Outdoor Journal

Posted on by Kent Priestley

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 west of Brevard, opens this Friday, Dec. 21, for skiing, snowboarding and snow-tubing. Gift certificates for the resort are available for the thrill-starved folks in your life. Call Sapphire’s ski lodge at 743-1169 for more information.

Run for hunger: The 2nd Annual “Night of the Ninja” 5K, scheduled for May 2008, has named MANNA FoodBank (www.mannafoodbank.org) the nonprofit recipient for the benefit event.

Hosted by Asheville Pizza and Brewing Company, the beer-themed run made a good showing this year and promises to be even better next time.

Dam, why didn’t we think of that?: The Cullowhee-based paddling-advocacy group American Whitewater is heralding the pending removal of the Dillsboro dam as a boon for both wildlife and boaters.

Planned to take place over the next three years, the action will connect previously isolated sections of the Tuckasegee River, meaning long-separated freshwater mussels and other creatures will once again be able to mix and mingle.

AW also says the removal will “benefit paddlers by restoring a river where today there is a mile-long sediment-filled reservoir and also by eliminating a mandatory portage and creating new river access opportunities.”

Visit www.americanwhitewater.org for the whole story.

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One thought on “Outdoor Journal”

  1. Ralph Roberts

    I dunno about letting freshwater mussels mingle… is someone gonna monitor that? What if they… well, you _know_. Soon the population will grow and they’ll be musseling into other streams.

    And are farmers gonna be encouraged to plant more garlic and cows to provide more butter so that we can eat all this surplus population of savory mussels?

    Planning is needed in these matters, eh?

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