Jessica's Mine Site Blog

. As we drove through the industrial coal mining communities, watching thousands of tons of coal being shipped away from the desolate, low income communities it was clear that the gross profits from the exploitation of our homeland was benefiting a fortunate few. Then we arrived at Kayford Mountain and drove to the highpoint at the cemetery we were surrounded by miles of strip mine. It is hard to describe what I felt when I looked over the acreage of once abundant forested mountains turned into barren monotonous landscape. The rain started to fall and it was as if the mountain was crying with us. We walked down from the cemetery and drove to The Stanly Heirs Park, picnic tables under a pavilion and odd buildings scattering the ridge as the rain was pouring down. There we met Larry Gibson, the advocate for this last remaining unmolested fifty acres in approximately a thirty mile radius. We slept through the rain and equipment running all night and awoke to a deceivably peaceful morning. Larry met us with a layered model of the area surrounding us thirty years previously and by removing layers we saw the removal of the mountain tops and filling of the valleys leaving only Kayford Mountain as an island on a sea of sterile, level land. We then walked higher, onto coal mine land and watched the strip mine at work. We stood at the top of a 500 foot drop and watched giant equipment load the coal onto even larger trucks. All there was as far as we could see was strip mine. After hiking down we hiked to several other places with the same view. Larry’s message to us was that in your life you need something to be passionate about. It doesn’t matter if it’s mountains or anything else, but life needs some purpose.