Banff on the run: Advance tickets are on sale now for the Banff Mountain Film Festival, which arrives at Appalachian State University beginning March 24. The festival’s two-day whistle stop in Boone is just one of 250 dates planned this year around the world, and a heck of a lot closer than, say, the one […]
Author: Kent Priestley
Showing 316-336 of 403 results
Outdoor Journal
The perfect first date?: Help save a species without leaving the comfort of your own car. Sound too good to be true? Read on, my friend: The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission is looking for volunteers to help out with the statewide Calling Amphibian Survey, a gig (pardon the expression) that involves driving along established […]
West Asheville Library expands hours for hungry readers
The West Asheville Library has caved to citizens’ demands and announced that, beginning Feb. 5, the branch will expand its hours of operation. Most notably, the library will now be open on Mondays – a day its doors have been closed in the past. Here’s the new schedule: Monday 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Tuesday 10 a.m.-8 […]
Patchwork land protection from Raleigh?
During the North Carolina General Assembly’s last session, legislators shied from a vaunted plan to secure a $1 billion bond issue to support land and open-space conservation efforts across the state. The issue has come up again this week, with state lawmakers saying those funds should come instead from a patchwork of as-yet unspecified sources. […]
Geodesic dwelling: The dome comes home
There’s a popular image of subdivisions springing up “like mushrooms after a rain,” a description that’s particularly apt if the homes in question happen to be geodesic domes, those half-round dwellings that put the “F” in futuristic. (Think Epcot Center.) It’s a style of architecture with local roots, sprung from the mind of Black Mountain […]
Outdoor Journal
I was a teenage trail-hound: Buncombe County Parks & Recreation Services is hosting a “Teen Club for Hiking,” open to teens ages 11 to 15, with the goals of building outdoor skills and adding a pinch of environmental education to young lives. So far, three trips are planned: A March 31 hike to Graveyard Fields, […]
Buncombe County Commission
Man and a plan: Zoning Administrator Jim Coman shows off Buncombe County’s draft zoning maps. photo by Jonathan Welch After fussing and fighting over zoning for decades, Buncombe County residents had surprisingly little to say when confronted with an actual draft plan. Only a few members of the public spoke up about zoning at the […]
Outdoor Journal
Climb every mountain: Charley, Jane and Norm – the nice folks at Jus’ Running in Asheville – are in the first stages of putting together a book of runs in and around the city. They hope to include runs of varying locations, terrains and distances, from the 1.3 mile loop around Carrier Park to full-commitment […]
Hallelujah, it’s raining blood
Earlier this month, residents of Cape Hatteras — the farthest seaward reach of our state’s Outer Banks — awoke to an unexpected gift from the sea. Bags of Doritos (both the Nacho Cheese and Cool Ranch varieties) had washed ashore by the thousands, a considerable improvement over the sargassum weed, snarled fishing lines, dead gannets […]
Outdoor Journal
DaFishy Code: Here’s a newsflash that’s bound to thrill: The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission has updated its Trout Fishing Maps Book. Sure, the name is a little uninspired, but the book remains a deal at $12, including maps of WNC’s rivers and streams, all color-coded according to the fishing regulations in effect at each place […]
Outdoor Journal
Still no shootin’ on the Sabbath: A recent study commissioned by the N.C. Wildlife Commission revealed that most North Carolinians are opposed to allowing hunting on Sunday. Hunters, who admittedly have more at stake, are split evenly on the issue. Sunday hunting has been forbidden in North Carolina since shortly after the Civil War, except […]
Outdoor Journal
Oh, the places you’ll go: Few regional outdoor groups boast as robust a schedule as the Carolina Mountain Club. Pick a weekend, and members are somewhere burning – or at least treading – up the trails. This month, for instance, a Dec. 17 all-day hike led by Joanne Tulip will take in Green Knob by […]
Putting the art back in party
Flute-funk trio Peace Jones perform at the Traveling Bonfires’ Christmas Community Convergence. If the strains of carols wheezing from mall speakers have gone from tinkling to groaning, filling your ears with an Edgar Allan Poe brand of madness, you might beat a frosty path to Westgate Shopping Center this Friday for the “Christmas Community Convergence.” […]
Buncombe County Commission
For years, Buncombe County has operated without an ordinance regulating multifamily housing. On Dec. 5, however, the Board of Commissioners voted 4-1 to have the planning staff draft such a law. Chairman Nathan Ramsey was the lone dissenter; he said later that the move was in response to growing environmental and public-safety concerns. Such a […]
Outdoor Journal
Stand and deliver: So far this season, two North Carolina hunters have died in tree-stand related accidents. Last year, three died similarly. The grim fact is that all of the deaths could have been avoided with proper precaution, say representatives from the N.C. Wildlife Commission. Chris Huebner, a hunting-safety coordinator with the commission, entreats all […]
The Planning Bunch
True, its members don’t go in for after-school high jinks, appear in musical revues or travel to Hawaii much. Sure, the job description — “make studies of the area within its jurisdiction; develop and recommend policies, ordinances, administrative procedures and advise the commissioners” — might make you want to change the channel. Right now, though, […]
Big cheese
Flavor: A cheese emporium right under your noseAmbiance: Feisty. Mild. Take your pick. A straightforward, deli-style interior with a helpful staff. Bill Ference is a third-generation cheesemonger. To borrow a line from country music, he was cheese when cheese wasn’t cool. Long before the word “artisanal” was on everybody’s lips, before Mario Batali was reminding […]
Outdoor Journal
Go deep: Flittermouse Grotto of Western North Carolina, the local chapter of the National Speleological Society, meets at 7 p.m. the first Friday of each month at the Black Mountain Library (105 Dougherty St.). Visitors and guests are welcome to attend for caving fellowship, or simply to ask what the hell the group’s name means. […]
Outdoor Journal
Fleet of feet: Warren Wilson College’s women’s and men’s cross-country teams took top-four finishes in the U.S. Collegiate Athletic Association National Championships, held last month at Buena Vista, Va. The women’s team took third, marking the fourth year in a row the femme-Owls have finished among the top three women’s teams nationally. The Warren Wilson […]
Outdoor Journal
Keep it in the family: Congratulations to brother and sister Shiloh Mielke and Meadow Tarves of Hendersonville for taking first place, respectively, in the male and female categories at the Shut-In Trail Run on Nov. 4. Mielke, 26, finished the 17.8-mile course in 2:28.20 and Tarves, 28, finished it in 2:47.54. This, of course, is […]
Clerks
At day’s end, it was incumbent Bob Christy who got the champagne treatment in the Buncombe County Clerk of Superior Court race. Christy, who has held the office since 1990, won handily against Don Yelton, a political outsider who ran on a platform dedicated to breaking the grip of local attorneys’ power over the clerk’s […]