Content from Spring along the Eno

The hike was full of the typical hiker bonhomie: catching up with hikers who had hibernated over the winter, learning the stories of new hikers, comparing snacks. It also offered an eyeful of the spring wildflower display that the Eno River valley is known for. After a winter-delayed harvest, the trail was ablaze in spring color: mayapple, fiddlehead fern, toothwort, green-and-gold,  speedwell, rue-anemone, Dutchaman’s breeches, spring beauties, periwinkle, American speedwell and more.
Click on the links to learn more about each wildflower. A great local guide we’ve found is A Virtual Wildflower Garden Across Time, which categorizes wildflowers by color and typical date of appearance.

Enjoy the show. And get inspired for another great wildflower weekend on the trail.

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Coast

Friday morning, our friends at the North Carolina Coastal Federation, along with Wrightsville Beach Scenic Tours, are conducting a Coastal Birding Cruise. The one-hour boat ride, aboard The Shamrock, will explore the marsh and backwaters around Wrightsville Beach searching for shorebirds, from the pelican and black skimmer to (hopefully) the endangered piping plover (pictured). Guides will explain the area’s ecology as well. A great way to learn more about an area you may visit frequently, but likely don’t know well.

Logistics: Friday, April 3, 10 a.m., Blockade Runner Beach Resort Dock, Wrightsville Beach. $25-$35. More information: 910.509.2838 or visit here.

Friday forecast: High of 79, 20 percent chance of rain.

Piedmont

We love new trail and try to jump on a new stretch as soon as it opens. So we’re a little disappointed in ourselves for waiting more than a half year to investigate the 5-mile stretch of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail that opened last year linking West Point on the Eno city park in Durham with Penny’s Bend Nature Preserve downstream.

But investigate it we will, finally, on Saturday, with our GetHiking! Triangle group. We’ll meet at West Point at 10 a.m., shuttle to Penny’s Bend, hike upstream back to West Point. It’s a relatively flat stretch, this five miles that links 12 miles of the MST along the Eno upstream of West Point on the Eno, and 60 miles downstream, along Falls Lake.

Logistics: Saturday, April 4, 10 a.m. For details and to sign up, visit GetHiking! Triangle.

Saturday forecast: High of 64, a chance of showers early, then clearing.

Mountains

There’s something about the Smokies and wildflowers that shouts great spring weekend in the mountains. Which is why we’re giving a shout out (Is that still hip to say? Are we trying too hard?) to Sunday’s Baxter Creek & Big Creek Wildflower Hike by the Carolina Mountain Club. The hike originates in the Big Creek Campground on the North Carolina side of the Smokies, goes up Baxter Creek to the overlook and back, then head up Big Creek to Mouse Creek Falls, and back. Expect old growth forest and wildflowers in bloom.

Logistics: Sunday, April 5, 8:30 a.m., Big Creek Campground, Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Contact hike leader Stuart English — 828.384.4870, stuengo@citcom.net — to sign up and for more crucial logistical information. For more details on the hike, including maps, go here.

Sunday forecast: High of 65, sunny skies.

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

The post This weekend: Learn a thing appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

“Usually,” Alan observed, “we wait until we’ve been hiking a while before we get lost.”

Indeed, getting lost before we could even find the trailhead was a record. It was also a tribute to the trail, five newly opened sections of the Falls Lake portion of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, which is expanding at breakneck pace through the Triangle. Likely by year’s end, and possibly at a Nov. 21 Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail workday, 60 miles of continuous trail will exist from the Falls Lake dam in Wake County to Pennys Bend on the Eno River in Durham County.  That about 37 of those miles — from NC 50 northwest — have been blazed and cleared since 2007 is thanks entirely to FMST volunteers who show up once a month to rake, dig, hack and otherwise clear trail. That we were slightly challenged finding the trailhead for Section 20 wasn’t surprising considering how quickly this transportation project is evolving.

I hadn’t hiked any of the new trail north of Jimmy Rogers Road and despite being advised by FSMST President Jeff Brewer that Sections 16, 17 and 18 “have some trail maintenance issues … that will be addressed this month,” Alan and I decided to hike those sections along with 15, 19 and 20, a 9.6-mile stretch in all, from Jimmy Rogers Road northwest to a trail access a little more than a mile west of I-85. Those “issues,” it turned out, proved minor as long as we paid close attention with our feet: Solid footing meant we were likely still on the trail, squishiness suggested we had gone astray.

Some quick observations: Sections 16-20 were considerably flatter than stretches on down Falls Lake, where the trail consistently drops into and climbs out of coves; Sections 19 and 20 are accompanied by a soundtrack of I-85; a nice man appeared on Section 19 to let us know we had strayed from the trail onto private property (his); Section 17 involved bushwhacking; the 4.5-mile Section 15 was by far the most scenic.

I have more words, but I also have pictures. Check out the slideshow of our trip.

The post Breaking in a new stretch of the Falls Lake Trail appeared first on GetGoing NC!.