Club offers fun, friends to those who moved to area
Members of outdoors group can choose from 130 events posted monthly through Web site

By Jack Horan

They climb King's Pinnacle, tube the Green River and bicycle the Blue Ridge Parkway. They're members of Charlotte Outdoor Adventures, a Web-based outdoor, sports and social club that appeals to young professionals and newcomers.

Jennifer Gallagher, 34, signed up after moving to Charlotte from El Paso, Texas three years ago.

"I was intimidated to go out and hike by myself," Gallagher said during a club hike to King's Pinnacle in Crowders Mountain State Park near Gastonia. I "didn't feel comfortable hiking. That's why I joined."
Organized in 1998, CHOA now claims 2,000 dues-paying members and 2,100 members (such as spouses) who participate without charge.

CHOA posts about 130 events a month, including volleyball games, dog walks and socials at restaurants.


Most members (70 percent), have lived in the Charlotte area fewer than five years and work in finance, medicine or technology. Most are in their mid-20s to late 50s; about 25percent are married.

Though the largest, CHOA isn't the only local Web-based outdoors club. Mecklenburg Regional Paddlers, a canoeing and kayaking club, started 18 months ago and claims 285 members. There are no dues.

Trip leader Doug Covell, 37, moved to Charlotte from the Buffalo, N.Y., area five years ago and now teaches math at Myers Park High. He became a member in 1998 and is on CHOA's board of directors.
He said few native Charlotteans join because they have their own sets of friends. CHOA, he said, "works in Charlotte because you have so many newcomers."