Western North Carolina, on Cherokee land

WNC Safer Miles

A community map of parks, greenways and trails across Western North Carolina, scored on what helps women feel safer running or walking alone. It starts in Buncombe, Henderson, Jackson, Haywood, Transylvania and Madison counties and grows as women rate and suggest places.

For all women, trans women included, and for nonbinary, gender-expansive and LGBTQ+ people who have ever felt unsafe out alone.

What would help right now?

More about this pilot

This is a pilot, and the scores are starting estimates. A high score means fewer known risk factors, not a guarantee of safety. The starting scores come from a review of public sources, such as park and county pages, local news and Google Maps listings, not from site visits, and they are waiting for local women to confirm or correct them. Anyone can rate a place from its panel; it takes about 20 seconds and asks for no name. An email is optional, only if you want a reply. Use this as one input alongside your own judgment. This map is not an emergency service; if you are in danger, call 911.

Find a place

Tap a numbered pin, or choose a place above, to see its score and ratings and to rate it.

Choose an area to see its places. Positions are approximate.

Strong 75+ Mixed 55–74 Go prepared <55 Closed or unconfirmed (×) Rivers

Places by area

Show all places as a list

The number is the place's rank across the whole map by its current score: 1 has the fewest known risk factors, which is not the same as safe. Closed or unconfirmed places are marked × and not ranked.

Know a place we're missing? Suggest a park, greenway or trail in Western North Carolina ↗ It's anonymous unless you choose to leave an email, and each suggestion is researched and reviewed before anything is added to the map.

Safety tips

Going out with a plan

None of this is a list of what you owe anyone. The responsibility for harm always belongs to the person who causes it. These are practices women here already use to keep the miles they love, gathered in one place so no one has to learn them alone. Take what fits and leave the rest.

Before you go

  • Tell one person your route and when you'll be back, and text them when you're done.
  • Check this map for cell signal before you pick a route. Some trails here lose signal minutes from the trailhead. Charge your phone and download an offline map.
  • Plan for the light. Dusk comes early under trees. If you'll be out near sunset, start at the open end of a route and finish there.
  • Check the season. Gates and hours change through the year, and on state game lands like Bent Creek hunting is allowed in season. Wear something bright in fall and winter.
  • Leave the car ready: parked facing out near the lot entrance, nothing visible inside, key within reach.

While you're out

  • Keep one ear free, or skip music on quiet stretches. Hearing is how you get the extra seconds.
  • Trust the feeling. If a person, a car or a stretch of trail makes you uneasy, turn around, leave or cut the run short. You never need a reason that would satisfy someone else.
  • Stay alert at the edges. The parking lot and the first and last quarter mile are where most unwanted encounters start.
  • If someone follows you, go toward people: a dog park, a field, a staffed building, another runner. Say out loud what is happening.
  • Vary your routes and times so your pattern is harder to predict.

Your phone and apps

  • Set up emergency SOS today. Most phones call 911 and alert your contacts with a few presses of the side button. Practice once so you know it.
  • Share live location with one trusted person for the length of your run, then turn it off.
  • Lock down fitness apps. Make activities private or followers-only, hide the start and end near home, and opt out of public heatmaps. Researchers at NC State showed public heatmaps can still reveal where frequent runners live.

Together is a strategy

  • Run with someone when you can. A partner changes which routes are open to you. Local running stores can point you to women's group runs.
  • Nod to other women on the trail. Being seen, and seeing, is part of what makes a place safe.
  • Rate the places you use. Your rating turns this map from estimates into something the next woman can trust.

If you share these trails

Most people on these paths mean no harm. A few habits make that obvious to a woman who can't yet tell.

  • Call out before you pass, and pass wide.
  • Don't match pace behind someone. Pass, or fall back.
  • Don't stop her to talk. Headphones in and eyes forward is an answer.
  • If you see someone being followed or bothered, walk alongside, ask if she's okay, and stay until she says she is.

