What does it take to get kids on the trail? Not much, other than
* an early enthusiastic start
* water and snacks
* a clear destination
* and an adult who’s going to enjoy the hike as much as the kids.
Today, I took Hannah, twelve-years old, and Isa, five-years old, up to the Craggys on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We went on two short trails, each with a clear destination.
First, we went up to Craggy Pinnacle, a classic walk up to the fantastic 360-degree view. See above. When we first got up there, we had the viewpoint to ourselves but frankly, it’s more fun with a few people around. Isa was so excited that it was difficult to keep her from running both up and down. The trail is is great shape but it is rocky and I was concerned that she would fall and skin her knees.
We came down and drove south on the parkway to stop at the Craggy visitor center where we stamped our national park passports.
Then we met Ranger Amy Duernberger, where I took a picture of the girls with the ranger.
Our last stop was the Craggy Picnic Gardens. We walked up the Mountains-to-Sea Trail up to the gardens, stopping at the shelter.
Though the rhododendrons and azaleas were no longer blooming, it was still an exciting place. So different from Craggy Pinnacle.
By then, there were several groups going up or down, or just wandering through the gardens. We even saw a couple of families that had also gone up the Pinnacle.
The morning ended with a picnic. After all, we were at the Craggy Gardens Picnic Area.
We hike it, we build it, we maintain it, we support it but now we have a special opportunity to let our North Carolina legislators know that they should support it too.
Here’s a call-out from Kate Dixon, Executive Director of Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail:
Kate is asking all MST hikers and supporters to:
contact your legislators in support of funding for trails included in NC Senate Bill 486 – An Act to Enhance Economic Development through the Expansion of the State Trails Network. We were excited to see such strong support emerge for the MST and other trails this session.
Please take a few minutes today to e-mail or call your senator and house member. Time is of the essence because the Senate plans to release its version of the budget this coming week.
Tell your legislator: * Why you love trails and the MST in particular * If the MST or other trails you love are in his or her legislative district * That you are excited to see Senate Bill 486 introduced this session to provide additional funding for trails * Urge them to support funding for trails
Sunrise at Cape Hatteras
Just in case you don’t have the contact details of your NC legislators, see the Who Represents Me? page on the website for the NC General Assembly. You can search for your legislator by using the maps at the top of the page or scroll to the bottom to get a list of legislators by county. I found it easiest to put in my full zip code.
Forward this blog post to your friends so they can also express their support
The most important thing you can do at this time is let your legislators know that funding for trails is important to you. Kate Dixon and other trail advocates will continue working on the details of the bill.
One more thing – Once you have the name and email address of your North Carolina legislators, save them in your email address book. You’ll need them again.
In February of 2014, the North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation (DPR) began the process of developing this master plan for the Mountains-to-Sea State Trail (MST). The vision for the MST is an off-road hiking trail connecting Clingmans Dome on North Carolina’s western border to Jockey’s Ridge State Park in the Outer Banks.
So starts the body of a draft of the first North Carolina state master plan for the MST. Planning Communities, LLC, the firm that’s been retained by the state to write the master plan, is looking for comments, due by May 15. If you go to this website, you’ll notice that Planning Communities, LLC decided not to hold any meetings in the mountains. I wrote to several people on that. The answer was basically, “we’re not”.
I read the whole 112 pages – OK, so I skipped the legal stuff at the end. Here are some interesting bits.
Early Planning Efforts
At the National Trails Symposium at North Carolina’s Lake Junaluska in 1977, the idea of a cross-state trail gained further momentum. The North Carolina Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources and Community Development, Howard Lee, addressed the crowd about the trail, saying, “I want our State Trails Committee to look at recommending a trail that would give North Carolina and national visitors using it a real feel for the sights, sounds, and people of the state… I think it would be a trail that would help — like the first primitive trails — bring us together.”
It may surprise mountain folks that follow the white circles that the first dedicated segment of the MST was a 75.8-mile trail along the Cape Hatteras National Seashore in 1982. Well, the national park was there and they didn’t need too many signs on the beach.
Still, the Master Plan does recognize that “much of the early trail was on the ground in the mountain region. Throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s most trail construction took place in the mountains in the western part of the state because of the availability of public lands, though trails near Falls Lake in the Piedmont were dedicated in 1987 and 1991.
Designated Segments
The Designated Segments of the MST are constructed sections that have been designated by the DPR. Currently, there are over 600 designated miles of the MST, with the majority of those miles lying within the western part of the state. The following Designated Segments are identified in this master plan:
A. Southern Blue Ridge
B. Asheville Area
C. Central Blue Ridge
D. Northern Blue Ridge
E. Pilot Mountain to Hanging Rock State Park
F. Greensboro Watershed Trails
G. Falls Lake/Neuse River
Another surprise to Carolina Mountain Club members. The state assumes that the club will build trails west of Heintooga Road. That’s the problem when you write a plan without actually talking to maintainers and hikers or without being there.
From the MST off Waterrock Knob
The trail doesn’t go into Cherokee. From Heintooga Road, it takes a variety of trails, goes up to Waterrock Knob and eventually to Balsam Gap. Almost all of it is now on trail. Pg. 13 of the master plan is so old, it seems as if nothing happened since the year 2000. It lists Cherokee to Balsam Gap as undone.
The master plan is good with ranking, prioritizing, etc. but it doesn’t seem like they talked to anyone. It’s as if with GPS and high quality maps, you don’t have to ground truth anymore.
