GetHiking! Southeast Joe Miller

The best thing about hiking on a cold winter’s day? You can hike forever.This is why winter is made for the long hike. In summer, after an hour on the trail, you’re done. You’re soaked in sweat, your eyes sting of salt, you’re coated in spider webs. In winter after an hour you’re just getting warmed up.The cold itself is good incentive to keep moving. And the more you move down the trail the more you realize what a magical time of year this is in the woods. Winter’s sunlight knifes brig...

This week, the last week of 2022, we kick off 2023 and North Carolina's year of the Trail. We talk with Beth Heile with the Great Trails State Coalition, a nonprofit created to promote trails in North Carolina, and we talk a little about our work with the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources' Hometown Strong initiative to promote trails in North Carolina's 80 rural counties. This week, we have a special emphasis on the start of Year of the Trail with a plethora of First...

Today on the GetHiking! Southeast Podcast we revisit North Carolina’s 12 State Trails. Revisit, because in March 2021 we spoke with State Trails Coordinator Smith Raynor about the trails. That discussion was a more broad-based chat about the State Trails program. Today, we take a closer look at each of the 12 trails, and later we will revisit these trails again to see how 2023, designated The Year of the Trail in North Carolina, will impact the development of these long trails. But let us not...

The first 6 miles of trail in a project to eventually add 42 miles in the Old Fort area of North Carolina's Pisgah National Forest have opened. That and more national forest news, from Virginia and Tennessee, in this week's report.For more information on the trail opening and the Old Fort project, start here.For more information on the reopening of the High Knob Recreation Area in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest, go here.

Come summer, we head to the high country of the Southern Appalachians to escape the sizzling heat at lower elevations. Today, we talk about 7 of our favorite high country hikes for summer, hikes that meet one of two criteria for summer exploring: they either need elevation to escape the heat, or they must have access to water. Better still, both. You can find more information on these hikes and other great mountain hikes in this GetHiking! guide, 7 Mountain Hikes for a Sizzling Summer.I...

Today, we share 10 bits of advice primarily for folks 50 and older who are interested in getting into into hiking, as well as for established older hikers who want to continue hiking late into life. It’s taken from a Lunch with GetHiking! Zoom session on June 2. (Lunch with GetHiking! is an every other Thursday event done via Zoom, in which we discuss a variety of hiking topics. Find out when our next event is by joining our GetHiking! Meetup page here.)In the NewsFor more on the openin...