"On non-attending years," Wanda says, "we plan an outdoor adventure."

The Wells' plan is intended to spare the annual sticker shock of a $100 fair visit. Money being no object, though, they might be surprised to learn they could combine both activities -- a visit to the fair and an outdoor adventure -- into one outing.

They could hike the elusive Loblolly Trail to the fairgrounds.

Loblolly has a somewhat convoluted history born in part by the fact it crosses three jurisdictions in its six-mile run. The C-shaped trail has its northern terminus in Umstead State Park, tracks into the City of Raleigh (it's part of the greenway system), traces the western border of N.C. State's Schenck Forest along Richland Creek, then ducks under Wade Avenue and Edwards Mill Road to wind up in Raleigh, at the RBC Center.

Because of its diverse birthright, it was for a number of years deemed open to cycling by one jurisdiction, Raleigh, despite its passage through a sensitive wetlands and Umstead State Park, where mountain biking is forbidden on single-track trail. Today, it's a hiking-only trail.

For a while, it involved walking through a spooky culvert under Wade Avenue, sharing the space with Richland Creek. Today, it runs through lighted tunnels under both Wade Avenue and Edwards Mill Road.

The latter development, in the mid-1990s, had the odd effect of obscuring the trail south of Wade Avenue. This summer, a friend and I twice tried to hike the trail starting at the RBC trailhead. Both times, we were stymied early, the trail overgrown and devoid of trail markers.

On Monday, I managed to unlock the mystery.

In theory, you could start from the Umstead trailhead and hike Loblolly's six-mile length to the RBC, then hike the additional mile or so to the fairgrounds. That's a 14-mile round-trip, with a visit to the State Fair tossed in. Long day.

A more reasonable option? Cut your distance in half and start from Schenck Forest. Schenck is one of N.C. State University's research forests. It's an appropriate gateway to the fair because it's all about the forestry end of agriculture, and agriculture -- not deep-fried Snickers, not the world's largest alligator, not cheap stuffed animals -- is what the fair is about. You'll pass through a loblolly stand planted in 1938, a collection of various pines including some gnarled specimens that, at night at least, might suggest a ghoulish Halloween fun house. You'll walk through a healthy bottomland forest sheltering Richland Creek.

You'll pass through two concrete culverts (under Wade and Edwards Mill) that could pass, imagination set free, for abandoned mines were they not lighted 24/7. And finally, taking the trail in this direction, you'll pass through an overgrown passage ripe with yellow, white and purple fall wildflowers before being spit out at Loblolly's southern trailhead parking lot at the RBC.

Hiking three miles through forest to the State Fair is part of the attraction of a Loblolly trek over the next 10 days. Another is avoiding fair traffic.

Perhaps its biggest allure? Burning off enough calories to justify that deep-fried Snickers bar.

Almost.