Greenway getaway

How to pack in a whole vacation's worth of fun in one day and use no gas

I'd topped out at Faux Boulders, paused to catch my breath, then looked skyward. In the half-hour I'd been climbing, the sky had gone from overcast to threatening. I scanned a moment longer and decided to head down: You don't want to be on exposed rock when a storm rolls in. Besides, I had a long day ahead of me: kayaking, mountain biking, greenway biking, hiking. Oh, and skateboarding.

How many places could you possibly do all this in one day?

And not use a drop of $4-a-gallon gas?

It all connects

The buzzword when people talk about the Triangle's 150-mile greenway system is "connectivity." Within the next five years, greenway planners say, you'll be able to travel from East Raleigh up Crabtree Creek into Umstead State Park across to Cary through a sliver of Apex up the American Tobacco Trail through Chatham County and on to downtown Durham -- all on greenway. The emphasis is on getting from Point A to Point B.

A couple of weeks ago I was checking out a map of the 14-mile greenway that now runs from Meredith College in Raleigh through Umstead State Park and on to Cary's Godbold Park. The A-to-B was good. But what surprised me was how much there was to do along the way. In this summer of $4 a gallon gas and "staycations," I realized I didn't need to take out a second mortgage and go to the mountains for an adventure vacation. I could do it for $7, not a penny of which went toward gas.

Skateboard

After a 4.5-mile bike ride from our house in Cary, I arrive at Godbold Park, the start of this 14-mile stretch of adventure. Alas, it's 9:15 a.m.; the public skate session doesn't start until 3 p.m. But the place is hopping, with helmeted grade-schoolers checking out the rails, banks, grind ledges and half-pipes at this 12,000-square-foot skatepark, one of the few in the Triangle.

"Skate camp?" I ask Billy Dexter, who runs the park.

"Yeah. Wanna give it a try?"

I can't tell if he's being a wiseguy. "I'm over 14," I explain, the age cutoff for campers.

We offer private lessons for $30, Dexter says.

I check out the sky and tell him about my day. He's on board and wants to be helpful. He's just checked the weather radar on his computer: "Looks like we'll get a little rain, but just enough to make it wet. You should be fine."

I promise to be in touch about the private lessons.

Rock climbing

A little more than two miles down the greenway, a pedestrian bridge crosses Black Creek. After a short climb on paved greenway, I'm at North Cary Park, which features a pair of concrete plaster climbing boulders. According to Cary parks planner Paul Kuhn, the boulders stand 8 feet tall, are roughly 14 feet wide and are 29 feet long combined. There's 1,000 square feet of climbing space at the park, dubbed "Faux Boulders" by rockclimbing.com.

Usually, the rocks are swarming. Toddlers barely able to walk can ascend the easiest route; experienced boulderers show up with their crash pads, even though the "rocks" are surrounded by a spongy, Caribbean blue surface of recycled rubber. Today, there's nary a soul.

I do the three routes I usually warm up on, then move on to a trickier problem on the backside of Boulder A. After topping out is when I notice the darkening sky. I'm motivated to move along because if the sky does let loose, the mountain bike trails will close (wet trails get damaged easily). I won't be able to get to the boat rental complex, either.

Time to rejoin the greenway.

Mountain biking

It's sprinkling lightly as the greenway switchbacks to the top of the Lake Crabtree dam, but there's a welcome sight across the way: The gate to the mountain bike network is open.