Friends of the MST Has announced plans to celebrate the Mountains-to-Sea Trail’s 43rd birthday during the month of September. This year, four new challenges help hikers and trail friends celebrate in a socially responsible and safe way. The trail runs 1175 miles across North Carolina, from Clingmans Dome in Great Smoky National Park to Jockey’s Ridge on the Outer Banks, and passes through areas of natural beauty, historical significance and cultural interest.

The three hiking challenges use Great Day Hikes on North Carolina’s Mountains-to-Sea Trail as a reference. The guidebook features 40 different day hikes from across the trail of varying lengths, and showcases many natural and cultural gems that are connected by the MST. The guidebook is published by UNC Press and edited by Jim Grode. The fourth challenge is a fundraising campaign. All are to be completed during September of 2020. Hikers are encouraged to hike following all local Covid-19 guidelines for safe outdoor recreation.

Challenge #1: Take a Great Day Hike. Walk one or many of the 40 hikes in the new Great Day Hikes on North Carolina’s Mountains-to-Sea Trail guide.

Challenge #2: 43-Kilometer Challenge. Hike one of the three designated 43-kilometer stretches of the MST in 24 hours to complete the 43K-Challenge. These stretches are:
• Mountains: Segment 5 -Jumpinoff Rock Overlook to Brinegar Cabin. Hike through rolling hills in Doughton Park and Brinegar Family homestead.
• Piedmont: Segment 10 – Rolling View Recreation Area to Yorkshire Center. Hike along the shores of Falls Lake.
• Coastal Plain: Segment 15 – Holly Shelter Game Lands, Surf City Bridge and Topsail Island. Hike through long leaf pine savanna and onto Topsail Island.

Challenge #3: Triple Crown. Complete each of the three 43K hikes in a 24-hour period during the month of September to complete the 43K Triple Crown.

Challenge #4: Raise funds for the MST. Friends has created a peer-to-peer campaign system for trail friends to help raise funds to build, maintain, protect and promote the MST.

More details about the 43rd Birthday Celebration and the Mountains-to-Sea Trail are available on www.MountainstoSeaTrail.org. Step after step, mile after mile, the MST was made for times like these.

At nearly 86 years old, Howard Lee isn’t slowing down.

Recently, he knocked a goal off his list by reaching about 120 miles hiked along North Carolina’s Mountains to Sea Trail. He’s been working on the milestone for five years.

“It’s such a delight to be a part of this,” Lee said. “To be here today, to be with friends and to continue to be able to hike the trail at my age, certainly is a blessing.”

Lee is considered the “father” of the 1,200-mile trail, which stretches across North Carolina in segments, as he first proposed the idea in 1977 as secretary of what is now the state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

“It allows you to get out and commune with nature,” he said. “To be able to get out here and see the trees and the flowers and to be able to see the animals and the natural areas is just so relaxing and so soothing. This is a way to escape from the pressures of the day-to-day grind and relax and feel human again.”

“On one of our low-use trails, we’ve seen over 100 percent increase in the traffic just over the last three months. … We work hard to maintain it and build it, so we want to see as many people as possible out enjoying it.”

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Great Day Hikes on North Carolina’s Mountains-to-Sea Trail is out! Edited by Friends of the Mountains to Sea Trail resource manager Jim Grode and published by UNC Press, Great Day Hikes is available from the web store and your local booksellers, many of whom are providing delivery or curbside pick up while their doors are closed. All of Jim’s author events have unfortunately been cancelled, but they hope to reschedule if possible.

The Watauga Democrat newspaper wrote, “An obvious labor of love…[the book] is meticulously organized and user friendly – whether those friends are new to outdoor treks or seasoned hikers. Offering 40 hikes that are grouped and move through the three geographical regions of the state, each detailed journey is a self-contained adventure including a hike summary with notes such as degree of difficulty and trail type, hike overview, driving directions, hike directions, and full-color maps and photos.” The whole review is here.

Many of the hikes in the book are open, and for that reason, you are invited to get started on the 40 Hike Challenge. More are likely to open again soon.

Can you complete every hike outlined in the guide within the next three years? You will experience a fantastic cross section of the state and the MST, and by taking on the challenge, you will receive a special patch when you finish all 40 hikes.

Over the past four decades of volunteer citizen efforts to create a trail from the mountains to the coast of North Carolina, few individuals are as revered as Bob Benner. Sadly, Bob passed away on December 4, 2019 in Morganton at the age of 89 from ALS.

Bob was widely known for his dedication as an outdoor adventure educator and whitewater canoeing guidebook author and co-author (with his son David). From the moment he arrived in North Carolina in the early 1970’s he was engaged in all manner of regional and statewide conservation initiatives—including planning, locating and building a major segment of the Mountains -to-Sea Trail.

Bob Benner was the founding leader of the Central Blue Ridge Task Force and served in that capacity until 2009. His influence on the trail route location was pivotal as he undertook to take the trail off the Blue Ridge Parkway corridor for 75 miles from Mount Mitchell, through Pisgah National Forest and Linville Gorge Wilderness to Grandfather Mountain. This area is renowned for its remote, wild character including major cliffs, waterfalls rushing streams and breath-taking vistas.

