Itinerary

Saturday, July 29th -  Meet at St. Nick's parking lot 6:30 a.m. Gather and load vans.  

Drive to Tar Hollow State Park. Dogwood Shelter non-electric group camping site.  Gas/bathroom stops and stop for lunch on the way.    

Bring bag lunches/snacks and filled labeled water bottle; we will have coolers in the rental vans.                                         

Sunday, July 30th - 

Wake up 6:30 am. Pack up while we eat breakfast. Leave by 8am. Drive 30 min to Cedar Falls in Hocking Hills. 15 minute walk to falls each way (30 min total). If anyone does not want to go there vans can split up and meet at Comfort, WV (see below).

Bathrooms and leave by 9:30 from Hocking Hills.  Drive 2 1/2 hrs to Exon in Comfort, WV, arriving at 12:00 p.m. (Eat bag lunch in vans or on arrival. Use bathrooms). Meet Junior Walk and be ready to go at 12:30. Junior Walk is the outreach coordinator for Coal River Mountain Watch, a small non-profit working in communities impacted by the irresponsible practices of the coal industry in southern West Virginia. Junior uses his drone and patrols mountaintop removal sites to keep watch for violations with the mission to stop the destruction of our communities and environment by mountaintop removal mining, to improve the quality of life in the area, and to help rebuild sustainable communities.

Tour with Junior: Drive to active surface mine in White Oak. Drive through Whitesville, possibly checking out the Upper Big Branch miners' (UBB) memorial. (The Upper Big Branch Mine coal dust explosion disaster occurred on April 5, 2010 roughly 1,000 feet (300 m) underground in Raleigh County, West Virginia at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch coal mine located in Montcoal. Twenty-nine out of thirty-one miners at the site were killed. The accident was the worst in the United States since 1970, when 38 miners were killed at Finley Coal Company's No. 15 and 16 mines in Hyden, Kentucky. A state funded independent investigation later found Massey Energy directly responsible for the blast.  Investigations into the Upper Big Branch mine disaster found that worn and broken cutting equipment created a spark that ignited accumulations of coal dust and methane gas. Broken and clogged water sprayers allowed what should have been a minor flare-up to become an inferno.Former Massey Energy CEO Don Blackenship was convicted in 2015 of a misdemeanor (conspiring to wilfully violate safety sandards) and sentenced and served 1 year in prison.) Stop in towns of Pettus and Eunice and at the mine entrance for UBB. Drive up Sundial #10 and check out the view from there. Return to Coal River Mountain Watch office in Naoma for questions and answers. Leave at 2pm.

Options then include 1 hr drive to Canyon Rim in New River Gorge National Park. (From there it is 1/2 hr to Beckley. Or it is 1 hr to Hinton)  Or 45 min drive to Beckley to the Coal Mine Exhibit (sitting tour is 35 min. on the hr and half hr. 58 degrees in underground mine). Grounds include coal camp buildings: Coal company house, Superintendent's house, Coal camp church and school. One possibility is to eat in New River Gorge and then drive 1 1/2 to BFarm. Another possibility is to have dinner in Hinton and then it is a 30 minute drive to BFarm.  Arrival time between 7 and 7:30.       

Monday July 31st- Friday, August 4th - Service work in the community doing what we are asked to do. See link below. 

Saturday August 5th  - 

Leave West Virginia at 10 a.m. Possibility of exploring West Virginia then overnight stay, leaving on Sunday for return trip or leave on Saturday from BFarm at 10 am. Vans may split up as these details are worked out. 

See this link for the program at Bethlehem Farm: The Bethlehem Farm Program