Western North Carolina is a hiker’s paradise.

With so much land protected by national and state forests and parks, those who live in the Western North Carolina area have endless hiking opportunities.

Join the Mountains to Sea Trail community for an annual membership meeting — a meeting that will also offer opportunities to explore trails and nearby towns. 

Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail will hold its annual gathering May 3-5 at Blue Ridge Assembly in Black Mountain, with an agenda that includes guided hikes, excursions, trail building workshops and more. 

The Carolina Mountain Club has started a new hiking initiative, called Leisure Hikes, with the next event scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 20, on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail in Asheville. 

Take a winter walk on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail Sunday, Jan. 7, in Asheville with the Carolina Mountain Club. 

The Mountains-to-Sea Trail turns 46 on Sept. 9, and Friends of the MST is offering a variety of opportunities to celebrate all month long.

Four years ago, the Carolina Mountain Club identified the “forgotten 14” as an unsafe section within its 155-mile maintenance responsibility on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail.

Jutting off from the left side of a typically busy Blue Ridge Parkway pull-off overlooking Mills River, an unassuming dirt path dips into the woods and winds its way east, just out of view of the famed scenic drive.

From towering mountains to shimmering seas, North Carolina has a little bit of everything — and for the trail that ties it all together, a major milestone has just been marked. 

On Wednesday, Oct. 3, trail volunteers, government officials and natural resources workers from across the state gathered at Oconaluftee Visitor Center in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park near Cherokee to celebrate completion of a 300-mile section of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, starting at Clingmans Dome and ending at Stone Mountain State Park in Allegheny and Wilkes counties. 

An initial tally shows that 434 hikers cumulatively covered 2,756 miles of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail during its birthday weekend Sept. 7 to 9, an average of 6.4 miles per hiker.