The BackWoods Drifter

Obviously I have been away from the blog for a little while. I’ve been dealing with some personal issues and had to push the blog onto the back burner for a bit. I’m happy to say those issues have been resolved and now I can get back to doing something I really enjoy which is blogging.

That being said, I’m going to ramble a little bit.

I’ve always enjoyed blogging about the outdoors and more specifically about my adventures in the mountains. I talk about my trips because I just simply love to be in the mountains and I like to tell the occasional story and show pictures of places that may have otherwise never been seen. I also like to think my blog can even get educational at times.

I don’t know if I can call myself a true hillbilly although I like to think of myself as a hillbilly. I was born in Kansas, raised in West Virginia and then left WV with the outpouring in the 80’s only to return periodically for the next 20 years. I’ve lost a good portion of my accent but I have never lost my passion for the mountains. The times I did come back it was because of the mountains. I would stay long enough for them to lose their luster with the facts of living in the coalfields causing it to happen. I was use to making good money and living in an economy where multiple job opportunities exist at all times. Although I love the mountains I felt trapped. I couldn’t get a decent paying job unless I worked for the coal industry. But in any case it was hard to pay the bills let alone pack up and move back to an area where I actually had a choice and a chance.

One time, not so long ago, I got so disgusted with the lack of opportunities in WV I went to Dallas Texas with an ‘86 Pontiac Bonneville and $184 to my name. Within a week of arriving in Texas I had a job in a field I chose, within the first 2 months I had purchased a piece of property.

For myself and before I became self sufficient, so to speak, coming to West Virginia was always bitter sweet. I loved being back in the mountains but I knew each and every time the inevitable trap that came with that love for the mountains. But I came back each and every time willingly because the mountains are what I consider home.

I have made the statement a few times about reasons for myself fighting mountaintop removal coal mining. This is another reason and a big one, the mountains are my home and I’m having to watch them get blown to bits so somebody else in another country, in some cases, can turn on their lights. You don’t have to be overly educated to realize the destruction is not a good trade off. The Appalachian Mountains is not someplace we can just so blatantly destroy. People live here and we call it home.

What is Hell’s Gate? It is a simple metal gate on Kayford Mountain that separates Larry Gibson’s property from an active mountaintop removal site.

Once you pass Hell’s Gate it is like you are transported to an entirely different planet. Or, as the name would suggest, Hell on Earth.

The next photo shows the dragline which is basically a large piece of equipment responsible for allowing this type of mining. There is really nothing to compare it with in this photo but the dragline itself is in the neighborhood of 22 stories tall.

We were there in time to witness a small explosion. I say small but really it was a large detonation but small as compared to most other detonations. The second photo shows the dust drifting down the mountain towards Dorothy, WV which is located right at the bottom of the mountain.

STOP!!! Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

The Blogger’s Challenge
http://www.ilovemountains.org/bloggers-challenge
The ultimate resource for bloggers interested in writing about mountaintop removal coal mining which includes embeddable video, coal tracking widgets, news and blog post headline tickers, and customizable “Spread the Word” widgets. These tools will encourage and incubate a community of concerned bloggers who spread the word, collaborate, and take action. The Blogger’s Challenge page also includes a “Blogger’s Impact” map, which shows where the campaign has spread around the country as a result of the challenge.

Join the Bloggers Challenge from ilovemountains.org and help us spread the word about the devastating practice of mountaintop removal coal mining.

Although it has been said I have a big mouth, I can’t get loud enough when it comes to educating people about MTR. I know there are a lot of issues facing us today as far as energy is concerned but this much I can tell you with 100% certainty, mountaintop removal coal mining is not the answer and no matter how much it is preached to us, coal can never be clean when you have to destroy so much to get it.

Using mountaintop removal coal for energy is akin to using drug money to buy girl scout cookies. It may seem like a good thing in the end but no matter what, you can’t get past where it comes from. Help put an end to mountaintop removal coal mining. You don’t have to be a blogger to add your voice.

This is a continuation of the last post.

The second day started almost as nice as the first day ended. I slept longer than I had intended. It was about 7:30am when the sun finally woke me up. I had wanted to get up earlier and catch the sunrise but I was pretty wore out from the previous day riding so I didn’t really mind sleeping a little late. I broke camp in about 15 minutes and headed over to where I took the photos the day before.

