New park in Wendell offers hiking, picnicking, and a retreat in nature
I know, I know, everyone's still obsessed with snow right now (can you believe we got well over 8 inches in Durham?!) but today's a little bit of a throwback. Final photos for the Wake County Parks project were delivered and I am just itching to show you all the last round of images! I got to do a ton of fun things for the Wake County Parks photography project, from photographing mountain bikers and stand-up paddleboarders to exploring hiking trails to meeting up with equestrians to doing some fun interactive lessons with kids - but it also gave me the opportunity to do something I'd never be able to do otherwise (well, not legally at least): explore a park that hadn't been opened yet!
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.
Jeff Alt's memoir describes his thru-hike adventures and fundraising for Sunshine Communities
I've got to admit something to you all: as much as I love hiking and books I've actually read very few trail memoirs. Sure, I've read the basics like Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods and Cheryl Strayed's Wild, but that's about it (correction: that is it!), and even then those are hiking novels written by writers rather than memoirs written by hikers. So when Beaufort Books reached out to me to see if I'd be interested in reading Jeff Alt's A Walk for Sunshine I was eager to give it a chance.
Scenic 2-mile loop around Bass Lake offers hiking and water recreation in Holly Springs, NC
On Sunday morning when I woke up to go on a Sunday Stroll it was four degrees Fahrenheit outside. Four degrees! I couldn't remember ever witnessing such cold conditions; even the winter break of my freshman year that I spent in Wisconsin racing sled dogs only showed me temperatures as low as 8°F. Regardless I had promised my dad that cold or no cold we were hiking that morning at Bass Lake in Holly Springs, so I bundled up with my merino wool long johns, my quilted coat, and my snowboarding jacket and I headed out.
Exploring trails at private mountain retreat in the snow
This recent snow from the "bomb cyclone" or whatever cute name we're supposed to call it calls to mind the trip McCrae and I made to Bullhead Mountain a few weeks ago. It had snowed a few days before we drove up to a small town outside Boone to stay at a mountain cabin owned by McCrae's uncle and aunt, and in the morning when we pulled on our warmest hats and coats the drifts lay deep in the mountain shadows.
Snuggle-bug all bundled up against the cold and a recap of December 2017 goals
Surprise! Ha, I know I just posted goals for 2018, but an important aspect of long-term goals is breaking them down into short-term goals, so I apologize in advance for the back-to-back goals posts. Just remember - these redundant posts just come once a year, so you don't have to put up with this redundancy again until 2019! (Which will be here before we know it, ha!) But before we jump right into the monthly goals, my reader survey is up! It's the first time I've ever done a reader survey, so I'm pretty excited to hear feedback from you all. You can fill it out using the link https://goo.gl/forms/l0dSSHW8PY7N4ec53 or fill it out directly on the blog post. Thanks in advance!
Looking back at last year's resolutions and setting resolutions for 2018
Happy New Year! This is the third year now I've set new year's resolutions on the blog, and while it's a little silly it's nice to have something publicly posted to hold me accountable and to see how my goals have changed over the years. So first let's look at how I did for 2017 and then we'll dive into goals for 2018!
