Go Hiking in North Carolina or Virginia!
Welcome! If you’re hitting the hiking trail in North Carolina or Virginia, from the Blue Ridge Parkway to the coast, consider one of my guides—including the newly revised 2nd Edition of Hiking North Carolina, one of the nation’s best-selling trail guides with plenty of great hikes. Please notice a few new features of my site:
Video
Watch a variety of videos, many featuring outdoor topics, among them “How Not to Get Lost in the Woods,” a “Backpacking Primer,” and “How to Cross Country Ski.” See Resources/Video, as well as Reviews & Interviews and my bio page (for a few TV interviews).30th Anniversary, Grandfather Mountain Trail Program
Yep, it was 30 years ago that I proposed my favorite mountain’s trail management system and Hugh Morton hired me to launch it. Check out my page on Grandfather Mountain for more on the backcountry and its trail program. Join me May 17th at the Grandfather Mountain Naturalist Weekend for a hike and a photography presentation on Grandfather's trail program. Meet Randy at a book signing!
in the summer.My Books
I write guidebooks with a mission in mind—to help enthusiastic hikers like you find exciting outdoor experiences. What sets my trail guides apart? For starters, too many guidebooks are boring. I want mine to read like the outdoor and travel articles I’ve been publishing for years in national magazines and newspapers (see My Writings to read some).And too many guides have few or no maps and a handful of fuzzy photos. My guides feature great maps and plentiful pictures. Granted, I’m a map freak, but how can you really read a guidebook that doesn’t have maps? Hikers are topographically and visually oriented people. My books have maps to orient you and pictures to inform and (I hope) inspire.
My two recent Blue Ridge Parkway guides have finely detailed topos. In 2007’s Hiking North Carolina, they’re GPS compatible hypsometric maps. And there are lots of photos. Words are wonderful, but as a nationally published photojournalist, with pictures in the major outdoor and ski magazines, I know that photos impart a true sense of place.
Learn to Cross Country Ski with Randy Johnson. See more videos. My trail descriptions include meaty details on history, climate, culture, and ecology—but they also focus on why a place inspires me. And I suggest how to explore an entire area and often recommend a range of day or overnight hikes.
I’ve been a hiker since I was a kid, and I’ve also been a trail designer, wilderness researcher, and trail manager. I try to write the kind of trail books that trail enthusiasts want to read. I hope you’ll consider my hiking guides. Here’s hoping you find the kind of hiking experiences that inspired me to write them. Check out the rest of the site—and feel free to be in touch.
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