I actually had a few reasons for coming on this trip. At the top of the list was for the relaxation. I needed to get out for a while by myself. Another reason was to look for ginseng on the side of the mountaintop removal site in Schumate / Clay’s Branch. I have been talking a lot lately about how restrictions have been put on harvesters because ginseng is considered an endangered species, at least in Appalachia.

I didn’t have to look far. There are about six stalks of ginseng in this photo. Three of them are three-prongs and one of them is a two-prong. The others are just small new plants. I took this photo right around the mountain from the mountaintop removal site. I could go to jail for digging these plants but it would seem as if it is ok to totally decimate them with explosives.

Another reason for coming here was to get some more photos of the mountaintop removal site. This was the first time for me being there that early in the morning and I wanted some photos with the sun behind me.

On the map at the end of this post - this photo was taken where it indicates Photo 1. After some video and a ton of photos I headed off the mountain en route to the lower end of Clay’s Branch. This ride consisted of another couple of hours of nice trail riding.

From the top of the mountain, the trail was just like in the photos all the way to the bottom. At the bottom was Drews Creek road actually quite a few miles from where I initially went into the mountains. I had made a huge circle.

I went back out of the hollow and into Clay’s Branch from the Peachtree side. This is where I had to get off the four wheeler and do a little hiking to get where I wanted to go. I was on every kind of trail imaginable in the past two days. From a single lane blacktop road to a deer trail.

I’m about 100 feet down the hill from the rim of the mountaintop removal site. This photo turned out too bright because that is the treeline. It is hard to make out in the photo but I am following a deer trail. I wasn’t looking for ginseng but I couldn’t have missed these stalks. The one is growing right on the trail. This is about 50 feet from the site.

The stalk of ginseng is at the bottom of the photo and the bright light at the top is the end of the trees.

I was saddened by seeing the ginseng that close to the MTR site and on the dry side of the mountain. I couldn’t help but think about all of the ginseng that had been wiped from the Earth - on the wet side.

This photo is indicated by Photo 2 on the map. I stayed here for a few hours taking photos and video. I probably won’t go back for awhile, it’s just depressing.

At any rate, the last leg of the journey was a ride back home and just as good a ride as the day before. I didn’t get any photos coming home because in the course of the previous days riding I took nearly 300 photos. I filled two small memory cards. I’ll have to remember in the future to take plenty of extra memory.

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The green line represents the first day of riding. The blue line was the route taken from the MTR site in Drews Creek to the other side of the site in Clay’s Branch. The red line represents the ride home.

You can’t really give an accurate indication of the mileage simply because of alternating terrain.

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I have to comment a little on both of these posts. This is one reason I fight mountaintop removal. If King Coal has his way, I won’t be able to write many more posts like these. I would absolutely hate to see the day get here when there are no more backwoods to enjoy. In a lot of places it is already too late. Where used to be serene mountains and hollows now reside un-scalable mountains of debris.

It’s a travesty.

A month or so ago I put a video on this site with the song Cool Clear Water by Fleetwood Mac. As soon as I heard that song I knew I was going to have to produce my very own video using the same song.

I’m happy to say I have made my first video using mountaintop removal and acid mine drainage photos. Plus a couple of other odds and ends. It’s not the best in the world but it is my first so go easy on me. I can guarantee it won’t be my last. I hope you enjoy it.

I have been known to use song titles for posts before. This title is from an old Led Zeppelin song and I think it fits rather well with the photos in this post.

Growing up I used to spend a lot of time in the mountains. If hunting season wasn’t in I was hiking or senging (looking for ginseng). I especially enjoyed squirrel hunting. I remember a time all too well where you could judge how well someone has done in the squirrel season by how many squirrel tales were tied to the antennae of their truck.

At any rate I remember this one time a friend came to the house and got me to go hunting with him. I may have been around fourteen or fifteen at the time. We were headed towards a favorite hunting spot when we stopped on the ridgeline to take a breather and just have a look around. If we moved five feet left or right we could see the entire hollows opened up before us. It was the perfect place to watch for squirrels among the leaves on the ground and in the branches of the trees.

