Last week they introduced a race with limited commercial breaks and as it turns out, it had more commercials than a normal race. The announcers were instead talking about the various sponsors and advertising and then a screen would pop up on TV with a commercial. You could see the cars racing at the top of the screen with a commercial blaring at the bottom. So basically in between the normal commercial breaks there were, for lack of a better description, commercial breaks.

There’s a few reasons I don’t watch much TV and the main one is because of all the commercials. I’d hate to completely quit watching Nascar but if the races don’t soon get back to more racing less commercials, I’ll happily keep my TV turned off. That being said, I’ve probably watched my last Nascar race on TV and I only watched the first 45 minutes of it.

When I first woke up there was a real heavy fog covering Bolt Mountain. I debated on waiting for some of the fog to burn off but decided against waiting too long because this was a fog that could easily hang around till 10 or 11am.

I left about 8 and by 11 I was roaming around in the head of Peachtree. I was actually on a trail I had never been on before just because I wanted to see where it led. The trail began on Peachtree Rd. and led in the direction of Drews Creek. The first half of a mile wasn’t bad. It was just like any other trail but the last three and half miles or so was one heck of a good four wheeler ride.

The further I moved along the trail the more I hoped it would come out in Drews Creek somewhere. Otherwise I was going to have to backtrack through some pretty rough terrain. I realized there was a real good chance this trail leads nowhere. There had been very little four wheeler traffic ever and if a trail leads to somewhere people ride them. This trail reminded me of one my friend Dennie and I took a couple of summers ago. The only difference is that we were coming from the other direction and further up the mountain.

Although Dennie and I were able to follow our trail all the way out to another road, I wasn’t to be so lucky with this one. I had a strong feeling the trail was going to end long before I reached it.

I wasn’t worried about it ending because as long as I made it here, I could make it back.

So that is pretty much what I did, turn around and went back. I had hoped the trail would come out in Drews Creek and as far as I rode it was probably pretty close. But since I was just out riding, backtracking was alright with me. I did learn something, now I know that trail goes nowhere.

It is a great time to be in the mountains especially if you like blackberries. Some of them are ripe now but in a couple of weeks there will be blackberries everywhere you look along the mountain trails.

Like I’ve said many times, I simply can’t go to Peachtree on a four wheeler without stopping at the falls. Today the falls was my last stop before heading home. It was about a seven hour four wheeler ride start to finish.

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.

In a word, he is doing great. He is growing like a weed and has this obvious vendetta against my shoe strings. Any doubt about his well being left just a couple of days after bringing him home. One way that I can tell the intelligence of a puppy is how quick they are to learn. I keep Samson in the house and he is already house-trained. Which is a good thing because I’m a little bit of a stickler for a clean house. I won’t know for sure until he gets a little older but I detect some Border Collie in him. Only time will tell. For now I’m just happy I brought him home from the mountains.

The snake was soaking up the sun and didn’t seem to care at all that I was taking his picture. He stayed right there the entire time. I would guess it’s length to be in the 3 to 4 foot range. I have seen them as much as 10 feet long. Black snakes are harmless so this snake was still alive when we left. Had it been a copperhead or rattler I would have ended its life right there on the road because they are poisonous and very dangerous.

Not far around the road from here we saw two coyote but they were much to quick to get a photo. It was only the second time I have ever seen coyote in the mountains of West Virginia. Although I have heard them quite often.

The area we were in is a very good spot to see bear and I have been wanting a picture of one forever. It seems as if the only time I see bear is when I don’t have a camera with me. I didn’t get a picture of a bear but I did get a couple photos of bear tracks.

I would say this small bear had passed through this area within an hour of us getting here. The tracks leaving the water hole were still wet on the dry road.

I have came back from the mountains with some pretty interesting stuff before and when I say that I mean I have found things in areas where it would leave me wondering how it came to be there to begin with. I found a little Hotwheel car one time in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere. That one really baffled me. This time we found a puppy. We actually found the puppy and his mother but unfortunately the mother was beyond help.

