Before we get to organized options, if you’re looking to hike on your own this weekend, remember that this gorgeous weather brings out hordes of occasional hikers, and that finding a slice of solitude might be more challenging than usual. It doesn’t have to be that way, however, as we noted in Wednesday’s blog, “It’s Spring! Here’s how to avoid crowded trails.” Find it here. 

Now, for those of you interested in tapping into a a weekend hike or program, here are some offerings:

• Lower Haw River State Natural Area: Whack Attack! Invasive Species Removal Workday, Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., Lower Haw River State Natural Areal Bynum. This natural area (pictured above) is a sliver of land running along the Haw River between Bynum and U.S. 64. It’s one of the more wild areas in the region; so wild, in fact, that it’s all but impassible during the warm weather months. It also doesn’t have a true trail; rather, a game path escorts you along the river. But that’s starting to change, and this workday, sponsored by the Friends of the Lower Haw State Natural Area, is part of an effort to make that happen. A great opportunity to learn about invasive plants — them remove them. Pre-registration is required, by emailing ncmlynch@gmail.com. Learn more here.
• BW Wells Heritage Day, Saturday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., BW Wells Recreation Area, Falls Lake State Recreation Area, Wake Forest. This annual event is a rare opportunity to explore this portion of Falls Lake, where pioneering N.C. State University botanist Bertram Wells retired. At least four walks, all lasting an hour or so, and other events are scheduled. Learn more here.

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  Secret Pond Wild Things, Sunday, 2 p.m., Carvers Creek State Park, Spring Lake. A good opportunity to introduce yourself to this relatively new (2013) 4,000-acre park near Fayetteville. On this outing, a ranger leads a search for macro invertebrates and amphibians. Plan to work in a hike on the 3 miles of trail here at the Long Valley Farm access while you’re there. Learn more here.

• Caraway Creek Preserve Trail Workday, Saturday, 9 a.m.-noon, Caraway Creek Preserve, Asheboro. Nothing like getting a sneak peak at new trail network, especially if that trail network is still emerging. Come by a part of the construction crew building 3 miles of trail. Learn more here.
• Sunday Wildflower Hike: West Point on the Eno, Sunday, 2 p.m., West Point on the Eno city park, Durham. The Eno River Association’s weekly spring wildflower hike series visits this popular Durham park this week with hopes of seeing mountain laurel in bloom. This is a slow-paced hike with lots of stops to check out spring growth. Learn more here.

Those are some pretty good offerings for an early spring weekend that’s looking pretty swell. Take advantage: GetOut! And enjoy.

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Ferreting out less-frequented trails, II

Finding those less-popular trails, those stealth trailheads, those spots that elude the masses, isn’t hard, but it doesn’t hurt to have a few extra insights into the topic. Our “Explore Your Neighborhood” guide can help you do just that. Written at the start of the pandemic, it was intended as a way to find hidden adventure gems close to home. But the tips that help you do just that also apply to helping you identify stealth spots at large. Learn more and check it out, here.

The post This weekend looks truly springlike appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

So with our predilection for post-sunset saunters, we were pleased to see that as part of Merchants Millpond State Park’s Holiday Decorations program with Gates County Community Events, the park will also be closing later, at 8 p.m. as opposed to 6 p.m., both this Friday and Saturday and next (Dec. 10, 11, 17 and 18). That means you can come and check out the holiday decorations, then enjoy about three hours of nocturnal navigation. 

Merchants Millpond (pictured above) is an especially intriguing spot for a night hike. It’s setting in the swampy northeast corner of the state (it’s a neighbor to the Great Dismal Swamp) gives it a “Creature from the Black Lagoon” feel — at night. Spanish moss drips from bald cypress and tupelo gum, casting eerie shadows on a breezy night. A chorus of frogs in the surrounding wetlands provides a surreal soundtrack. And there’s the park’s “Enchanted Forest.” Again, all this in the dark.

Learn more about how to take advantage of Merchants Millpond after dark and enjoy the park’s holiday decorations by going here.

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Two loves of mine from childhood: 1. Being outside, 2. Reading. That may explain why an event Sunday at 12:15 p.m. at Lake James State Park captures our fancy. The event: Story Walk: ‘The Hike.’ Targeted to preschool and kindergartners, the event focuses on the book, “The Hike,” by Alison Farrell. According to Goodreads.com: “This book tells the story of three girls’ friendship—and their tribulations and triumphs in the great outdoors. Here is the best and worst of any hike: from picnics to puffing and panting, deer-sighting to detours.” In short, it sounds like just the thing to spark an impressionable youngster’s love of the outdoors.

