Recreation+Gardening
Featured
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Holly Kays photo
Season of Awakening
Heavy fog is lifting to a gorgeous mountain morning as I heft my bulging backpack to the rear of the 15-passenger van, greeting the women with whom I’ll be spending the next 36 hours. Read more
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Hiking the Thomas Divide and Kanati Fork trails
If Great Smoky Mountains National Park has a geographic heart and soul aside from its great crest, perhaps it can be found on the park’s North Carolina side in the form of Thomas Divide. Read more
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NPS photo
A Conversation With A Smokies Speed Hiker
Nancy East fell in love with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park as a veterinary student at Auburn University, settling on the North Carolina side of the mountains to work and raise her family. Read more
North Carolina Arboretum photo
Olmsted’s Arboretum
Fredrick Law Olmsted once counseled George Vanderbilt to build an arboretum on his property in Western North Carolina. Olmsted was inspired to suggest an arboretum on the Vanderbilt property due to the rich flora of the Appalachian mountains. Read more
Apr 1, 2022
The Biltmore Company photo
Olmsted at Biltmore
Frederick Law Olmsted received many accolades during his life and thereafter, and this year, Biltmore Estate will unveil a collection of scenic stops throughout its historic gardens and grounds, with interpretive signs, in his honor. Read more
Apr 1, 2022
Gary Hartley photo
New River Gorge
Spanning one of the Eastern United States most unfragmented forests undisturbed by urban development, New River Gorge offers picturesque terrain and the perfect outdoor playground for bikers, hikers, rafters, BASE jumpers and more. Read more
Apr 1, 2022
Travis Bordley photo
'One of the Most Beautiful Places on Earth'
These are our mountains, our Appalachians—the southern Appalachians, the Blue Ridge, the Unakas. The only places where the Appalachian Trail tops 6,000 feet south of New Hampshire. Read more
Feb 1, 2022
Wildlands Network/National Parks Conservation Association photo
A Conversation With the Smokies’ Wildlife Crossing Guard
Jeff Hunter is the senior program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association and one of the instigators behind Safe Passage: The Interstate 40 Pigeon River Gorge Wildlife Crossing Project. Read more
Feb 1, 2022
wncoutdoors photo/ShareAlike 3.0
On the Trail in the Smokies
Big Creek is a ruggedly beautiful stream that drains the northeastern corner of Great Smoky Mountains National Park before exiting the park and flowing into the Pigeon River near the Tennessee state line. Read more
Feb 1, 2022
Holly Kays photo
The Secret Neighborhood
Winter has a way of reducing things to their essence. The mountains’ skeletons lie exposed, their leafy shrouds long gone. The air contracts, soft silence replacing the sounds of traffic and chatter that filled the warmer months. Read more
Feb 1, 2022
Holly Kays photo
War and Peace on the Parkway
When I’m out enjoying snowy vistas on the Blue Ridge Parkway, it’s usually with a pair of skis attached to my feet. I glide through the crystallized water, I breathe deeply, and I drink in the views and the silence. Read more
Dec 1, 2021
