see what that’s about), followed by lunch back in Jamesville, at the Cypress Grill. Cost is $35, with proceeds benefitting the Roanoke River Partners. A great introduction to the Roanoke.
• Paddle for the Border, Saturday, May 3, 8 a.m., Dismal Swamp Canal. You know those promotions where someone dumps about 400 little rubber ducks into a river for comic effect? That’s the image that comes to mind with Paddle for the Border, an annual occurrence where 375 canoes and kayaks paddle the 7.5 miles from North Carolina’s Dismal Swamp State Park in South Mills north to Chesapeake, Va. $40 fee includes shuttle, breakfast and lunch. Adding to the paddle’s allure is the Great Dismal’s colorful past. If you sign up, plan to read Bland Simpson’s “The Great Dismal: A Carolinian’s Swamp Memoir”beforehand.

This is the tip of the iceberg, but it’s a start. We’ll work to explore beneath the northeast’s surface in the months ahead.

The post Exploring North Carolina’s northeast corridor appeared first on GetGoing NC!.