Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

If you’re trying to keep a New Year’s resolution to exercise more, the Tryon Trail Trotters can help lead you down the right path. It’s a hiking club founded by the late Henry Hart, an avid hiker who retired to Tryon in 1949.

 

“By the ’50s there were a few stalwart souls able to keep up with him on his hikes of 15 miles or more,” says Becky McCall, a TTT member.

 

Seventy years later, the TTT is still going strong but now offers a variety of hikes for almost any ability level. The group hikes year-round, heading to higher elevations in Pisgah National Forest and along the Blue Ridge Parkway in warmer months and trails in Polk County and Upstate South Carolina in the cooler months. 

 

“We get exercise and learn from each other so many things,” says TTT member Tammy Waldrop. “It’s a wonderful way to have connections to meet people.”

 

Members say those social connections are just as important, if not more, than the hiking. The Tryon Trail Trotters gather for coffee every Tuesday at 9 a.m. at All Good Things Bakery, organize pot-luck dinners and sometimes gather to play music. 

 

“The Tryon Trail Trotters became my second family and a much-needed tie to other people,” says Susan Grimley, who joined the group after her husband passed away. “They are all treasured friends now, after four years.”

 

The TTT’s long hike group meets Thursdays at 8:30 a.m. in the parking lot off Chestnut Street, between Lanier Library and the old Bank of America Building. The short hike group meets the same day at 9:30 a.m. in the Tryon Presbyterian Church parking lot off Harmon Field Road. If you’d like to join, the best bet is to attend one of the coffee shop meetings on Tuesday mornings.