How many organized events?

That’s tough to pin down.

Officially, the American Hiking Society acts as the clearing house for NTD events. Fill out a form on their website and your event can appear in a searchable format on their NTD page. And while the site does include a lot of events, it’s far from a complete listing. In Virginia, for instance, AHS lists a total of 19 Trails Day events. On the Virginia State Parks website, however, you’ll find 49 events scheduled for National Trails Day. 

In North Carolina, AHS lists 26 NTD events. Yet missing is the grandaddy of North Carolina celebrations: NC Trail Days in Elkin/Jonesville. This events runs four days (June 4-7), includes 3 State Trails (Mountains-to-Sea, Overmountain Victory, and Yadkin River Paddle), 2 state parks (Stone Mountain and Pilot Mountain), and hiking, paddling and mountain biking, along with other outdoor events, live music and more. 

Virginia State Parks observes National Trails Day much like it does every other day, which is so say with a boatload of activities. Start the day with a 5K at High Bridge Trail State Park at 8 a.m. Or sleep in until 9 a.m. and do the challenging 4-mile Molly’s Knob Hike at Hungry Mother State Park. There’s a Wild Cave Tour at Natural Tunnel State Park, and lots of opportunities statewide to help maintain and build trail. The day ends with an Owl Prowl Night Hike from 8-9:30 p.m. at Smith Mountain Lake State Park.

But again, these are far from all the opportunities out their to celebrate trails on Saturday. Check your local municipal and county parks, check with your local land conservancy, or just check with your buddies and throw your own National Trails Day event. On National Trails Day only one thing matters.

That you spend time on a trail.

Resources

• Find events throughout the country at the American Hiking Society’s National Trails Day event page.
• Find North Carolina events here.
• Find Virginia events here.
• NC Trail Days.
• Go here for NTD events in Virginia State Parks.
• Go here for NTD events in North Carolina State Parks.

The post National Trails Day: Find an adventure this Saturday appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

The question took me by surprise, in part because we had been talking about federal grants at the time and usually when Anthony changes topics he signals it by saying, “Random question …  .”

It also caught me off guard because I happened to be reading a book about a guy who lived off the grid — way off the grid — in Western North Carolina. He’d begun his love affair with the woods as a teen, to get away from his father. When he reached the age of consent, he went at it full-time, with his mission to bring all of America with him. There was a lot to admire in this guy’s quest, which was largely driven by a love of the natural world and a desire to preserve it. A desire that included living in a low-impact teepee; drinking spring water; learning about ,and living off the plants around him; eating road kill. I was thinking about the latter when turned to Anthony and asked, “How far off the grid are you talking about?”

“Not having any bills to pay,” he answered. That, some follow-up questions revealed, meant still having modern conveniences — appliances, for instance — just not buying them on time. And also having a self-contained power system — solar, a water wheel, etc. 

We then asked each other how long we thought we could live off the grid.

“Not very long,” Anthony speculated.

“A weekend,” I answered. “Or up to a week.”

My answer was based on fact because I’d done it maybe 100 times over the past two decades. Or roughly how many times I’ve gone backpacking.

As Anthony and the fellow from the book demonstrate, living off the grid means different things to different people. I draw the line at eating roadkill and foraging for certain wild foodstuffs. Mushrooms, for instance, where there can be a very fine line between a fungi that sautés nicely over a camp fire and one that will kill you. I’ve drunk from many a spring (filtering if I think the source suspect), and while I’ve yet to build a shelter, it’s on my list. Until then, I’m content to sleep in a tent. 

Off the grid? Well, I need no outside power sources to get by, I’m self-sufficient, and because I’m observing Leave No Trace, I’m living harmoniously with nature. I may not be eating squirrel with a tire-track down its back and it may only be for a weekend, but it is, for the time being, the right amount of OTG living for me.

One last thing. That book I’m reading came out in 2002. Toward the end of the book the subject was growing suspicious and distrustful of others. I was curious about what had become of him, so I Googled him to see if he’d stuck with it and if so, how a lifetime spent off the grid had worked out. Not so good, it turns out. He’s less well-known today for his environmental efforts, more for his embrace and promotion of conspiracy theories. Apparently it takes a special kind of person to live entirely off the grid. 

Because I’m not special, I will confine my off-grid living to weekends, beginning Fridays after work, continuing through late Sunday. I’ll be in a tent, I will have hot coffee in the morning (thanks, JetBoil), I will have a comfortable place to sit and savor the evening (yo, Helinox Chair Zero). Off the grid, away from the grind.

At least for a weekend.

The post Off the Grid? Sure, for a weekend appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

During the summer, River Dave ran the program three times a day on weekdays, then usually one night a week on weekends. I understood why outdoorsy types were drawn to the program, but was curious about its obviously extensive appeal among the masses, so I set out one weekday and interviewed about a dozen “wafters.”

I had finished interviewing one woman and, as newspaper reporters are want to do, I asked her age. She paused, then simply said, “I’m old.”

It was an unexpected reply. “Why do you say that?” I finally asked.

She smiled. “I … one day I just woke up and thought, ‘I’m old.’ I just realized I was old. It came out of nowhere.” 

As we continued to talk she revealed her age as 62. I was 45 at the time and thought to myself, “Yeah, you are old.”

I recalled this exchange when I turned 62 some 17 years later. “Funny,” I thought, “I don’t feel old.” And that lead me to wonder just when, if ever, does that occur, that you just wake up one day and think, “I’m old”?

