Coast

Enjoy exploring the coast’s wild areas? You have the Sierra Club to thank, in part, for those wild places remaining wild. Thanks to their efforts to protect and preserve the coast’s many special places, eastern North Carolina has some of the best flatwater paddling in the nation. Help the North Carolina Sierra Club celebrate four decades of protecting these spots at their 40th anniversary celebration this weekend with festivities based out of Washington (N.C., of course). Saturday is more of a listening and meeting day, Sunday is when you’ll find several outings to chose from, including:

• Garner’s Creek/Devil’s Gut paddle, 9 a.m. 9 miles, geared for more experienced paddlers with their own canoe or kayak.
• Tar River paddle, 9 a.m., 5.5 miles, open to novice paddles (8 kayaks are available for the boatless).
• Goose Creek hike, 9 a.m., 2-mile hike with option to hike 5 more.

Go here for more information on specific events and the 40th anniversary celebration in general.

Piedmont

Back in the 1920s, the thought of a festival honoring the boll weevil probably didn’t cross too many minds. The pernicious little creatures, after migrating from Central America found the cotton crop to be a darn tasty treat and years were spent trying to beat the critters into submission. They continue to be a problem, but are largely controlled. Enough so, apparently, to be honored at Saturday’s Boll Weevil Jamboree in Marshville (Union County). As part of the fun, the Metrolina Walkers, a volkssport club out of Charlotte, is sponsoring a walk. 5K and 10K routes are available, you can start any time between noon and 3 p.m.

More info on Saturday’s walk can be found here, more info on the Metrolina Walkers and volkssports here.

Mountains

DuPont State Forest, at 10,400 acres, is big. Lots to see: if you’re planning a day hike, you’ll only be able to sample a fraction of this unique playground between Hendersonville and Brevard. But if you were to run through the forest, think how much more you’d see? That’s part of our logic in suggesting Saturday’s Hickory Mountain 10K Trail Run. Start and finish at the Guion Farm access, run on single track, double track and fire roads throughout the forest. $40.

More info on the race here, more info on DuPont State Forest, go here.

As for our weekend … You’ll find us running The Miracle Mile in downtown Raleigh Sunday at 2 p.m. Follow the action live on Twitter, at JoeAGoGo.

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Those are GGNC’s thoughts for an active weekend. Find out other ways you can get out this weekend by browsing our super calendar, a collection of events calendars from throughout the state, below. The comprehensive rundown of regional and statewide calendars covers a range of active, mostly outdoors programs, from educational nature hikes to mellow paddle trips to challenging bike rides. Calendars identified as “Comprehensive” include non adventure-related events; some sifting may be required.

Know of a good outdoors calendar we should include? Pass it along and we’ll plug it in.

Photo: Cedar Rock Mountain, by John Dreir.

Coast

CapeFearCoast.com
Comprehensive calendar for the Cape Fear/Wilmington/southern N.C. coast searchable by date and event name.

Coastal Guide
Comprehensive calendar including nature programs from a variety of costal conservation and research agencies that offer nature programs. Covers the entire coast.

Crystal Cost Tourism Authority
Comprehensive calendar focusing on the Crystal Coast. Good source for programs offered by N.C. Coastal Federation, Cape Lookout National Park, N.C. National Estuarine Research Reserve and other costal conservation and research agencies that offer nature programs.

NCCoast.com
Comprehensive calendar including programs for the Outer Banks and Crystal Coast.

North Carolina Coast Host
Comprehensive calendar for the entire coast that lets you search for events by day, by region, by county, by city or by event (based on key word).

This Week Magazine
Primary focus is the Crystal Coast (North Carolina’s coastal midsection).

Mountains

Asheville Citizen-Times
From the main page, click on “Outdoors,” then WNC Outdoors calendar.

Blue Ridge Outdoors
Searchable calendar lets you extend your reach to events throughout the mid-Atlantic and Southeast (or you can just limit it to North Carolina). Also lets you search a boatload of categories, ranging from Hiking, Mountain Biking and Climbing to Trail Running, Triathlon and Road Walking.

The Mountain Times
From the main page, click on “Calendars,” then Main Events.

Piedmont

Charlotte

Charlotte Observer events calendar
Comprehensive calendar searchable by category, including Nature, Recreation, Recreation & Wellness, Running

Charlotte Parent
Comprehensive calendar concentrating on things the family can do together.

Triad

GoTriad.com
Comprehensive calendar includes a Sports & Recreation category.

