Joshua Ebert

Trail Runner | Misadventurist | Storyteller

Adventures in Uwharrie National Forest

Before:
The plan was simple. Mike would follow me out to Uwharrie where we would get to check out the mountain bike trails. After a late lunch, he would head home as I went for a run at Morrow Mountain State Park. Then I would check in at the Uwharrie 100-miler, set up camp, and work an aid station from midnight to 8 AM on Sunday. This simple plan did not stand a chance.

Starting out, Mike got injured during a Thursday evening ride. Not one to waste a trip to Uwharrie, I decided to forge ahead with my plan and ride it alone. While I was a bit nervous about going it alone on a new trail, I knew that there would be enough riders and people around if something catastrophic happened to me. As I become a more proficient rider, I know that I’ll get more comfortable with riding alone. Especially in places with limited cell phone reception.

Before I left, I remembered that I knew a runner from Wilmington who was planning on running the 100-miler. I reached out to another Wilmington runner, Mailyn, to ask her about it. She told me that Milt would be running and his wife Diane would be volunteering at the same aid station as me, just an earlier shift. She then decided that she and Rina would bring their kids for a first time camping experience.

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Unicorn Dance Parties, 100-miles, and a Cult of Yetis: Yeti 100 Race Report

On the edge of the trail sat a fat, five-foot long alligator. My eyes widened and I glanced at it again with my headlamp to reveal rocks and sticks. Of course there was no alligator, I was running down a mountain in western Virginia and it was below 50-degrees outside.

“Terry, I’m hallucinating,” I said.

“What?” he replied without breaking stride.

“I just saw an alligator on the side of the trail.”

“Well, at least you know it was a hallucination,” he chuckled.

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It’s Been Awhile

It’s been awhile since I wrote a blog and a lot of that has to do with my injury. I broke my big toe in the beginning of the summer, which sidelined several of my plans. It prevented me from running for about 6-weeks, during which I gained a lot of weight. Nobody had told my appetite that I had stopped running. Now I am locked into a battle with weight loss.

So let me recap my summer:

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The World Is Not Your Petting Zoo

When I was a kid there were these VHS videos you could order like “Marty Stouffer’s Wild America: Dangerous Encounters.” Later the Fox Network would go on to produces shows like “When Animals Attack.” The latter were essentially snuff films couched as nature documentaries. The viewer would be treated to grainy security camera footage of a man being kicked in the face by a moose or a lion attacking a safari truck, as a breathless narrator gave you a play-by-play of the mayhem. Maybe for how tactless those films were, they might have had a positive effect. For it seems now that people are forgetting that wild animals can be dangerous.

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Baring It All On The Trail (NSFW)

So June 25, 2016 will be the World Naked Bike Ride in Portland, Oregon. This reminded me of an article I read a few years ago about the nude trail running scene. That is right, there are runners whom are so minimalist that anything more than a pair of shoes and socks is too much. Of course I’ve heard of Hike Naked Day, but I struggle to wrap my head around running naked. Even when I ran in a kilt I wore compression shorts for support.

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Death In the Backcountry

BY KRISTA C.(1)

I recently finished listening to the book “The Last Season” about a backcountry ranger who disappeared in 1996. Randy Morgenson had served as a seasonal backcountry ranger for almost 30-years and was an expert at wilderness survival and Search and Rescue. When someone got lost in the Sierra Nevada, the park supervisors turned him. So what do you do when your best man goes missing?

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Trip Report: Hanging Rock State Park

Hanging

This past Sunday my wife and I took the drive up to Hanging Rock State Park, about 2.25 hours from Raleigh. We arrived mid-morning and after checking out the Visitor’s Center, we hiked three of the waterfalls. These were short hikes from the main parking lot that offered some great views and allowed us to get in the mood to scramble around the mountain.

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The Dirtbag Calling

The Dirtbag Calling

23 years ago Matt Foley (Chris Farley) attempted to warn teenagers about how life choices can lead to living in a van down by the river. When he asked if they wanted to live in a van down by the river there was a group in the audiences who said, “wait that’s an option?” Like Christina Applegate, they found the idea of nomadic living appealing. So they packed up their climbing gear, kayaks, running shoes, backpacks, and camp stoves. Then loaded it all into vans, RVs, and campers and set out to establish a non-traditional life.

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