The woman from my paddling interview did not appear or act old. I mean, she was out here on a hot July day paddling, after all. Yet some switch had flipped in her mind that suddenly made her think otherwise. 

I’ve thought about this exchange increasingly as I approached 70, an age that none of my grandparents achieved. 70 — technically, that means I’m no longer middle-aged, unless I expect to live to 140. There are things I can no longer do, like run a trail marathon in less than 4 and a half hours. But there are so many things that I can do and, frankly, they’re the things I want to do.

I may not hike 25 miles every weekend, but I still hike. I may not climb onto the roof to clean gutters any more (though frankly that’s not something I should have been doing in the first place), but I’m still basically a DIY type. If I think about it, there’s really nothing I can’t do any longer that I wish I could. 

It’s a sign of aging, sure. But not a sign of being old.

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I was helping to recruit correctional officers for a minimum security facility — “helping” may be stretching it. In fact, I was just making sure the laptops used to fill out applications remained charged; my colleagues with the Department of Adult Corrections were doing the actual hiring. We were two hours into a four-hour Saturday shift and traffic had slowed. It seemed like a good time to slip out.

It was 10:30 in the morning, not a cloud in the sky and a temperature in the upper 60s; certainly not a day to be cooped up in a prison. My intent was to simply splash some sun in my face and step back inside. Then I happened to notice that the road I’d driven in on shortly turned to gravel. I love a gravel road.

I’d walked maybe 100 yards when something to the right caught my eye, something I love even more than a gravel road: a narrow opening into the woods. What a find, a find that would shortly lead to a mystery. 

The short path led to a slightly wider one that was lined on both sides by Disc Golf tee boxes. I stopped at No. 14, with a sign reading: “Par 13 / 215 yards.” I looked around: the clearest path in any direction, in this jumbled hardwood forest, was maybe 15 yards — maybe. In the span of 20 yards I saw three more Par 3s, all in the 200-yard range, all surrounded by trees. 

Huh.

I kept walking, picking up my pace, not sure whether I’d stumbled onto a private course on private land. In a quarter mile the path led back to the gravel road, which had taken a sharp right turn. On the other side of the road was a sign with an arrow: “Senior Center.” I’m a senior, I thought. I forged ahead. 

The path widened to a good 20 feet and began to resemble more of a trail,  Sure enough, I soon came to another sign with another arrow, this one proclaiming: “Nature Trail.” I’d gone from a gravel road, to a narrow opening in the woods, to, baffling disc golf course to, somehow, an actual trail that may or may not lead to a Senior Center. All because I felt the need for some quick fresh air, all because I wasn’t afraid to, literally, go off the beaten path.

In part what made this adventure possible was that I didn’t deny my need for an adventure, no matter how small. A simple breath of fresh air, that was all I wanted. I also gave into some honest self-awareness: Did my coworkers need me? No. Would they even miss me or realize I’d been gone for a half hour? Probably not. 

I also didn’t ignore the fact that I was overdue for an adventure, even a 30-minute one. And because I love taking the path less traveled — or not traveled at all — I wasn’t bound by the need for an actual trailhead to jump in. Following a trail, especially a well-worn one, you inherit the energy of those who’ve come before you. Vibes that aren’t necessarily bad, but aren’t entirely yours, either. As soon as you step into a layer of leaves, into soft earth, you are creating your own way. It’s a way you’ll never tire of because you’ll probably never pass this way again. It’s a true form of adventure, available to the common person in the modern, discovered, world.

Best of all? There’s a good chance you can find it right out your own back door. Even the back door of your office. 

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PostHikeScript

That “trail” I stumbled upon? It was indeed a trail, the 1.5-mile Orchard Lake Trail in Yanceyville. Turns out I’d hiked it a couple years ago, picking it up from behind Yoder’s Market on County Home Road. On that occasion it was mid-August and the trail was swathed in spider webs. I quickly turned back. But if you find yourself in Yanceyville, and it’s not summer, a nice trail to check out. Learn more here.

The post A surprise breath of adventure appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

The first two episodes chronicle the 17-day, 400-mile trip, a mix of hiking and pack rafting in one of the most wild and remote spots around. The scenery and struggle are compelling. But it’s the third episode that’s especially worth watching (though you need to watch the first two episodes for the full impact).

In “What Went Wrong Hiking In Alaska — Gear, Food, Health” — Darwin and one of the other two participants review the trip, looking at what went wrong and what they might have been done to make the trip a little less, in their words, “Type 8 Fun.” (Officially, the unofficial scale only goes up to Type 3.) It’s a good exercise in scrutinizing a trip.Check it out starting here.

It also reminded me of an ill-fated trip from 2011, and my similar attempt to learn from my mistakes. Certainly not as epic as Darwin’s trip, certainly not as many interesting failures. More similar, though, to issues you may have experienced. That story from 2011 begins below … 

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Back in the old days – meaning before I got a GPS – I knew I’d been on a good hike when I couldn’t wait to get home and perform a topopsy. That would be a postmortem in which I would get out a topo map and try to figure out why, instead of going from Point A to Point B, I’d wound up at Q. Nothing quite like that post-hike thrill of figuring out that you should have gone left at the junction just past the beech cove rather than right, which, it turns out, dumps you in the backyard of a rustic type with a fondness for easily-angered dogs and cinderblocked pickups bearing bumper stickers of a laissez-faire theme.

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