We were standing there and we hear something coming down the ridge toward us. You could tell it wasn’t very big because it sounded like it was swimming in the leaves. Both of us were standing there ready to meet whatever was coming head on. It turns out we weren’t prepared because what came into sight was a hilarious vision. Two fox pups were absolutely having the time of their life. The second one close on the heels of the first and nipping at the back of the legs of the first one.

These pups couldn’t have been a year old and still had the puppy look to them. The paid no more attention to us as if we were trees standing there. They did have the sense to dodge us and in just doing so they end up in a slightly bigger red and white ball as they go rolling over the ridge to our left. I thought it was probably the funniest damn thing I had seen to that point in the woods.

My friend and I both were laughing at the antics of the little fox pups as we watch them roll over the edge of the ridge. When we came to our senses both of us rushed to the edge to see the fox in the hollow. They were no where to be seen. It made no sense because we were close to the edge and looking over within seconds of the fox going over. They had apparently vanished. My friend asked me if fox climbed trees. At the time I thought that was a ridiculous idea and laughed in spite of myself. To me a fox climbing a tree would be like Old Blue climbing a tree. For some reason I could picture Old Blue scaling up the side of a hickory tree - that’s a pretty funny picture.

As I got older and thinking about the little fox pups, I tend to think the more likely reason for their apparent disappearing act is because we were in close proximity to the den and just didn’t know it. I would also hear stories later that made the idea of a fox in a tree not so far fetched. But until I see it with my own eyes - I’ll have to leave that one in the doubtful category.

Back then I considered the mountains a place of wonder and mystery. It was a whole other world where the laws of man counted for nothing. Fox pups still played in the woods in the same fashion as they have been since the dawn of time. I enjoyed trips to the mountains just for the solitude because in the mountains you could literally imagine yourself in any time in history. I miss the time when it seemed as if even the animals were more relaxed. Now you can go into huge areas in the mountains and you have no doubt what time you are in. The peace and quiet of the mountains takes on a whole new meaning. In a lot of places one would be lucky to hear a squirrel bark let alone watch two fox pups in careless play together. It is these simple things in life we will regret losing the most. Or, at least, I will.

The picture in this post has it all. Horses, meadows, a barn, a creek, trees, mountains, a valley fill, and the accused culprit of the valley fill - power lines.

The active valley fill is in Clear Fork, WV. The site is actually a part of the Kayford Mountain MTR site. Believe me when I tell you the photo does not do the size of this fill justice. It is huge. The whole face of the site is nothing but gravel - large and small. When they are finished filling this valley they will come back and spray hydro-seed on it and call it reclaimed. They can get by with that particular atrocity because the hydro-seed would flourish just as well on the power pole or the horse for that matter.

Without getting into a big description of hydro-seed, suffice it to say - it has been termed grass seed on steroids.

This is the new face of West Virginia. It is definitely - Almost Heaven, West Virginia.

Yesterday I wrote a post describing my plans to back off in my battle against mountaintop removal coal mining. Today I am recanting that statement.

There will be no threat you can make that will cause me to back off. I feel like a weakling for even considering it. You can email me all you want, put as many signs in front of my house as you want and for every one of each of those, you will cause me to only work harder.

The coal industry can run helter skelter through this state thinking they can do whatever the hell they want. This is my house and my property, if you come here looking for trouble I can guarantee you will find it. As far as the grassroots and environmental organizations around here, I can create a big enough stir without their help - thank you very much.

The BackWoods Drifter is officially declaring war on the coal industry with the prime targets being Massey Energy, the friends of coal, and their ignorant leader - Don Blankenship. Donny boy - you have made an enemy here that will not rest until I see you broken. I would seriously suggest you keep your flunkies at bay or we will make national news, that much I promise. I didn’t name this blog the BackWoods Drifter for nothing - you don’t have to come to me because from now on I am coming to you. If you were trying to push my buttons you have succeeded. The mistake on your part was pushing the button that says IGNITION.

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If you are in favor of mountaintop removal coal mining no matter where you live, you are my enemy and I would just as soon not be affiliated with you. For anybody to condone mountaintop removal coal mining, in my book - you are the scum of the Earth.

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If you are reading this post and thinking damn he’s pissed - believe me, you have no idea. So think about that before you email me again.

btw - Have A Great Day!