2026 SAHC Winter Hiking Challenge – It’s a Wrap!

WOW – The 2026 SAHC Winter Hiking Challenge wrapped up with a record-breaking 1,200 participants hiking more than 69,000 miles and raising more than $40,000 for conservation! 

Thank you to all the folks who joined the Challenge this year. Whether you hiked across mountains, walked in your own neighborhood, or trekked on international travels, YOU made a positive impact in protecting the places we all love in the Southern Appalachians. And, through the stories and photos you shared, it looks like you had fun doing it! 

Superstar conservation volunteers Bettye Boone and Saylor Fox have been participating in the SAHC Winter Hiking Challenge each year since it began. 

“Saylor and I love participating in the SAHC Winter Hiking Challenge,” shared Bettye and Saylor. “It is so easy to stay inside during the drab days of winter; the Challenge is a great motivator to get outside, enjoy the winter wonderland, stay active and raise money for an organization we love.  This is our sixth year participating and the growth this year has been phenomenal.”

Generosity and Community

Last Thursday (March 5), approximately 70 of the 2026 Winter Hiking Challenge participants gathered to celebrate success and community spirit at the Wicked Weed Funkatorium in Asheville, NC. 

One of our Challenge sponsors, Second Gear, generously provided $50 gift cards for each of the five participants who logged the most miles.  Congratulations to the top five finishers: Christine Johnson, Mark Solmonson, Thomas Duke, Robert Koch, Daniel Gross.

“This year was especially rewarding for me in several ways. I got to spend most days walking with my elderly neighbor,” shared Christine Johnson, who finished in first place. “Our days began and ended with a walk and conversation about everything that happened in between, including where I’d hiked that day. She was the one who first introduced me to the hiking challenge a few years ago and we’ve done it together ever since! My dogs made me walk even on the worst weather days — then I hiked alone because even the worst days were fun to be outdoors. I had the crazy idea to see if I could hike 600 miles in my 60th year: yep, did that…. And I beat the boys.” 

Christine generously requested that her $50 Second Gear gift card prize be given to someone else who participated in the Challenge, explaining that she had already been rewarded and hoped the gift card could help another person get gear to keep hiking and exploring.  

During the celebration, we held a drawing for the gift card that Chrstine graciously donated back, and it was won by Shannon Kelly – an fitting gift because she was celebrating her birthday! 

Fifth place finisher David Gross also shared the spirit of community and generosity. 

“I have a request of you,” David told us. “The 6th place finisher, Sean Fernandes, is 34 years old, so he probably works a full time job. I’m retired, so I had more time to dedicate to the challenge than he probably did.  We went back and forth throughout the challenge, and having him so close [in miles logged] really motivated me.  If possible, I’d like you to send him my gift card. He earned it and pushed me into getting my 5th place finish.”

Creative Spirit

This year, participants were particularly excited about the beautiful new patch designed by local artist Dayna Walton of Solstice Handmade.

Dayna came to love WNC through the Artist-in-Residence program of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 2019. Since then she’s been hiking and sketching and learning about ecology wherever she can. Her illustrations are her way of studying the creepy, crawly, tiny, often overlooked parts of nature. From slime molds and stoneflies, to lichens and liverworts, you’re sure to recognize some species from the Blue Ridge Mountains in her work. Dayna studied Printmaking at Kendall College of Art and Design in Michigan.

Dayna designed this year’s SAHC Winter Hiking Challenge Patch to highlight the Carolina northern flying squirrel. This species can trace its roots back to the last ice age, when ice sheets covered much of northern North America and forced cold-climate plants and animals further south. As temperatures warmed and ice sheets receded,  some of those cold-climate species found refuge on the high peaks of the Southern Appalachians.

The endangered Carolina northern flying squirrel is a subspecies of northern flying squirrel only found in the high-elevation areas of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Southwest Virginia. Habitat destruction, clearing of forests, invasive species, and climate change can all affect populations of the Carolina northern flying squirrel. To help this endangered species, SAHC works to protect wildlife corridors and high elevation spruce-fir forest habitat.

Thank You, Sponsors!

 
 
Second Gear logo

Inspiration and Success

Over the course of the 8-week Challenge, Outreach Program Manager Erin Goodpaster created weekly, informative emails with tips on places to hike shared by our staff and partners. These included trail suggestions from some of our Challenge sponsors, tips for hiking with children, recommendations for places to hike with dogs, and hikes that feature SAHC-protected land that can be enjoyed through public parks and forests. Many participants expressed that the informative e-mail series felt fresh, and they appreciated the new hike recommendations. 

“This Winter Hiking Challenge was such a fun way to kick off my time at SAHC,” shared Erin. “I started working in this position last August, and had to jump into planning for the Challenge almost right away. I wanted to make it something that was engaging and that folks would be excited about. Getting Dayna from Solstice Handmade to design the patch was just the ‘cherry on top’ that I think folks were pumped about. Her new design made them want to log their miles and finish successfully. At the celebration, I heard a lot of folks say that this Challenge really held them accountable to getting outside when it was so cold this winter. Their comments confirmed that a Challenge like this can have such a positive impact on a community of people, as well as supporting our conservation mission.”

“We more than tripled our number of participants this year, and I’m stoked to see how many more folks we can reach next year,” adds Erin. “The beauty of a Challenge like this is that you don’t have to live in Asheville or even East Tennessee to be involved. We had folks from all over Appalachia; from all along the East Coast including Maine, New York, New Hampshire, Virginia, South Carolina, and Florida; and people all the way in Oregon and Washington State! For the celebration last week, folks even drove to Asheville from South Carolina or other states to meet other participants in person and celebrate all the hard work that went into the Challenge. It really underscores how much people value this sense of community. It’s overwhelming to see something you put so much time and effort into planning come to as successful of fruition as this Challenge did this year.  I’m so grateful to work for an organization that I feel makes such a big difference in the world.  Everyone who participated directly supported the conservation work that SAHC does in Appalachia, and we can’t thank them enough.”

Mark your calendar now for the 2027 SAHC Winter Hiking Challenge – we’re gathering surveys from participants and excited to continue improving each year!