I have a big soft spot for puppies and there was no way I could leave the little guy. There is no doubt he would not have survived since he was miles from any house. The coyote would have surely gotten him if I had not brought him home.

I think the little puppy looked better than I did. In my defense the photo of me and the puppy was taken after about 6 hours of four wheeler riding. The puppy seems to be in pretty good health although he was both hungry and thirsty. He looks a little ragged in the photo because he had just received his first bath.

I have been kind of looking for another puppy ever since Sam died so maybe it was fate that put me in a position to rescue another dog since I blame myself for Sam’s death. I still have all of Sam’s toys and this little guy was quick to claim them for his own. I’m amazed at the playfulness of this little puppy. One would never guess that just a few hours earlier his home was in the West Virginia backwoods. Now he has a new home and a new lease on life.

I still haven’t named him because I would like to give him a name that fits with how he came to be with me. I thought about Lucky but for some reason, even though he is lucky, it just doesn’t feel right. I’ll think of something. For the moment I’m just happy to have a new friend and from the way he has taken up with me I’m quite sure he is to.

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.

Just from some basic observations I’m guessing this is a petrified tree root system - millions of years old. There are a few things that make me think this - the first is the obvious texture of the rock. Another aspect is that it is oval shaped and independent of the surrounding rock formations. The oval shape really adds weight to my theory because it would be oval shaped if it had once been round. After millions of years and everything settling on top, it would have compacted the root into this oval shaped rock.

You can tell from the broken pieces all along it’s form that it had had heavy traffic on it recently. I would love to find a long piece intact and had even thought about going back for these that are broken. I did bring two pieces of it home. I’m hoping to find out what it is and how old.

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Adding - It would appear as if I was correct in my assumption that what is pictured is the remains of a tree root system 286 - 360 million years old. I emailed a professor at WVU and the following is his reply.

It indeed looks like the root system of a Pennsylvanian tree. It is known as sigillaria. The pictures are great! Next time, be sure to place something for scale - a pen, a ruler, a notebook, for example so that the full scope of the find can be determined. You have a sharp eye and you used good common sense to figure out what you must have seen. Well done!

The following from here.

Sigillaria is the generic name assigned to this ancient arborescent lycopod. It had leaves and roots very similar to its contemporaneous cousin, lepidodendron, but it differed in that it exhibited much rarer branching and its tall, columnar trunk lacked the scale-pattern of lepidodendron, instead exhibiting straight, fluted furrows along the trunk midsection. Occassionally the trunks were smooth.

Other differences with lepidodendron were its cones. Lepidodendron cones were attached individually near the tip of it’s branches. Sigillaria cones occurred in clusters attached in certain places along the upper stem.

Another characteristic of sigillaria are the vertically-arranged circular scar pattern found in fossil specimens representing the inner bark. These scars called parichnos occur in specimens assigned the form-genus name of Syringodendron.

Sigillaria was prolific during the Carboniferous Period (360 to 286 million years ago) and, like its cousin lepidodendron, often attained heights of over 130 feet.

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.

I noticed Saturday that Sunday and Monday would be perfect. Upper 70’s both days with no chance of rain till Monday evening. That was all the time I needed. I got my gear ready early Sunday morning, borrowed my friend’s four wheeler and was in the mountains by 1pm. The trip wasn’t planned so I wasn’t sure where I was going to camp. My first choice was just up the road from Peachtree Falls.

I don’t think I can ever have enough photos from the falls. Once I was in the area I quickly ruled out camping there for two reasons. The first was there was just too much four wheeler traffic, I needed more seclusion. The other reason was it was only about 2:30pm and that left about six hours of riding. I could be miles from the falls in just a couple of hours and I didn’t want to have to come back here to camp since my destination was ultimately the WV backwoods.

So I took a few photos, soaked up the sights and sounds then headed further from civilization. My next destination was about an hours ride after passing the last house in Drews Creek. I was bound for the head of Spring Hollow, which is about a two hour ride from the falls. I hadn’t been to Spring Hollow by four wheeler in quite a while so I didn’t know if the road was still passable that far out.