If today doesn't feel right

Not going is a choice, not a failure. If a place or a day doesn't feel safe, that feeling is information worth trusting. Some other ways to get your miles:

  • Pick a busier, staffed place for today. Filter the map to Strong, or choose somewhere with staff during open hours.
  • Go with someone. Local running stores and clubs host group runs, and a friend or a dog changes which routes feel open.
  • Move indoors. A YMCA, YWCA, gym or community recreation center gives you a track or treadmill with people and staff around.
  • Stay close to home. A shorter daylight loop in your own neighborhood, or a route you know well, still counts.
  • Move at home. Stairs, a walking or yoga video, or stretching on the floor keeps the habit without the trip.
  • Rest. A day off is part of training, and so is listening to your body.

After a scare

A frightening moment can stay in the body after it's over. A racing heart, shaking or feeling numb are normal responses. These are options for the hour afterward; use what helps.

  • Get somewhere safer first: a lit lot, a staffed building, other people, or your locked car.
  • Slow the exhale. Breathe out longer than you breathe in, a few times. A longer exhale helps your body settle.
  • Come back to right now. Name five things you can see and three you can hear, and press your feet into the ground.
  • Hold something. Keys, a smooth stone or anything with texture in your hand gives your body something steady to focus on.
  • Reach out. Text someone you trust, or call or text an advocate below. You don't have to explain it well.
  • Later, if and when you want: rate the place so the next woman is warned, and try a different option next time. There's no rush, and no wrong way to recover.

If something happens

In danger now911

Call, 24 hours a day

Prefer to text or chat?

LGBTQ+ support

On a computer? Call or text from your phone, or use the website and chat links. Unless noted, lines are free, confidential and open 24 hours.

Being followed, watched or harassed, including for your gender, how you look or who you love, is reason enough to call. You decide what counts, and talking to an advocate doesn't require a police report. When you're ready, rating the place, including "Felt watched or followed," warns others without naming anyone.

If someone checks your phone or browser: use a private or incognito window, and the Quick exit button at the bottom of the screen leaves this site at once. Your browser history may still show this visit, so clear it if that is safe for you.

Why this matters

What women already know

If you have changed your route, your hour or what you wear to feel safer outside, the research says most women have too.

  • 53%of U.S. women say they would be afraid to walk alone at night within a mile of home, about twice the share of men (26%).Gallup, 2023 ↗
  • 92%of women runners have safety concerns about running outside, and 51% fear being physically attacked, compared with 28% of men.adidas and White Ribbon survey, 2023 ↗

The six factors behind each score come from decades of research on how places feel to women. See the research

Watch

Take your miles back

A two-minute story about why this map exists, and how you can help it grow.

The video is in English only. A Spanish translation of the script is available as text: press Español at the top of the page, then open “Read the video as text.” The video loads from our video host, Colossyan, only when you press play.

Read the video as text

Show the text

The safest route shouldn’t be a secret. This student led pilot is a community map of safer miles, made by the women who run them.

Before a walk or run, many women think beyond the distance.
Is the path well lit? Can you see what is ahead? Will other people be nearby?
These details can help you decide whether a route feels right today.

These concerns are common. In October 2023, Gallup reported that fifty-three percent of women in the United States were afraid to walk alone at night within a mile of home.
In a survey published in twenty twenty-three by Adidas and White Ribbon, ninety-two percent of women runners reported concerns about outdoor safety.
Clear local information helps people choose what feels right for them.

The map looks at six features of a place: foot traffic, staff nearby, clear sightlines, lighting, cell phone signal, and visible parking.
These details can help you compare routes. They cannot tell you exactly how a place will feel, but they give you useful information before you go.

Western North Carolina Safer Miles is a free map of ninety parks, greenways, and trails across six counties in Western North Carolina.
Each place has a score, and the sources are listed.
Ratings are anonymous. They describe places, not people.

Local knowledge helps the map stay useful.
Anyone can leave an anonymous rating, suggest a missing park or trail, or report a change.
If a route is unfamiliar, walk it with a friend or run club. Use the map’s safety check questions together.
Each contribution gives the next person more information to consider.

Use the map as a quick check, not a promise.
Scores are based on public information. Some locations have not been checked in person, and conditions can change.
If a score or detail makes you think, “Not today,” choose another route or go with someone you trust.
You decide what feels right.

Safe shouldn’t be something we find alone. Fear has taken enough of our miles.
Rate your favorite loop this week. Add a place we missed. Send this to a friend who runs alone. The more we use it, the more we know.
The next rating makes the next woman’s run a little less ambiguous. Run it. Rate it. Share it. Tap the button, and take your miles back.
For questions connect with the project lead: Alison Rose.