I have a lot of trouble with the Personal Safety section.
Pg. 58 focuses on the “dangers” on the MST, mostly suspicious people. Why are nonhikers so afraid of the woods? The Personal Safety section starts and ends with fearing other hikers. I should be grateful that they don’t talk about fearing bears and snakes.
But they get some things right.
Stay to the right and pass on the left. Always look before changing positions on the trail. • Dogs must be leashed, as loose dogs can be hazardous to others or to themselves. • Carry out all litter, including pet and food waste. Bring bags to collect your waste and dispose of it in a garbage can. Pet and food waste can attract wildlife.
So, read as much of the master plan as you can. Look at your section of trail to see if plan writers got it right. And comment by May 15.
To Hike or not to Hike – that is a common question. Shakespeare may not have asked but I do, quite often.
MST east of Folk Art Center
On Sunday, the Carolina Mountain Club leader had scheduled a hike to Whitewater Falls on the North/South Carolina border. Yes, it was at a lower altitude than most of Pisgah National Forest, but it was a long drive. With all the snow, the leader hadn’t scouted the hike, a requirement on CMC hikes.
The knee-jerk reaction was to cancel the hike.
No, don’t do that, I cried out. So he substituted a simple Mountains -to-Sea Trail hike east of the Folk Art Center. It was 5.5 miles up in snow, ice and mud but it was great. I was grateful to be out for the day, no matter what we did.
Shedding clothes
Good, old reliable MST.
It can rain, snow, ice up. The Blue Ridge Parkway could be closed but we can always hike on the MST close to Asheville. We kept shedding clothes as we climb.
Today, I was not supposed to be at home writing a blog post. I was meant to be scouting a hike with Anna Lee of Friends of the Smokies.
We postponed the hike last week and it was a good thing too with the snow dump on Thursday. We rescheduled the scout for today. But I’ve been looking at the weather forecast obsessively.
Who should I believe?
WLOS, our local ABC-TV affiliate, loves to hype up the weather. So I take it with a large grain of salt and check Weather.com. You can spend hours on its hour-by-hour forecast. Here’s what it said. The weather today was going to be fine, even warm, in Asheville. But in Bryson City, the closest town to our trailhead, there was a significant chance of rain. Anna Lee and I hemmed and hawed and she suggested that we postpone the scout. I agreed.
Well, if I look outside, it’s 76 degrees and sunny in Asheville. It’s 67 degrees and just as dry in Bryson City. Obviously we had made a mistake. I rarely overreact to a weather forecast but I hate to encourage someone to hike and then have it pour on them.
But spring is here and we’re not going to cancel as easily anymore.
To Hike or not to Hike. Erring on the side of hiking is always the answer.
About 225 (or was it 227) members showed up to learn the latest about the MST, renew friendships, and get tips on how to hike the trail.
Mike Murphy, head of the NC State Parks system, invited us all to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the state park system.
Yes, I know, that I’ve been mentioning the 100th anniversary of the National Park System but it’s also a big year for state parks. I think we can keep them straight. There will be major celebrations at Mt. Mitchell, the first NC park, and Fort Macon, the second. We are becoming the Great Trail State.
State Parks, with lots of help, is working on a master plan for the MST. The Statewide Master Plan will create the foundation needed to complete a continuous off-road hiking trail across North Carolina. The trail may also include paddle and biking alternatives. The hired firm that is actually writing the master plan will need input from MST enthusiasts like us. See their website.
Tom Earnhardt, writer and host of UNC-TV’s Exploring North Carolina, was the guest speaker. You’ve all seen him on Thursday nights. Tom is as enthusiastic in person as he is on TV. A lawyer by training and profession, he’s turned into a avid naturalist, a real renaissance man.
Tom started by praising walking. “Walking is the most noble form of transportation.” OK. He grabbed me from the beginning. He spoke about the importance of ground truthing. Maps and GPS are important but you have to get out there. You have to see and feel the ground: cold, wet, smell and feeling that you get by actually being in the place you describe.
He recalled his 10 to 12 year old self. No skepticism, no cynicism, no politics. His father took him to the Eastern Continental Divide around Bearwallow Mountain and explained that here half the water went to the Atlantic Ocean and half went to the Gulf of Mexico. That captured Tom’s imagination. The next thing he did was to bring all his 10 to 12 year old pals and they all peed to send their liquid both ways.
But most of his presentation was about the wonders of North Carolina. He threw out a lot of numbers, but you didn’t have to catch them all to understand why our state is so diverse biologically.
MST Completers
I had the privilege of moderating a panel of MST Completers.
Nine hikers finished the MST in 2014 and seven participated on the panel. They were a diverse lot. Two university students felt that it was a perfect trail for students because you could do it in a summer.
Two veterans scouted out the MST to see if it could be used for the Warrior Hike project. The hike is set for September.
The panel discussed what they thought the best part of the trail was. Almost everyone said “the people”. They loved walking the road because it brought them through small towns where they met locals. There were the usual practical questions about where to stay and how heavy were their packs.
I hope the panel and the whole annual meeting convinced a few more people to get on the trail. Because at the end, you have to ground truth the MST.
What does it take to get kids on the trail? Not much, other than
We came down and drove south on the parkway to stop at the Craggy visitor center where we stamped our national park passports.
By then, there were several groups going up or down, or just wandering through the gardens. We even saw a couple of families that had also gone up the Pinnacle.
MST Completers