March 2019
Let’s stop talking about climate change in the future tense. Climate change is happening here and now, right in our Blue Ridge backyard. The floods caught everyone by surprise, including me. I left Blacksburg early after my wife called to warn about rising waters. The river hadn’t flooded onto the road yet, but it was…
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North Carolina Outdoor Guide and Carpenter inspired by Inuit Craftsmanship In 1950, the Canadian government forciblyremoved thousands of Inuit from their ancestral homeland. From this tragic epoch emerged the tale of one elder who refused to leave. Hoping to ensure their grandfather’s compliance, relatives confiscated the old man’s tools. Unfazed, he snuck out of the…
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1,700 Number of bikes donated to disadvantaged kids by the late Avrum Morrow, who passed away in January at the age of 93. The Montreal-based Morrow had been anonymously gifting the bikes via the Sun Youth Organization for more than three decades. For his 60th birthday, Morrow, who became known as “Bike Man” until his…
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North Carolina becomes the first state in the East to create an Office of Outdoor Recreation. On his first day as the director of North Carolina’s newly created Office of Outdoor Recreation Industry, David Knight got on a plane and flew to Denver. On his second day at the Outdoor Retailer winter trade show, he…
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From Industry to Recreation: Turning Rails into Trails Born and raised in Southwest Virginia, Eva Beaule’s family depended on tobacco agriculture for income. Washington County was one of the country’s largest producers of burley tobacco leaves and, at that time, a rail line linking Mendota and Bristol, Va., carried products in and out of the…
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How Kristopher Cargile turned his life around, one step at a time We met on a cold, rainy day in a bustling, upbeat coffeehouse. Amid the hectic clanging, pain darkened his face. It was a stark change from the bubbly, funny, seemingly carefree trail runner who had been one of my constant companions at a…
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Search and Rescue leader Andrew Herrington throws his students into icy creeks and teaches them how to save themselves. Our travel editor Ellen Kanzinger signed up. When I registered for Andrew Herrington’s Survival 101 class, he told me, “I hope it’s cold as shit for your class.” That’s his mentality when it comes to teaching…
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Athletes and Experts Reveal Their Favorite Podcasts In 1851, Henry David Thoreau wrote in his journal about the sounds of the telegraph that had just come to his home of Concord: “We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important…
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UGA study reveals that 89 percent of visitors to public land support Wilderness Wilderness designation is a tool for permanent protection of the South’s wildest places, but how do Southerners feel about wilderness areas? With population swelling in the South, should wilderness areas be opened to resource extraction, or are wilderness areas more vital than…
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Top Regional Guides Dish On Indispensable Gear Fly fishers are gear people. There are closets full of rods, reels, tools and tying materials. Boxes of flies, acquired long ago for a particular stream and season, wait forgotten in the pocket of an old vest. All of it has, or had, a purpose. Yet there are…
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Looking for a different kind of thru-hike? Try one of these less-crowded long-distance trails Since Earl Shaffer claimed the first Appalachian Trail thru-hike in the 1940s, hikers from around the world have set out on the 2,200-mile trail in search of something. The power and solitude of the trail has been well documented in popular books,…
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Thanks to collaboration from a variety of groups, North Carolina may double the number of Wild and Scenic Rivers this year Here’s a sign of just how loaded North Carolina is with spectacular, free-flowing mountain creeks: a gem like the North Fork of the French Broad River is not even that famous. After heavy rains,…
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Seven Destinations To Get In On The Action There’s a brutish undercurrent gaining momentum in fly fishing. Across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, anglers are taking the delicate tools and techniques traditionally associated with surface-sipping trout, and they’re adapting them to pursue warmwater fish. While fly fishing for bass and bream is not new, this evolution…
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Features Fly Revolution Anglers are adapting fly techniques to pursue warmwater fish. Nick Carter highlights eight hotspots for warmwater fly fishing. ‘Always Cheat, Always Win’ Search and Rescue leader Andrew Herrington throws his students into icy creeks and teaches them how to save themselves. Ellen Kanzinger signed up for his weekend survival course. Alternate A.T.…
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