To commemorate Bob’s legacy for North Carolina trails and rivers, his wife, Donna, has requested that we keep their families in our prayers and paddle, or take a hike in his memory.

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Leadership from state and national parks, volunteers, local officials, and trail enthusiasts gathered at Great Smoky Mountains National Park on Oct. 3, 2018 to celebrate the completion of a 300-mile connection on North Carolina’s Mountains-to-Sea State Trail (MST).

State trails staff, members of the Carolina Mountain Club and other volunteers and supporters recently completed construction on a linchpin 8-mile section near the Blue Ridge Parkway in Swain County. That segment completes a continuous footpath from Clingmans Dome in Great Smoky Mountains National Park to Stone Mountain State Park.

Development and construction of this trail section included negotiating difficult terrain east of the Great Smoky Mountains, working around the tunneled sections of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and through the Qualla Boundary lands of the Eastern Band of Cherokee.

In 2016, the Eastern Band agreed to host a section of the trail through reservation lands, enabling the connector trail’s completion. In June of this year, the North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation, the National Park Service’s Blue Ridge Parkway, and the Carolina Mountain Club collaborated to complete the final section of this connection.

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Looking for a way to bridge the age gap on National Grandparents Day September 9? Take a hike on the NC Mountains-to-Sea Trail. (MST)

“We have trail sections for all skills and ages from the Smoky Mountains to the Outer Banks and in between,” said Jerry Barker, organizer of the MST Birthday Hike, which will be held that same weekend. He added, “Love of the outdoors is something one generation can pass on to another, whether it is hiking to a waterfall, hilltop, or quiet spot in the woods.”

Between September 7 and 9, 2018, not only grandparents and grandkids, but all North Carolinians can be part of the 41st birthday celebration of the MST. Last year over 1,700 people joined together to hike the 1,175-mile trail in one day on the trail’s 40th.

This year will be more informal, with hikers walking the trail anytime over the weekend with a group goal to accumulate a large number of miles hiked over the weekend. All hikers are invited to record their mileage and/or share their trail experiences at mountainstoseatrail.org/birthdayhike.

Or, you can share photos using the hashtag #mstbirthdayhike on Facebook or Twitter.

Suggested hikes, frequently asked questions and more information are online at mountainstoseatrail.org/birthdayhike. Trail guides for the entire trail are downloadable on the same website.

The MST goes from Clingmans Dome in Great Smoky Mountains National Park to Jockey’s Ridge on the Outer Banks. About 700 miles of the route—more than half the planned length—are currently on natural surface or greenway trail, unpaved forest roads, or beach. A series of connectors on bicycle routes, paddle routes, and backroads knits together finished sections to span the state. It goes through four national parks, two national wildlife refuges, ten state parks and three national forests.

Friends of the MST is a non-profit organization whose volunteers work more than 35,000 hours annually to build and maintain the trail.

We all need friends, and public lands in Western North Carolina increasingly receive care in the form of “Friends” nonprofit groups. In an era of shrinking federal budgets for parks and forests, these organizations are stepping up to preserve and maintain public spaces.

“Friends groups used to be the margin of excellence; now they’re the margin of survival,” Sally Jewell, then-U.S. secretary of the interior, said in Tennessee in 2014.

As just one example of the decreased cash flow for public lands, the 2018 National Park Service budget request for operations is $2.2 billion, a drop of $143.8 million from 2017. Picking up the slack are Friends groups for public lands, nonprofit organizations that help a park or forest with funding and volunteers. Usually, such groups have a formal relationship with the official land manager, and informally they give people a chance to give back to the landscapes they enjoy.

Friends of the Smokies was created in 1993 to provide funds for that “margin of excellence,” says Anna Zanetti, North Carolina director of the group. “With increasing maintenance backlog and a rise in visitation that outpaces the federal budget, our funds now contribute to the more basic needs of Great Smoky Mountains National Park,” she says.

The 469-mile Blue Ridge Parkway, which received more than 15 million visitors in 2016, gets a boost from the Asheville-based Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation. In 1997, its first year of operation, the foundation donated a few thousand dollars to the parkway; last year, it gave $1.2 million. Altogether the foundation has raised over $12 million in projects and programs.

Running through the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Mountains-to-Sea Trail extends over 1,100 miles across North Carolina, from Clingmans Dome in the Smokies to the Outer Banks. Friends of the MST, or FMST, is a statewide organization based in Raleigh with several board members living in WNC.

The Pisgah Ranger District, which extends 162,000 acres from Bent Creek west to the Middle Prong Wilderness, now has a champion in the Pisgah Conservancy. A newcomer to protecting national forests in the area, the Pisgah Conservancy was created in 2015 to provide funding to preserve the natural resources and beauty of Pisgah Ranger District and to enhance the recreational experience of all visitors.

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SIGNS
Allen Poole, North Carolina’s Mountains to Sea Trail volunteer Task Force Leader on the Outer Banks, has been hard at work adding signs and blazes along the route there. On this stretch, it is challenging to know which beach access to use to come on and off the beach, so his work will be a big help to MST hikers.