I didn’t get a whole lot of photos going into Spring Hollow simply because I was going to be in the mountains for two days and wanted to save my shots for other views. But I did take a couple of photos. I popped around a curve and saw this grouse standing there in the sun. I could have taken a lot of photos of this bird. She just stood there and actually didn’t fly off until I started toward her with the 4 wheeler.

Lucky for me the gas company had been back in Spring Hollow and actually had a pretty decent road all the way. The last time I was here this was nothing more than a goat trail. The road continues through the hollow and on around the mountain for maybe another mile.

This was the end of the line and I thought seriously about camping here. On the way through the hollow I saw another road that pretty much cut straight up the mountain. Once again I was faced with the dilemma of too much time on my hands. I’m probably about three quarters of the way to the top of the mountain at about 2400 to 2600 feet.

I didn’t really think I could take the four wheeler up the mountain I passed but I thought I could try it and if I couldn’t then I could come back here and camp. I wasn’t real comfortable with camping here because on the way up the mountain I stopped and talked with another guy on a four wheeler. When I told him I was going camping in the head of Spring Hollow he looks at me funny and asks - by yourself? And then promptly followed that up with - do you have a gun? I was armed but I didn’t ask him why I would need to be because I was planning on possibly camping there and I didn’t want to be jumping at fireflies all night. I assumed it was to protect myself from bear and coyote. I’ve seen bear in Spring Hollow before and coyote tracks on this trip.

But at any rate all of that combined made me decide to try and go up the mountain. I didn’t take a photo of the climb because I really didn’t think I was going to make it and figured I had plenty of time for picture taking. However, that four wheeler dug in and I went all the way to the top with no problem. If the mountain had been muddy I would have never made it. When I get to the top I’m in uncharted territory for the backwoods drifter. I had never been able to go any further, by four wheeler, than Spring Hollow.

This photo is from the very top of the mountain. The hill climb turned into a mountain climb and was about a half hour ride straight up. After I get to the top I found another road system. From this point I’m about mid-way between the head of Drews Creek and the head of Clay’s Branch- four hours into the backwoods - 26 hard miles south of nowhere.

After another hour or so of riding I came upon this four wheeler path continuing to lead me into the direction of Clay’s Branch. I had by then decided to camp somewhere on the mountain above the mouth of Drews Creek.

The four wheeler trail took me right where I wanted to go. It was some good riding and some absolutely gorgeous trails.

I was very happy I had not decided to camp at any of the aforementioned places. I would have missed out on a very relaxing ride through the mountains. I live for times like this. It doesn’t get much more secluded than the backwoods.

I set my little camp up at about 7:00pm.

This is Camp BWD sitting at an elevation of around 3045 feet above sea level. Ivy Knob on Bolt Mountain is at just over 3200 feet and is the highest point in the Guyandotte Mountain range. So my camp is up there in relation to nearby mountains.

I’m partial to leaving very little evidence at any of my campsites. On this trip I had brought sandwiches and since it was only a one night affair, I didn’t even build a fire. When I left the next morning the only evidence left behind was a flat spot on the ground and even that will be gone with the first rain.

A benefit to being right on top of the mountain is the sun is visible a lot longer. The sun set at around 9pm. Between the time I set up camp and sunset I still had time to explore further around the trail. It turned out I had set up camp just about a mile from where I was hoping I would eventually end up. Basically I found a new way to get somewhere I had been before. It was definitely the scenic route.

This is one of the reasons I come here.

I got back to camp in plenty of time to watch the sun set. I tried to get some pictures of it but my camera isn’t that good. Or maybe it is and I’m just not that good with it. Once the sun started for the horizon it wasn’t long before it was time to turn in for the night. I saw a red sky as the sun was setting and I always think of that old saying - Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky in the morning, sailors warning.

I went to sleep feeling good about the day just past and the day yet to come. I’ll tell you about it in the next post.