• First Saturday Hike at Horton Grove, Horton Grove Nature Preserve, Bahama. Saturday, 10 a.m. to noon. 
• First Saturday Hike at White Pines, White Pines Nature Preserve, Pittsboro, Saturday, 10 a.m. to noon.

Both hikes are billed as “social” hikes and both are lead by TLC guides. That means you can expect to learn a good deal about both properties — Horton Grove with its prairie (pictured above) and beech woods, White Pines with its replication of a montane environment in the heart of the Piedmont — while getting a chance to chat with fellow hikers. The best of both worlds.

Learn more about both hikes and their pandemic-related requirements, and register here. 

The forecast is good news, too, for the Eno River Association and its weekly Sunday Winter Hike Series hike. This Sunday: the Pump Station Access to Eno River State Park. This 1.5-mile hike is one of the best mixes of natural and human history you’ll find on a hike. The main attraction is the remains of Durham’s first public drinking water source; those remains include the brick foundation of the treatment plant and an impressive stone dam. A bit of off-trail on this hike as well. Learn more and register here.

Speaking of learning a thing or two, Saturday you can do just that at Pilot Mountain State Park when a ranger leads a Winter Tree ID hike to help you identify the local arboreal population. Anyone can ID trees in spring, summer or fall — the leaves are usually a dead giveaway. But in winter, when all you have to go by is bark, branch and twig configuration and tree shape? Check it out, at 3 p.m., by heading here for meeting location and additional info.

It’s shaping up to be a classic winter weekend, southern style! GetOut! And enjoy.

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More options

You can find additional options for the weekend by tapping the following links:

• Triangle Land Conservancy here
• Eno River Association here
• NC Parks here
• N.C. Office of Environmental Education here

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