Years back, every town had a bar called, “The Library.” The reason? So when a guy left the house for the bar and his wife asked, “Hubert! Where are you going?” he could truthfully answer, “The Library.”

Do the kids bug you about going camping? When they do, do you flashback to your youth and those ill-fated trips mom and dad dragged you on, the ones where your breakfast eggs were peppered with camp grit, dad insisted on death-march hikes in your Keds and your canvass tent inevitably leaked  during a wee-hours thunderstorm?

“How come we’ve picked the log that’s highest above the water to cross on?” I yelled. Rich, our hike leader, chuckled. He thought I was being funny. I was being scared.

I am not a daredevil. The safest way, even if it takes a day longer, is the way I prefer. A month ago I was backpacking at Wilson Creek. It was raining, hard. I came to a normally knee-deep crossing on Gragg Prong; It was swollen to mid-thigh. Without hesitation, I turned and retraced my steps — five miles and about 1,000 vertical feet — over Timber Ridge. I didn’t complain once.

Rod Broadbelt began hiking in these parts back in the early 1990s, when he and his wife Dorothy would visit their daughter’s family in Cary. Rod was active in a hiking club back in Philadelphia and he hated missing out on his regular outings. After seven years of visiting, the Broadbelts decided to move to the Triangle. Foremost on his moving to-do list: Find a new hiking club, one that liked long hikes.

“I found the longest day hikes, offered by three organizations, were 6.5 miles — Umstead Coalition, Raleigh Ski and Outing Club and the Sierra Club all happened to be 6.5 miles,” says Broadbelt.
He liked the Umstead Coalition, in part because of its low membership fee ($15 then, $15 now). He signed up and volunteered to lead hikes.