Is there a doctor in the house?: Next month, Nantahala Outdoor Center will play host to a Wilderness First Responder course. The nationally recognized program trains participants to render aid when emergencies happen in remote settings. The 80-hour curriculum includes savory things such as wound and infection management, realignment of fractures and dislocations, improvised splinting […]
Author: Kent Priestley
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Wanna play Bele Chere?
… well, then you’d better sign up!
Outdoor Journal
They’ve got legs, they know how to use them: The Carolina Mountain Club has announced its calendar of early 2008 hikes. If you can bear to pull yourself away from season eight of America’s Next Top Model, you might consider joining club members for a ramble up the slopes of Butter Gap or “the other” […]
Seeing the forest
UNCA partners with the U.S. Forest Service to illuminate what bugs us.
Happy valley
Twenty minutes northwest of Asheville, Highway 63 winds up a series of switchbacks, surmounts a ridge and dips down the other side. Views open up as the Walnut and Newfound mountains loom blue in the distance. In season, the fields lining the roadside are thick with tomatoes, rank stands of burley tobacco, feed corn and […]
The $286 billion meal
Every five years, with all the grace of an overburdened mule, a new Farm Bill plods through Congress piled high with price supports and agricultural subsidies, ethanol initiatives and conservation measures. As it does, each representative and senator has his or her own requests to add to it. Last month, Senate amendments—250 in all—caused the […]
Outdoor Journal
They complete us: Southern Living magazine just announced its annual list of superlatives located below the Mason-Dixon Line. Little wonder that Asheville took number-one slot in the “mountain destination” category and the Blue Ridge Parkway scored numero uno in the “scenic drive” slot. All systems ‘go’: Work has begun on a new skate park at […]
Blow struck against ‘Road to Nowhere’
New federal spending bill includes funds for a settlement with Swain County.
A tear in our beer
Most of us don’t pay attention to the vagaries of global agricultural production, but perhaps we should: After all, they’re finding a way into our favorite drink. Beer, if you hadn’t noticed, is getting more expensive. Drought in Australia, the weakness of the dollar against the Euro, crop-disease problems in Europe and shifting markets in […]
Have yourself a passable little Christmas
Every year around this time, Mountain Xpress receives many bags of mail from readers who don’t know what to buy their loved ones for the holidays.* This is understandable, as each person has his or her own wants and desires, interests and peculiarities, and it is hard to satisfy all of these with just one […]
Outdoor Journal
All downhill from here: Last week’s 70 degree days may have seemed like an inauspicious start to the winter ski season, but area resorts are benefiting from a recent dip in the jet stream and the outfall from a series of storms pummeling the country’s Midwest and Northeast. Sapphire Valley Ski Area, near Highway 64 […]
Dried up
Region poised to set driest-ever record in 2007.
Askville: Hoop, there he is
On April 22, 1989, a hush—or something like it—fell over a crowd of nearly 20,000 at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. It was halftime during a Knicks game, and on the Garden’s polished floor, a unique drama was unfolding. Fred Feder From the sidelines, Patrick Ewing—all 6 feet 9 inches of him—rose and strode […]
Buncombe County Commissioners
Conservation matters dominated the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners’ first—and last—December meeting. In a show of institutional largesse, the board committed more than $1.6 million in public funds to new conservation easements around the county, which will help preserve nearly 850 acres of open space. Acre by acre: Carl Silverstein briefed commissioners on new conservation […]
Fur and against
Queen Elizabeth I liked ermine; Benjamin Franklin had a weakness for beaver. But somewhere along the line, fur managed to gather armies of detractors. Detractors such as Carolina Animal Action, a local animal-rights group fronted by Stewart David. A Nov. 13 press release from the group announced that the Asheville business Kriegsman Furs was closing […]
Outdoor Journal
Carcass, shmarcass?: The N.C. Wildlife Commission is reminding us that proper disposal of deer and other game carcasses is a vital last step to any hunting trip—and also helps avoid acts that could be considered at least unsightly and, at worst, illegal. “Recent reports of illegally discarded deer carcasses give a negative image of hunting […]
History at 35 miles per hour
State updates its highway-markers book.
Salvage love
Gilbert Walker was in the Dumpster beside the old Rockola Motel on Patton Avenue in Asheville last Tuesday morning, looking for aluminum. He crouched low in the semi-darkness, lifting bags of trash up to the light to see if there were cans inside. His point exactly: West Asheville resident Gilbert Walker gets by with the […]
Askville: Maestro on a mission
Daniel Meyer became music director of the Asheville Symphony two years ago at age 33, a time of life when many young men are still living with their parents and playing too much Guitar Hero. Daniel Meyer But then Meyer has always been precocious. He grew up near Cleveland, learning to play the piano at […]
Waterlogged
Black Mountain resident Harry Hamil was alarmed. According to new flood maps released by the N.C. Department of Crime Control and Public Safety in October, a 100-year flood would place much of his property at 151 Ridgeway Ave. underwater. River rising: New flood maps suggest that Ingles’ Swannanoa distribution center is at greater risk of […]
Outdoor Journal
The sport that drought couldn’t kill: While cactuses sprout and bleached cow skulls appear in spades around Western North Carolina, this year’s lack of rain won’t impede snow-making operations at area resorts. As the region gears up for the press of holiday snow bunnies, resort managers are sounding an optimistic note. More than one, it […]