Meanwhile, the Trail Resource Manager Jim Grode, has just identified places for almost 400 signs that will mark the trail route where it follows roads through the Coastal Plain, and volunteers with the Elkin Valley Trails Association have done the same for MST Segment 6. Friends of the MST hope to have the signs up on the Elkin segment before the Gathering of Friends in March and the Coastal Plain segments soon thereafter. If you’d like to help install these signs, they would welcome your help.

HURRICANE DAMAGE
Hurricane Irma brought down thousands of trees in western North Carolina including hundreds along the MST. Volunteers with Carolina Mountain Club went to work ASAP and cleared well over 500 trees, including many tricky ones, to re-open the trail and make it safe for hikers. Thanks to all these volunteers for their dedication and skill.

Thanks also to NC State Parks for a recent grant through the Recreational Trails Program which is helping to cover the cost of saw chains, griphoist parts, wedges and other tools which make the work of our trail volunteers possible statewide.

CHAINSAW CERTIFICATION
Early this month, 27 volunteers devoted two days to getting certified to safely operate a chainsaw on the MST. As demonstrated in the news brief above about Hurricane Irma, the trail couldn’t remain open and safe without the skilled work of these volunteers. Thanks to each and every one of them for their commitment to the MST and to State Parks for covering the cost of the class and safety equipment for all the volunteers.

After three months and nearly 1,200 miles of hiking Jennifer Pharr Davis of Asheville has completed her modern day version of Johnny Appleseed, by planting seeds of support across the state for North Carolina’s Mountains-to-Sea Trail (MST).

Pharr Davis is a nationally known adventurer and long distance hiker who lives in Asheville. She timed her hike to coincide with the 40th anniversary of a speech that became the catalyst for creation of the MST, which goes from Clingmans Dome in western North Carolina to Jockey’s Ridge State Park on the Outer Banks.

“I’ve hiked 13,000 miles on six continents, but the Mountains-to-Sea Trail is the most diverse path I have ever experienced. Along the way, I have observed the changing topography, flora, and fauna, but most of all I have been struck by the distinct communities off trail and the variety of user groups on the trail,” said Pharr Davis, who is a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year and once held the record for fastest hike of the Appalachian Trail.

At various stops, she invited hundreds to hike with her to help spread the word about the importance of the MST and environmental conservation. Hikers joining her included Howard Lee, now in his eighties, who in 1977 first proposed the idea of trail from the mountains to the coast that would go through communities as well as unique natural areas. He was then NC Secretary of Natural Resources and Community Development.

Others joining Pharr Davis along the trail included Kristin Cooper, North Carolina’s First Lady; students at NC A&T; Girl Scouts; Middle Schoolers in the Neighborhood Ecology Corps of Raleigh; people in a YMCA Diabetes Prevention Group in Pender County; members of the Green Team at White Oak High School in Onslow County; and Special Olympians of Dare County.

At times Pharr Davis was joined on the trail by her husband Brew and two young children Charley and Gus. She just made it to Jockey’s Ridge in time for a promised birthday party for Charley.

Almost 700 miles of the trail have been built and people like Jennifer can hike across the state using connecting backroads. Hundreds of volunteers of the Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail help to build and maintain the trail. The trail runs through 37 counties. Each year thousands of people use stretches of the trail for day hikes or overnight excursions. More than 80 people have hiked the entire route.

For additional information about MST: mountainstoseatrail.org.

There will be boots and boats on all 1,175 miles of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail on September 9, 2017, from Clingmans Dome atop the Smokies to Jockeys Ridge on the coast. What a great way to celebrate the day 40 years ago when Howard Lee, N.C. Secretary of Natural Resources at the time, first proposed the idea of a statewide trail.

As time neared filling all 300 legs of the trail, Friends of the MST noticed that the total of hikers and paddlers was nearing 1,000. Another couple hundred hikers and they could have a hiker for every mile of trail as well. So they created a secondary goal of enlisting at least 1,175 hikers for MST in a Day. If you know someone who would like to hike but hasn’t signed up, give ’em a nudge to sign up at MSTinaDay.org.

Where parking permits, they have added more slots to certain Segments. In Segment 10 through the heavily populated Triangle, for instance, they’ve added 65 openings on 12 legs. If there was a leg you wanted to hike but it was full, check again: it may have an opening.

On September 7, Friends will send a guide to each hiker (hopefully at least 1,175 of you) who has signed up going over pertinent safety and logistical issues. In the meantime, you can get most of your questions answered via the MST in a Day FAQ.

As you prepare for September 9, it is recommended that you download the Trail Guide for your Segment. To find your leg(s) of the trail in the guide, check the beginning and ending mileage markers on the Meetup site where you signed up, or on your Segment page at mstinaday.org. All significant twists and turns will be noted on that page. There will be more detailed instructions on how to use the guide later in the week.

And yes, they are keeping an eye on the weather. They will be in touch with you if it looks like it might affect your day on the trail.