Best Hiking Photos of 2020

Cheryl and I love hiking, and love exploration even more. While we do spend time on popular, heavily trafficked trails, we also love veering off off trail when we spot a trace of old road that might lead to an abandoned homesite. Biking can take us swiftly to destinations that have amazing scenery, but when we hike we tend to notice that any given patch of ground we're standing on is full of wonderful things. Hiking rewards taking things slow and noticing the small wonders that line the path to the big, photogenic vistas. 

A dragonfly on the path to Old Quarry Road in Duke Forest.

We hiked the Appalachian Trail! Part of it, at least. 

Travel tip: You don't actually need a ticket to hike at Occaneechee Speedway.  

The Mountain to Sea Trail is a great place to hunt for abandoned structures. 

Brumley Forest as we realize we'll never get back to the car before it gets dark. 

I think this is from Eno State Park. Maybe? We photograph a lot of butterflies. 

And we snap a lot of bee pics. I think this is from the Confluence.

Definitely from a Confluence trail. 

Paw paw flowers at the Confluence. Apparently these are really common in NC, but somehow we'd managed never to see them before this hike. 

A seldom trafficked trail through Duke Forest's Hillsborough division. 

Anole on the Uwharrie Trail.

Also on the Uwharrie. 

An even more obscure Duke Forest Trail in Alamance County. 

A Hen of the Woods in Duke Forest. I spotted this hiking with Calvin Powers, then hiked three miles back to it the next day to show it to Cheryl. Any mushroom big enough to be a destination is a pretty good mushroom. 

I honestly have no idea where we took this!

For security reasons, I can't reveal the location of this berry patch. 

Sunflower on the Hillsborough River Walk.

Another flower that could be anywhere.

Duke Forest, Hillsborough Division.

Guilford Farms, also part of the Mountain to Sea Trail. 

I went way off trail looking for a possible old homesite I'd spotted on Google Earth. I found it. This tree once shaded it. When you spot huge trees standing solo among plainly younger trees, it's a hint it might once have been a shade tree near a house or in a field.  

McCafee Knob. Cheryl's not posing dramatically just to be photographed. She's bracing against a ferocious wind. 

I think this is a Duke Forest thistle, but it might be an Eno River thistle. It was a big year for thistles. 

Hemlock Bluffs Nature Preserve.

Pilot Mountain.

A place you aren't supposed to hike to in Brumley. 

A place you probably shouldn't hike to near Duke Forest. 

This is probably from Duke Forest. 

From a hiking trail in Little River park. What's funny about this photo is that ten minutes earlier I actually said, "I guess it's too cold for mushrooms now." Then Cheryl went on to spot, like, 100 mushrooms, and took what has to be her best mushroom photo of the year.