5 New Year’s Resolutions for More Outdoor Adventure in Western Carolina

New year, new you, right? Nah, you’re doing just fine—no need for a complete overhaul. If you live around Asheville and you love spending time in the outdoors, then you’re probably a happy camper. However, the start of a new year does provide the perfect opportunity to introduce a few new challenges into our already adventurous lives. Here are five New Year’s resolutions for more outdoor adventure in Western Carolina that will help keep you healthy, wealthy (in terms of experiences, anyway), and wise.

1. Get Involved

Getting involved in an outdoor advocacy group is a fantastic New Year’s resolution because it reaps in the benefits on so many levels. Getting involved, whether it’s donating your time, energy or money, can infuse you with a great sense of purpose, belonging, and joy. Not to mention the benefit you’re helping to provide for your community: access to climbing areas, cleaner rivers, land conservation, well-maintained trails, new bike lanes…

Many local organizations come with social perks, like attending Bike Love withAsheville on Bikesor spending a day maintaining trails with Pisgah SORBA. Check out Carolina Climbers Coalition, Southern Appalachian Highland Conservancy, American Whitewater, or choose from a list of fantastic local orgs that you can support in a variety of ways.

2. Get Outside Every Day

Resolution lore informs us that in order to turn something into a habit, you must do it every day for 21 days in a row. So button up your jacket, set the alarm an hour earlier, or equip yourself with reflective gear for your evening jog, because January is going to be the most challenging month of the year to get outside. Once this first cold month passes, however, getting outside every day will have become a habit, one that will benefit you for the rest of the year.

That’s right: This year resolve to spend some time in the great outdoors every single day, regardless of weather, your packed schedule, or your burning desire to settle in and watch Netflix for the evening. Some days, you may find yourself exploring frozen waterfalls in DuPont State Forest, running the quiet trails in the Pisgah, or breathing in the sharp winter air on the summit of Mt. Mitchell.

More often, your daily adventure may be closer to home: exploring the winding trails at Bent Creek or Richmond Hill, or pausing for a moment beside the river at Hominy Creek Park. On other days, the extent of your excursion may be a taking a walk around the block: as long as you’re outside, breathing fresh air and moving your body, it counts.

3. Try Something New

Hey, we get it. You live in Western Carolina because it has the best whitewater/mountain biking/trad-climbing/etc. Why would you ever spend a day outside doing anything but your pastime/obsession of choice? Actually, there are a few compelling reasons to try a new outdoor venture, just for the fun of it. For one, it can be a soft way to introduce someone in your life to the outdoors. (For the record, teaching your hapless coworker how to roll a kayak in the river in February….not a soft intro.) Grab your brother, neighbor, friend, anyone who has expressed interest in getting outdoors but is not sure how to begin, and invite him or her along as you try out some of the adventurous fun Asheville has to offer.

Another great reason to try your hand at a new activity: Science has proven that developing new skills and approaching new challenges benefits the neuroplasticity of the brain. This can lead to a boost in creativity, adaptation, and problem solving….all useful skills when you’re faced with an unrunnable rapid at the bottom of a canyon as night falls. Just think of it as cross-training for your brain.

So get out there: go zip lining or tackle a canopy ropes course, cruise the Blue Ridge Parkway on an electric trike, see whatgeocaching is all about, try SUP yoga, or bring a kite to Max Patch. Leave the training logs, mapping apps, step counters, and your insatiable appetite for adrenaline at home, and allow yourself to just relax. At least once. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

4. Watch (Not Just Any) Sunrise

So most people at one point or another in their lives have resolved to watch a sunrise in the new year. There’s something about the promise of new beginnings, the lure a blank slate and that expansive feeling of limitless opportunities that accompany the dawning of a new day that perfectly matches the hopeful sentiment of New Year’s Resolutions.

As dawn patrollers, campers, photographers, and explorers, we’ve probably seen more of those delicate first moments of light than most people. This year, we challenge you to not only seek out a sunrise, but seek out the ultimate sunrise. Consider this your mission. You may need to do a little research (or let us do that for you), study a map, scrutinize those contour lines, and stake your claim. The top of a firetower, the spindly summit of Chimney Tops, local hikes that are renowned for their views and vistas…these are all optimal places to enjoy some serious atmospheric refraction. You may have to spend the night out, but that’s half the fun.

5. Keep an Adventurous Inspiration Jar

In an age where positive thinking and gratitude are dominating pop psychology, the inspiration jar has become a popular New Year’s practice. Traditionally, people record one positive thing that occurred during each day on a slip a paper, and store the slips inside a clear glass jar. As the year progresses, it’s satisfying to observe the happiness accumulate. As adventure lovers, why not try an outdoor spin on the inspiration jar? Every time you complete a new trail, visit a new waterfall, claim your first descent of a river, tick off a route at the crag, or run one mile further than you have before, write it down and store it in the jar. Adding to your collection of accomplishments can feel a little bit addicting, and it could be just the motivation you need to head out of doors on a grey winter Saturday. Save the pleasure of reviewing them all until next New Year’s Day.

Written by Melina Coogan for RootsRated.