That awesome close-to-home hike that beginner and experienced hikers both love
How do I organize a hike that is both interesting for experienced hikers and isn't overwhelming to new hikers? That's a hard balance; I remember being a new hiker when 2-3 miles felt like quite a hike, and I also remembered thinking recently how now my definition of a "hike" is vastly different than what it was a few years ago. How do I reconcile the two and find something that would appeal to everyone?
There was one obvious answer: Hanging Rock.
How I invited myself to an outing at Pilot Mountain and climbed outdoors on rock for the first (okay, second) time
My knees are skinned, my elbows are scraped, and my face is burned which means you know I had an incredible weekend!
We headed off to Pilot Mountain on Saturday to meet up with a crew of fellow climbers from Triangle Rock Club, organized by a woman named Sami. When one of the guys came to my house to carpool he asked me, "So how do you know Sami?"
"Oh," I said. "I don't. I just saw her posting about this outing in a group I'm in and I asked if I could join. I've wanted to climb outdoors for a while now!"
"So you've never climbed outdoors before, and you've never met anyone in the group before?" Luke mused. "That's ballsy."
I took me a minute to figure out why he'd called me ballsy, but then I realized it hadn't really sunk in that I was going to meet random strangers and do a very dangerous activity I've never done before, all while relying on said strangers.
Well, okay, if you put it that way then maybe it is ballsy.
Standing Indian Loop on the Appalachian Trail: How a myth, a storm, and friendship can electrify your perspective
A long time ago, in the area where Franklin, NC now sits, local Cherokee told a story of a winged beast that swooped down from the skies and stole children. Heartbroken and desperate, the local villagers sent a warrior to the highest mountain to keep watch for the winged monster and to discover its lair. The warrior found the lair, but it was in a place in the mountains inaccessible to humans, so the Cherokee villagers prayed to the Great Spirit for assistance. The Great Spirit heard their pleas and sent thunder and lightning to destroy the winged monster. The lightning scarred the surrounding mountains but the warrior, afraid for his life, tried to abandon his post. To punish his act of cowardice the Great Spirit sent a bolt of lightning to the mountain summit, leaving a bald and turning the warrior to stone. From that day forward the mountain was called Yunwitsule-nunyi which means "where the man stood."
Today we call it Standing Indian Mountain. The bald is still there, as well as the rock scars on the sides of the nearby mountains, but the rock shaped like a man is crumbling, forgotten to all except those that know to look for it.
27 acre woodland preserve in Carrboro offers natural trail hiking along Bolin Creek
I ran my longest distance ever this past weekend - 14 miles on Saturday morning - so on Sunday I needed a nice and easy warm-up hike with my dad before my trail run with Kelly at Carolina North. I was doing my usual scrounging around looking for green patches on Google Maps when I remembered that on the last long run in Carrboro we passed by a park sign on N Greensboro St and someone mentioned there were some trails back there. I pulled it up and sure enough: there was a little patch of green and a dotted line suggesting trails.
A trail on campus at UNC-Chapel Hill offers lots of route options for hiking or trail running.
This past Sunday Kelly and I kicked off our trail running adventures (which I will affectionately call "runventures") with Battle Branch Trail. This particular trail starts at the Chapel Hill Community Center and connects to Battle Park, a 93 acre park on campus at UNC Chapel Hill. Battle Branch Trail connects Battle Park and the Chapel Hill Community Center, and you can loop various trails together in Battle Park for a range of mileage for a great hike! Great for running or hiking, it's a great addition to the Sunday Stroll series!
Clingmans Dome to Jockey's Ridge: 680 miles of trail and over 500 miles of connecting roads
It's always a surprise when I stumble across the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. This summer I will have lived in North Carolina for twenty years and through this whole time the Mountains-to-Sea Trail has been like an old friend who keeps popping up again - someone I knew and liked throughout my life but never got to know intimately even though we share interests and keep rubbing elbows over the years.
Waterfalls abound on 5 mile hike outside Morganton, NC
I am still trying to catch up on sleep after this weekend. I always strive to be the type of person who gets up early in the morning and is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to tackle the world, but in reality I'm at my best energy levels sometime after 8pm and before 5am. I have a friend who is the same way and she calls us "morning owls" - fighting our natural circadian rhythms just to get a little more mileage into our days. So with that in mind, Saturday morning was an eeeeearly morning for me. I woke up at 5am and had to force myself out of bed, all groggy and groaning and rubbing crusty sleep from my eyes. I'd already woken up early the day before for a pre-work climbing session, so two early mornings in a row was hella hard. But the mountains were calling, and I had a date with a meet-up group.
Tall bluffs create montane environment in Cary, NC area
Swift Creek Bluffs Nature Preserve is a Triangle Land Conservancy property that nestles up against Hemlock Bluffs Nature Preserve. Swift Creek runs along both parks and is protected by tall bluffs which create a montane environment with flora and fauna commonly found at higher elevations. In January very little is showing off its alpine blossoms, but with the trees bare you can easily spy the creek along the entire trail.
