Featured articles from the latest edition of Blue Ridge Outdoors Magazine.

Why does the South Beyond 6,000 Challenge exclude dozens of qualified peaks? South Beyond 6,000 (SB6K) is a unique peakbagging quest that, upon completion, offers a certificate of recognition and a nice little patch.  Sponsored by the Carolina Mountain Club (CMC), the challenge involves climbing 40 peaks in the Southern Appalachians that exceed 6,000 feet [...]

You may not have the opportunity to see all of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World for yourself. A trip to see the Aurora Borealis with your own eyes may be out of your price range, and visiting Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls in person might take longer than your one-week allotted vacation. Luckily, the South [...]

Foraging the Forests for Fungi Most of us buy our food from the grocery store. Alan Muskat gathers his food from the forest. He collects dandelion greens and nettles for salads, and he harvests an assortment of wild berries, but it’s his talent for tracking down tasty toadstools that’s earned him the nickname “Mushroom Man.” [...]

The Search for One Square Inch of Silence Man-made noise is everywhere. Close your eyes and listen right now: cars, airplanes, lawn mowers, computers. We buy earplugs and noise-canceling headphones. But what about finding places where there is no human noise—where the sound of silence is wind, coyotes, the drip-drip of melting snow? Sound ecologist [...]

Will millions in new funds make trails more sustainable—or more sanitized? Southern Appalachian trails are getting a much-needed facelift. Almost $9 million will be spent by the U.S. Forest over the next several months to clear brush, remove blowdowns, restore tread, decommission unsustainable trails, and in some cases, build brand new trail systems. It’s the [...]

The Surprising Rise of Downhill Mountain Biking in the South Ever wonder what those first mountain bikers were thinking? We’re talking about a small group of road bikers in the mid-1970s, who, for whatever reason, decided to ditch the pavement and push their beefy cruiser bikes up Mount Tamalpais in Northern California. From the top [...]

Paddling by moonlight turns a quiet river into a wild adventure. I had paddled the Three Rivers Area many times, but paddling at night transformed it into an entirely new experience. Every paddle stroke was an adrenaline rush. The howl of a distant coyote charged the night air.  And the sudden splashes of beavers and [...]

A ballsy tick goes boldly where no man has gone before. I pulled eight ticks off my legs during a recent hike in Tennessee’s Cherokee National Forest. Every half hour, I’d look down and find one or two of the little black beasts on my shins and thighs. And every single one of them was [...]

Boone climbers saved Grandmother Mountain from development—and opened their secret crags to the masses. Grandmother Mountain has no guidebook. It appears on only a few maps. Yet it is one of the premier bouldering destinations in the country. First discovered in the mid-1990s near Boone, N.C., the area now hosts more than 400 problems and [...]

The Blue Ridge Parkway is not just America’s most scenic mountain road; it’s also America’s longest trailhead. For 469 miles, the Blue Ridge Parkway follows the ridgeline of the Southern Appalachians, connecting Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina with Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park. Along that stretch of two-lane blacktop are countless trails and [...]

Ultra runner Matt Kirk smashes the South Beyond 6,000 record On the evening hours of May 30th, Matt Kirk did what many in the Southeast thought couldn’t be done: He broke the seven-year old record for the fastest ascent of the South Beyond 6,000 Challenge, completing it in 4 days, 14 hours, and 38 minutes. [...]

Richmond rowers train on the James River for their upcoming national championships. At the starting line, everyone is silent. We try to control our breathing and heartbeats. “Attention…row!” shouts the race official, and the boats roar to life. Oars chop through the water in controlled chaos. There are five of us in our boat; we [...]

Climbing creeks and rappelling waterfalls is a new southern obsession It happens fast. I rappel off the edge of the waterfall, and the rope gets wrapped around my hand, slamming my body into the wet rock face. My hand is cut and bleeding. Water pounds my helmet and shoulders. I kick and scratch with my [...]

It was at 6:40 p.m., Sunday, April 18, 2010, that I finally hit Middle Age. Scratch that. It was at that moment that I finally realized I had hit Middle Age. In truth, I’d probably been there for years. I was on the back half of 39, after all, and could tick a good number [...]