Piedmont Parent
Comprehensive calendar concentrating on things the family can do together.

Triangle

Triangle.com
Comprehensive calendar searchable by category, including: Birding, Boating, Cycling, Nature, Rec & Wellness, Recreation, Running, Swimming, Tennis, Yoga.

Carolina Parent
Comprehensive calendar concentrating on things the family can do together.

Statewide

Office of Environmental Education
One calendar for the numerous Environmental Education Centers statewide.

North Carolina State Parks
Lets you search for programs at the state’s parks, recreation areas and natural areas by location, by month, by topic. To reach the calendar from the home page, click on “Education,” then “Fun & Free Programs at Parks.”

National Forests in North Carolina
From the home page, click on Carolina Connections for news updates on the state’s four national forests as well as hints on recreational opportunities and a detailed rundown of recreation areas and the amenities at each.

The post Weekend plans? Let a boll weevil spur you to action appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Some background. In the mid-1990s, Sig Hutchinson’s brother-in-law bought a mountain bike. It looked like fun, so Hutchinson bought one, too. Besides, a 23-mile-long trail ran behind his house that looked like it would be fun to ride. Trouble was, he soon learned, that trail — the South Shore Trail along Falls Lake, part of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail — was off limits to two-wheeled pedestrians. No biggie, he thought: I’ll just get a little grass roots support going and we’ll get the trail open to mountain biking. “We’ll be riding it in six months, tops,” he told me at the time.

It’s 15 years later and that trail is still open only to hikers. In the meantime, Hutchinson has emerged as the Triangle’s leading advocate for trails and greenways (he’s a past president of the Triangle Greenways Council and currently chairs Wake County’s Open Space and Parks Advisory Committee), and one of its prime advocates for mass transportation. Despite his initial setback in trail advocacy and his subsequent brushes with bureaucracy on various levels, Hutchinson sticks to his motivational speaker roots and retains an indefatigable optimism that sees the cup not only half full, but somehow brimming half full.

Vic Lebsock, on the other hand, has worked within the bureaucracy in Raleigh for 22 years, much of that as senior planner for Raleigh’s greenways. He knows how legal issues can strangle a project: Punching through a 2-mile stretch of greenway along Crabtree Creek that would link 11 miles of existing greenway with Umstead State Park has been a 10-year battle thanks to a neighborhood lawsuit. He knows how challenges with lowest-bidding contractors can bog down a project: Repairing a 200-yard boardwalk on the Crabtree Creek greenway took two years longer than expected due to disputes with the contractor. And every project he begins begins with an environmental assessment that can raise all sorts of unforeseen challenges. As a result, perhaps, of being too optimistic early on, he’s learned not to raise the hopes of his constituents with optimistic projections.

Their divergent cup half full vs. cup-becoming-half-full-but-not-as-quickly-as-you-might-hope viewpoints surfaced when they were asked about the status of the aforementioned 2-mile stretch of missing greenway linking the Crabtree Greenway with Umstead. There was a pause as the two eyed each other for direction. “How much can I say about that?” Hutchinson asked Lebsock. “Can I say anything? I can say something. …”

The two went on to jointly explain that the project had been held hostage by a lawsuit between the landowner, a quarry seeking city approval to expand operations on land it already owned, and neighbors, who weren’t crazy about china-rattling dynamite blasting closer to home. A series of recent events appears to be breaking the lawsuit logjam, but because it is a sensitive — and still potentially volatile — legal issue, and because it has dragged on for 10 years, just how quickly that logjam might unjam is unclear. Enter the diverging philosophies.

“I think we might see something happen within 18 months,” Hutchinson offered, adding. “We have the money for the project, by the way.”

Lebsock demurred. “This has been going on for 10 years.” That seemed to make Hutchinson even more optimistic; moments later he changed his prediction to 6 to 9 months.

Six months or nine months or 18, “it’s looking very optimistic,” Hutchinson emphasized. Regardless, it’s certainly closer to being a done deal than mountain biking on the South Shore Trail.

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Vic Lebsock may have been reluctant to attach a timeline to the missing Crabtree/Umstead greenway link, but he wasn’t when it came to five other Raleigh greenway projects. Come back Monday and we’ll give you the latest word on five projects that will add 41 miles of greenway to Raleigh’s existing 63 miles by 2014.

The post Mining a solution to Raleigh’s missing greenway link appeared first on GetGoing NC!.