Rooted in this land

gadugi

Tsalagi (Cherokee)
working together · said ga-doo-gee

This map sits on Tsalagi homelands, still home to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Gadugi is the Cherokee tradition of people turning out together to help a neighbor plant, harvest or get through hard times. Each rating is a small part of that work: one woman's experience, offered so the next woman can go out knowing more and fearing less.

orenda

Haudenosaunee
the power every living being holds

Orenda comes from the Haudenosaunee peoples, and is offered here by someone learning her own family's Haudenosaunee line. It names the power every living being holds. Fear takes some of that power away by narrowing where women go and how fully they live in their own bodies. This map exists to give some of it back, together.

Both words are offered with respect, by someone who is not Cherokee and is still learning her Haudenosaunee roots. They are awaiting review by Cherokee and Haudenosaunee knowledge holders, and will change if they ask.

Better, together

Why community works, and four ways to help

This map works the way gadugi does: people turning out together to do what no one could do alone. Every rating and suggestion makes it a little truer for the next woman.

Why together works

Four ways to make it better

  1. Rate the places you useYour body's read on a place is information. If somewhere feels off, or feels good, say so. It takes about 20 seconds and asks for no name. Choose a place
  2. Suggest a place we're missingEvery suggestion is researched before it goes on the map. Suggest a place ↗
  3. Walk it togetherGo with a friend or two at the hour you'd usually go. Notice the lighting, how far ahead you can see and where you'd head if you needed to leave, the same questions women's safety audits ask. Then rate it.
  4. Tell us what's changedA light out, a new closure, a trail cleared after Helene. Report a change ↗

How this map works

Scores, the no-police-data rule and the research

How the score works

Each place gets 1–5 on six factors, weighted toward what matters most when you're alone:

  • Foot traffic, 25%
  • Open sightlines, 20%
  • Cell signal, 15%
  • Staff or ranger presence, 15%
  • Lighting, 15%
  • Visible parking, 10%

The result is scaled to 100. Women's ratings then blend in: one rating can move a score by up to about 13 points, enough to change the band of a place near a cutoff, and the more ratings a place has, the more they count, up to 40% of the score. Any rating of 1 or 2 is also flagged on the place itself as a warning.

No police data

This map does not use police or crime data. Incident counts mostly show where policing happens and what gets reported, most harassment on trails is never reported, and crime maps can make a place look more dangerous, or safer, than it feels to a woman alone. The one exception is a serious violent incident at a specific place, such as an assault or an attack on a trail, confirmed by an official notice or reliable local news. After review, it may appear on that place as a dated alert with its source. Alerts never change a score, and they come down 12 months after the incident.

What this map won't do

It rates places, never people. It won't show who runs where, when anyone goes, or live locations, so it can't be used to find a woman alone. Ratings are saved without names and the page shows only scores, counts and tags, never who rated.

The research behind it

Women's safety audits began in Toronto in 1989, created by METRAC (the Metropolitan Toronto Action Committee on Violence Against Women and Children). Women walk a place together and note what makes it feel unsafe, such as poor lighting or missing signs. UN-Habitat now shares the method as a tool for cities. UN-Habitat guide ↗

Bonnie Fisher and Jack Nasar found that fear runs highest where someone could hide, where you can't see far ahead and where there is no easy way out (Environment and Behavior, 1992). That is why open sightlines carry a fifth of every score. Study summary ↗

Harassment is common, too: 84% of women in a Runner's World survey of more than 5,000 runners said they had been harassed while running. Via CBC News ↗

This map turns those same questions into six factors, then asks local women to confirm or correct them. Your ratings are part of the evidence.

Who made this

WNC Safer Miles was created by Alison Rose, a runner in Asheville who studies psychology at UNC Asheville, with minors in American Indian and Indigenous Studies and in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, on her way to clinical neuropsychology. Here in Western North Carolina she serves as a crisis responder with TIP of WNC ↗, has advocated for children as a Guardian ad Litem, and invented ANCHOR, tactile grounding tools for nervous system regulation now being piloted in an ICU in the region. Her work keeps returning to one question: what helps a body feel safe? This map asks it at the scale of a community.

More about Alison and how the map was built