Learn more about “The Hike,” the book, here, the “The Hike”, the hike, here.

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Here’s another thing we love: winter. Specifically, exploring the outdoors come winter. This isn’t the place to wax about our love of the season (but this is). Suffice it to say it’s a misunderstood season, one that could, like so many things, be better appreciated with a little knowledge. Knowledge like the kind you’ll get Sunday at 2 p.m. at Lake Crabtree County Park in Morrisville, when a naturalist talks about the winter woods. 

On the Winter Tree Walk you’ll “learn about some evergreen plants that are still brightening up the landscape and try to identify some trees that have lost their leaves for the winter.” 

Free, but preregistration is required, by going here.

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As I mentioned at the top, I love a night adventure. Rarely, though, do we see a night adventure that extends from one day into the next. But if you want to catch the peak of a meteor shower, that’s the price you must pay. And that’s the only price for the Geminid’s Meteor Shower program Monday and Tuesday at West Point on the Eno city park in Durham.

Starting at 10 p.m. Monday and lasting until 2 a.m. Tuesday, you can hang out at West Point’s Eno Environmental Educational Pavilion and watch up to 120 meteors per hour streak across the sky. Again, the event is free but space is limited and preregistration is required, by going here.

Weekend Weather: It gets toasty (and perhaps a little wet) Saturday, with temperatures rising into the low 70s; a late-day cold front Saturday brings temperatures back into the seasonal range Sunday, with highs in the low 50s. Get a more specific forecast for where you are here.

Explore with us!

We have all sorts of GetHiking! hikes and trips planned for winter, including our just-begun Holiday Hiker series, with hikes Sunday afternoon, Tuesday evening, Friday morning and on the Wednesdays preceding Christmas and New Years. Check out the action here.

The post GetOut! A millpond by night, ‘The Hike,’ meteors and more appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

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!.

Note: Most coastal state parks are planning to close Thursday and Friday in anticipation of Hurricane Arthur. Their reopening is dependent upon Arthur’s wrath. Check the North Carolina State Parks website before heading to any park that may be affected by the storm.

Coast

There is, perhaps, no more fretful feeling than not knowing exactly where you are (the more pessimistic among us refer to this condition as being “lost”). You’ve lost the trail (you don’t remember seeing a blaze for 15 minutes), nothing looks familiar, daylight is waning. You think about those cartoons where the protagonist (Spongebob, say) is thrust into darkness, surrounded only by evil eyes.

Now imagine being able to not only figure your way out of a typical hardwood forest, but out of a dense swamp! That should be the case after attending Orienteering 101 on Sunday at Dismal Swamp State Park. The class is on the park’s new orienteering course (thanks to a local Eagle Scout) and should have you feeling better about your plight in the woods.

Logistics: Sunday, July 5, 2 p.m., Dismal Swamp State Park, South Mills. 252.771.6593 to register.

Saturday forecast: High of 88, sunny.

Piedmont

Being outdoors is often about more than just hiking or paddling or climbing or biking. Sometimes, it’s about music, about arts & crafts, about food and, perhaps, beer.

The two-day (Friday and Saturday) Festival For the Eno at West Point on the Eno city park in Durham is one such occasion. For two days, you can hear 65 acts on four stages, wander among various vendors, check out a beer garden and, all the while, help the sponsoring Eno River Association protect the Eno River watershed. Plus, you can do some of your favorite outdoor activities, such as hike on the park’s five miles of trail or paddle the mile-long Eno millpond. A Triangle tradition for celebrating the Fourth.

Logistics: Friday and Saturday, July 4 & 5, West Point on the Eno City Park, Durham. $20, $30 for both days. More info here.

Friday and Saturday forecast: Highs in the mid- to upper 80s, partly cloudy Friday, sunny Saturday.

Mountains

Fall color cascades in North Carolina from the highest, coolest elevations of the west to the warmer, lower east, the spring wildflower display does the opposite. If you haven’t caught the latter since it began in late February, time is running out. But there’s still wildflower action to be had at the state’s highest elevations, including Elk Knob State Park, where on Sunday, a park ranger will lead w wildflower hike.

The hike isn’t long, at a little more than two miles (out and back), but it does involve a good climb. Fortunately, you’ll be stopping often to check out the blooms.

Logistics: Sunday, July 5, 2 p.m., Elk Knob State Park, Todd. For more information, call 828.297.7261.

Sunday forecast: High of 75, mostly sunny.

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

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