The following first ran in October 2018. It appears here with tweaks and updates.
It was a late November night in the late 1990s and Alan and I were hiking a stretch of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail along Falls Lake. Though we’d been mountain biking at night for two or three years, the notion of hiking in the dark had only recently occurred to us. Making our way through the woods in the quiet of night made us a bit giddy; instead of two guys in their late 40s, we were like a couple of 10-year-olds who’d snuck out of our bedroom windows on a clandestine adventure.read more
I’d like to say I start every day with a 2- or 3-mile hike. Truth is, that doesn’t happen until I’ve been up 45 minutes. That first three-quarters of an hour is a general muddle that involves getting to the point where I’m able to take a 2- to 3-mile hike: staring at myself in the bathroom mirror, making coffee, reading. Once I’ve slapped myself into consciousness, I head down the block for a hike on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail here in Hillsborough.read more
It’s simply a matter of where to go, when to go and how to prepare. Our summer hikes include morning and evening hikes to beat the heat, and a Weekend Summer Escape series that includes three memorable weekends of hiking on high country sections of the statewide Mountains-to-Sea Trail.read more
Ah, Fourth of July Weekend! The fireworks displays, the Festival for the Eno, the cookout gatherings … .
OK, so maybe we can’t celebrate our nation’s independence the way we usually do. But we can certainly celebrate our independence by getting out and exploring. And this year in particular by doing so in the true American spirit of being a maverick, a lone wolf. Someone who likes to get out and take an adventure of their own. Alone. Or at least six feet from anyone else.read more
