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1.5 million miles. That’s the estimated cumulative amount of long-distance hiking experience of the expected attendees of the 29th Annual Gathering of the Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association at Concord College in Athens, W.Va., on October 15-17. ALDHA’s founder (and Blue Ridge Outdoors’ Outdoor Person of the year), Warren Doyle, who has hiked the A.T. [...]

Highland Brewing Company, one of Asheville’s oldest and most widely distributed micro-brewery, has begun leading hikes to famous peaks in Western North Carolina. Each of Highland’s seasonal brews are named after local peaks and the hikes are designed to introduce the brewery’s loyal fans to the mountains that inspired the beer. Highland already led a [...]

More kids are mountain biking than ever before, thanks to Marilyn Price, founder of Trips for Kids. The national nonprofit has taken over 50,000 at-risk youth on free mountain biking outings. BRO: How did the idea for Trips for Kids originate? MP: I was a mother and a housewife who loved biking throughout my life. [...]

Corridor K is a route on the Appalachian Development Highway System that would cut through the mountains of southeastern Tennessee and southwestern North Carolina. The Tennessee Department of Transportation would like to build an east-west multi-lane super highway through this corridor to connect Asheville with Chattanooga, and one of the proposed routes travels right through [...]

“Every year, millions of tourists come to Tennessee and spend millions of dollars to see our scenic mountaintops, not to see mountains whose tops have been blown off and dumped into streams.” —Republican Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander, co-sponsor of the Appalachian Restoration Act to end mountaintop removal mining, after Arch Coal announced a boycott of [...]

Harness: The harness needs to be comfortable enough to hang out in for hours and still have the features necessary to tackle anything from gym climbing to trad. The Misty Mountain Ranger is a new multi-purpose harness with some beginner-friendly features like double-backed, quick-adjust waist and leg loop buckles, which gives you one less thing [...]

Slip on your spray skirt: The Southeast is whitewater country. Here are the best rapids for every level of whitewater, from easy class I floats to class V hairboating adventures. Class I The James River, Va. Eagle Rock to Horseshoe Bend For 343 miles, the James River sweeps across the state of Virginia, connecting the [...]

Beale Street Music Festival May 1-3 • Memphis, Tenn. This legendary festival brings together the finest in rock, blues, R&B, and Americana music in historic downtown Memphis. thebealestreetmusicfestival.com World Beer Festival May 2 • Raleigh, N.C. Beer. Reason enough. Come to Raleigh and partake of the brews from over 150 world class crafters. allaboutbeer.com Cheat [...]

The Most Horrible Thing Ever In February, bikers attempted The Most Horrible Thing Ever, widely believed to be the hardest mountain bike race in the region. The race calls for over 36 straight hours of pedaling in six stages through North Carolina’s Pisgah National Forest. For the second year in a row, no one was [...]

Next month, three world-class female ultra runners—Virginia’s Rebekah Trittipoe, North Carolina’s Anne Lundblad, and Jenny Anderson—will attempt South Beyond 6,000, a challenge that requires summiting the 40 peaks in North Carolina above 6,000 feet. The runners will connect the 40 peaks together in a 273-mile journey; they’ll run at least 40 miles of trail per [...]

Court strips clean water regulations from mining permits

As even progressive politicians continue to hype coal, citizens of Appalachia marginalized by its devastating production process continue to be ignored. Burning the Future, a documentary directed by David Novack, presents the people who suffer most from coal and its production—those who live with toxic groundwater and whose backyard mountains are being blown up for [...]

We the people ask that you please stop mountaintop removal mining on Gauley Mountain. Gauley Mountain is the backbone of Fayette County, and stands in the heart of the New River Gorge tourist area. This mountain is so precious to us that its picture is on our state quarter. It plays a key role in [...]