I arrived to Black Mountain, the Kentucky state highpoint, around 6 in the evening, not long after an energetic four-hour hike up Mount Rogers, Virginia's highpoint, earlier in the day. Way earlier in the day, the weather had been extremely violent from where I started, in Asheville, North Carolina. It had moderated a little while I hiked up Mount Rogers, and by the time I arrived here, it was much better. It was still cloudy and humid, but mostly still. The worst stuff was apparently over.

Black Mountain sits very nearly on the Kentucky-Virginia boundary, deep in coal mining country. The surrounding county is called Harlan County, and has been the site of a handful of famous (notorious?) coal miner strikes over the years, one in 1931, and another in the early 1970s. A fascinating feature-length documentary called Harlan County, U.S.A. was produced around 1976 and details the events with almost no narration or any extensive post-production. The movie is basically a lot of raw footage strung together, and is utterly fascinating.

The roads up into the hills were very pretty, and in places, seams of coal could be seen in the rocks alongside the highway. When I hit the state line, things got ugly quickly, unfortunately. The Kentucky state line sign was blasted with a couple shotgun rounds and unreadable save for a couple letters. The access road up Black Mountain was nearby, and it didn't take me long to drive up to the flattish top. The FAA maintains a "golf ball" radar dome atop Black Mountain. There is also a lookout tower and a few other scattered buildings. Unfortunately, there was a lot of trash strewn about. This seems to be a popular drink-beer-and-have-sex destination judging by the various "ground forensics" (wrappers, cans, bottles, etc.). However, no one was around on my visit, so I had the place to myself for the time being, which was nice. I spent maybe 10 or 15 minutes seeking out the highpoint, which to me was near a lookout tower behind a gate, which was easily transgressed. I stuck around just long enough to count this one off my list.

The drive back down went without event. I stayed in Kingsport, Tennessee. The girl at the counter was about the prettiest human I'd seen during the whole trip. She had a real deep, breathy southern accent. "Thank you" came out "Thaink yee-ou".

From here, I ventured back into the Appalachians along the North Carolina-Tennessee boundary. The next day, under much nicer conditions, I was able to visit a series of peaks in both Tennessee and North Carolina. The story continues here