Our present, deadly reality

Processing Hurricane Helene: The climate crisis isn't a future event, it's here. The time to act was yesterday, but the best next time is now.

Picture of Marshall, NC from Raleigh Downtown’s Facebook Page. Scroll down for what it used to look like.

If I ever have to move, there’s one place that’s been on the top of my list for years now: western North Carolina. My mother-in-law lives there, my husband is from there, and we spend several weeks every year there between a trip in the summer and going for Christmas. Both of my Appalachian Trail section hikes to date have been in North Carolina. I first traversed the green tunnel in September of 2022, feeling the connection of my feet to the earth of the trail and knowing this twelve-inch-wide footpath wound its way from Georgia south of me all the way to Maine. I took heartache and loss with me in February of 2023 on a solo overnight and I climbed up a mountain in the snow, came out above the trees and looked at the smokey blue ridges rolling away from me on either side. I left my pain on the backbone of the oldest mountains in the world as I walked along the ridges, earth slopi…