In January of 2024, I started an Instagram account solely dedicated to my writing (which is different than my personal Instagram account and @AshevillExplorer), which my brother blessedly has left alone.
And by “left alone,” I mean he hasn’t inundated the DMs with truly bizarre content that will royally fuck up my algorithm. My brother Shawn—truly, God bless him—I think is one of the few people using Instagram as it was originally intended: not to follow companies, thirst traps, or build a personal brand (like yours truly is attempting to do), but to engage with the weirdest, nichest content human ridiculousness produces and the internet highlights. Some things he’s been obsessed with over the past year include “cool” conservative Catholics, flavored water influencers, and any semi-delusional aspiring musician with less than 200 followers. On any given day he can send me 5-10 DMs of pure WTFness, and the algorithm for my personal account’s explore page truly can’t be fully explained in words (today, the first thing it showed me was a woman who talks to spirits in trees, whom may try and convince you that the trees on your property are harboring grudges against you only she can coax out of them…).
That’s to say, my @PatBrothwell account actually serves me up things I’d actually find useful, and this morning, @applachian_org’s Winter Hiking Challenge 2026 came across my feed.
Now, truth be told, while I follow The Southern Appalachian Highland Conservancy, I’m not going to sit here and pretend I know a ton about them, which is obviously what their webpage is made for. Per their “About Us,” page,”The mission of the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy is to conserve the unique plant and animal habitat, clean water, farmland, scenic beauty, and places for all people to enjoy outdoor recreation in the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, enduring for future generations.” They’ve been around since 1974, and do conservation work, “across ten counties in the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, spanning the Southern Appalachians from the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to the Highlands of Roan.”
The winter hiking challenge is designed to get more people outside in 2026 by encouraging them to log 60 miles between January and March. While the challenge graciously says that participants can log these miles however and wherever they’d like—walking in your neighborhood, for example, counts—I think I’m really going to use this to try and get up into the mountains and do some real winter hiking.
I enjoy winter hiking, but every year, I don’t do as much of it as I’d like, so I think that participating in this public challenge will help log some real miles (and hours) on the trails and love that local conservation organizations are doing public work like this at a time when a lot of public/preserved land is under attack.
AshevilleExplorer 