Some Urban, Some Beach, Some Bikes, Some Views!
May 4. A bike/hikette from home via Roanoke River Greenway to Star Trail (1.5 in for lunch; back out) to Belfast Park and home.
A grandkid baseball game at 1 p.m. will slice into your hiking day pretty sharply. The solution is to make the trip without a car, combining bicycles on Roanoke’s wonderful greenway with a little walk partway up Roanoke’s wonderful mountain, and then back down, back on the bikes and up a few blocks of sidewalk to newly named Belmont Park, where Tyler had a good game and his team won, and we rode back home.
May 11-14. Beach walks at Carolina Beach, N.C. and Cherry Grove, S.C. About 8 miles.
We’d not been to Carolina Beach in a few years, but quickly got back to beach-stretch walks and roadside bike rides. And after a couple days of that, we headed south into South Carolina to hang out with The Greatest Day Hiker’s sisters and their husbands, where more fine beach walks were to be had.
May 18. From home to downtown Roanoke (Beamer’s) and back. 5 miles
Pretty easy urban walk to some pretty good food.
May 19. Appalachian Trail from Daleville to Carvins Cove overlook and back. 5 miles
I guess if we counted up all the hikes over the 15-plus years, this would be the most frequently undertaken. Its nice elements include proximity, Tinker Creek, Tinker Mountain and looking down on Carvins Cove for lunch.
May 25. Henry Lanum Loop at Mt Pleasant National Scenic Area. 5.5 miles
The summit of Mt. Pleasant—east or west—is a large part of the “scenic area” identify of this walk. And part of that scenery to the west is over onto the National Scenic Area’s other great aspect—the mile-long bald on Cold Mountain.
May 27. Appalachian Trail from Black Horse Gap along Blue Ridge Parkway to Wilson Creek and back. 6.2 miles
A very pleasant stretch of the Appalachian Trail, with not as much sustained descent from the parkway (and thus of course not as much sustained climb on the way back). And the stream-side lunch is always good for a few crayfish in mad grab-and-go for the tiny food bits The Day Hiker tosses into the stream to draw them out to play.
