Group Hikes

Please bring warm clothes, hiking shoes, rain gear, water bottle, backpack lunch and camera. All hikes begin at 10:00 a.m. unless announced otherwise. Meeting location and directions will be sent upon RSVP. Please ask permission before bringing your dog.

Hikes are FREE to SAHC Members; $10.00 Non-members. Registration is required. Rich Preyer, PR & Outreach Americorps Member, at rich@appalachian.org.

Hike the Wallhalla Trail at Cataloochee Ranch
Avery County, NC
Date: Saturday, February 4th
Start Time: 10:30 a.m.
Leaders: Judy Coker, Cataloochee Ranch co-owner and Rich Preyer, SAHC’s PR & Outreach Associate.
Difficulty: 4.4(see hike key note below)
What To Bring: Water, comfortable shoes, warm clothes and a camera.
Hike is free for members and $10 for non-members. Well behaved dogs are welcome to come!

Get a great start on 2012 -- join SAHC and friends for our first hike of the year! Our hike will begin at Cataloochee Ranch, located on the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Maggie Valley where SAHC holds over 300 acres in a conservation easement. We will be hiking the Wallhalla Trail, a 4-mile trail that features great views of the Balsam Range and the Campbell Creek basin, rhododendron tunnels, and cove hardwood forests. It is one of our favorite winter hikes. You will also get to see the “Sliding Rock,” one of Judy’s favorite spots as a child where she and her friends would play in the creek for hours at a time. Towards the end of the hike, you will be rewarded with vistas of Maggie Valley and the mountains beyond.

**Direct any questions to Rich Preyer, rich@appalachian.org or 828-253-0095 ex. 205.

Hike Key Note: We are introducing a new hike key to better explain the difficulty of hikes. Hikes will be rated 1-10 (greater than 10 for extremely difficult hikes). A rating of 5 is considered moderate, 10 difficult, and 1 extremely easy. We come up with this number by plugging in the hike elevation change and mileage to this formula: (0.002 x elevation gain (ft.)) + Round trip distance (miles) = Difficulty rating (1-10).