TH E
WELLISNSUEESS
H
ussein El-Genk, Nashua Oraby and their
family, like most, were in desperate need of something to break the monotony of quarantine life in the early months of the pandemic. They ventured outside during warm afternoons in May 2020, taking walks together near their home in Watts-Hillandale. They stumbled across the Laurel Bluffs Trail, later learning it is part of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail – an almost 1,200-mile footpath that stretches from North Carolina’s coast to the Great Smoky Mountains – and Hike No. 21 of the Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail’s 40 Great Day Hikes Challenge. Hussein wondered if the trail went all the way to Hillsborough and posed the question to the neighborhood Facebook group. Their next-door neighbor sent them the link to the 40 Hike Challenge, prompting the couple and their four children, Zakariyya, 12, Ayyub, 10, Kareema, 8, and Rasheed, 6, to begin their journey along the trail. In just seven months, they became the first six people to complete the challenge. What started as a way to get out of the house became an exciting and educational tour of North Carolina. Each of the 40 hikes is selected because it features some historical or geological site, so every trip had a theme. Hussein said it wasn’t long
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durhammag.com
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august 2021
d k aroun l a w ’s y l A fami orhood b h g i e n the nto an turned i d adventure te unexpec S PA C H OOKE BY BR HY BY GRAP PSON P H OTO E L S IM A H IC M N JOH