Hiking the Highlands
Ghost Hike to Cone Manor
By Joe Tennis It may be ambiguous, mind you – all this stuff about ghosts. And it might be only your imagination, you see – this idea that you can stare up into the night sky and see figures or shadows or just-plain-something in the windows of the Moses H. Cone Manor House. But maybe…
Read MoreKanawah State Forest
By Joe Tennis All of a sudden, we saw a snake, lounging in the cool, rocky waters of a creek in the Kanawha State Forest. It was a little snake, about a foot long. Yet I couldn’t tell what kind it was. Neither could my hiking buddy, Justin. Was this a fake snake? Did somebody…
Read MoreAppalachian Trail Days celebrated in Damascus, VA
If you start at the southern end of the Appalachian Trail, say sometime around mid-March, you can walk northbound right along with the leading edge of the spring season, just as if you’d packed along some pixie dust to be sprinkled liberally on the budding flowers and leaves that line your path. Making reasonable progress…
Read MoreHiking the Highlands – Beech Mountain falls
At nearly a mile high, the water on Beech Mountain doesn’t really have any place to go – but down. Here, Pond Creek tumbles, slipping over ancient rock formations beside thick nests of rhododendron and laurel. Talk about tranquil. Listen: That’s about all you could call the rippling waters of the Lower Pond Creek Trail.…
Read MoreHanging Out in Hanging Rock State Park
By Joe Tennis Among the picturesque plains of the North Carolina Piedmont, the Sauratown Mountains rise north of Winston-Salem. Capped by cliffs, these peaks on the east side of the Blue Ridge are known locally as the “mountains away from the mountains,” and take their name from the Saura Indians, who lived in this area…
Read MoreHiking in the Highlands: The Virginia Creeper Trail
You can hike it. You can bike it. You can take it by horseback or on cross-country skis. Zipping across most of eastern Washington County, the Virginia Creeper Trail is a multi-use recreational trail linking downtown Abingdon to the North Carolina border near Grayson County’s Whitetop community. The 34-mile-long trail is the former site of…
Read MoreHiking the Highlands: Graveyard Fields
Graveyard Fields may not sound scenic, but don’t let the name fool you. This stop along the North Carolina portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway offers not only a chance to splash in a couple of waterfalls. It is also simply pretty, and it provides an environmental history lesson. Graveyard Fields lies between Asheville and…
Read MoreHiking the Highlands
Consider the contents: a waterfall, a tunnel and a trestle over a rocky river. It’s all waiting in Virginia’s Wise County, all within the first half-mile of the Guest River Gorge Trail. But wait, all this literally is just the beginning. Water draining out of southeastern Wise County ends up in the Guest River, roaring…
Read MoreThe Cascades of Appalachia
images/voice_uploads/IMG_4236_.gif You can’t help but fall in love with The Cascades – or that special person who accompanied you on the two-mile hike getting there. The natural beauty of Little Stony Creek is so terrifically tantalizing that even folks who don’t like to hike will want to make this journey. First, there’s the music. It’s…
Read MoreKayaks are Fine for Fishing
Self-proclaimed “granola” Woody Callaway sighs as he dips his paddle on the Green River at sunset. “This work is sooo hard,” he says, laughing. The founder of Liquid Logic, a kayaking company based in Hendersonville, N.C., knows that kayaking isn’t always about serene moments. Taking a kayak down class 5 rapids produces a rush of…
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