I am trying to get some local hikes in for whoever would like to attend. The first one I believe will be hiking up Read Mountain at the Read Mountain Preserve located in the neighborhood behind Bonsack Walmart. If you have never done the site before it is a relatively easy one compared to some of the others around here, but once you are at the top you still have a very good view of the Roanoke Valley. I believe that the total trip is a little under 4 miles. If you are interested send me an email and we will try and get a group together to start doing some of the many beautiful hikes located in our backyarad. I know a lot of the trails around the area and I am eager and willing to help others get out and enjoy the natural beauty of Roanoke Virginia.
Oh no! I’ve never been hiking before! What do I do and what should I bring?
Don’t worry about this at all if you are in relatively decent shape then you will have no problem making it to the top of a mountain. Whatever you are going hiking you should wear comfortable shoes, carry a book bag, bring a flashlight, and pack plenty of water because you can always dump it out along the trail to get weight off your back if you aren’t drinking that much. I always pack a ton of water as well as snacks and like I said above sometimes I’ll begin to dump the water out if I know I’m definitely not going to drink it.
But for the time being I’m going to see where this group goes and hopefully we can build up to something that gets together and goes out and does this on a regular basis.
I also would be willing to pick people up and take them with me if you’re interested in going and you don’t have a good way to obtain transportation and in general it never hurts to carpool when we’re all going to the same spot! 
Short Bio About Me.
My name is Scott Foster, I was born in Roanoke in 1991 and I have lived here my entire life. I love living here because of all the awesome things around us that we can do outside. Many of these things are relatively free and I love the fact that I live in an area with so much TO DO. I hear people say all the time Roanoke is boring or there’s nothing to do to your Roanoke sucks oh, well the problem is that you’re just not looking at the right places. I enjoy fishing, hiking and pretty much anything that involves being outside. I graduated from Northside High School in 2010 and I still live in the North County area to this day. Please consider doing something like this especially if you’ve never taken the chance to do it before. I also had spent a decent amount of time floating the rivers around this area and one summer arrives would like to implement that into this group as well. Hopefully some people are interested and if you’re still reading this thank you for your time and have a great day!