Whitesburg: Week 1

I've explored all of Whitesburg and beyond.

Wednesday I drove up to Jenkins, about 10 miles north of here, and further off the main road into Burdine (second syllable rhymes with "line" not with "lean"), then turned back on the back road, eventually ending up in Seco and reconnecting to the highway. (You can follow along on Google Maps.) Seco is a tiny town, with, surprise of surprises, a winery. I'd like to go back and check it out soon. For some reason, a man named Bill Thayer who is somehow affiliated with the University of Chicago has devoted a section of his website to his 2005 visit to Letcher County, including Highland Winery in Seco. You can see from his pictures that the winery is held in the town mining company's former company store. I'll be honest; when I was driving on KY-113, I was pretty nervous. I didn't have a map with me, the road was tiny, and I had no idea where I was going. What reassured me, however, was the knowledge that, having looked at an area map previously, I was sure that all roads either became dead ends or ended up connecting to a larger road. And all roads in the area either lead to Pikeville, Hazard (by way of Whitesburg), or Virginia, so it would be pretty difficult to get lost.

That knowledge has served me well this week.

Yesterday I got out of work by 4 and took a little road trip up Pine Mountain, which separates Whitesburg from Cumberland to the south. If you click on "terrain" on that Google map, you can tell that it's a pretty steep drive up -- over 2,000 feet at the highest, with lots of sharp mountain turns.

This was taken from a scenic lookout point on the highway (KY-119 over the mountain is a 2.5-lane -- the extra half-lane is cushion in the middle to allow for out-of-control turn-taking -- well-paved highway; the only thing that limits faster driving is the steepness of the mountain). See that little hamlet of civilization in the valley in the middle of the picture below? That's Whitesburg about 1,000 feet or so below.

The reason I decided to drive to the top of the mountain was because of signs at the bottom indicating that up the mountain was Kingdom Come State Park and Bad Branch Falls -- the names of both of which intrigued me. For some reason, I thought 119 just went to the top of the mountain. I was wrong. Anyway, yesterday I drove about 5 miles up the mountain (that would be 5 lateral miles, not vertical), then saw a turnoff with this sign:

I know it's hard to read, but it says, "Kingdom Come State Park 14 miles."

Well, about a mile prior to that, I had noticed that my gas light had come on -- when I started out, I had over 1/8 tank of gas, but the steep uphill climb had made my car think it had less than that, so on came the light. It made me nervous. Nevertheless, 14 miles sounded pretty short, so on I pressed. (The flaw there was that it had taken me nearly 15 minutes to drive the 5 miles to that point, so in my head it seemed as though I was just as likely to get to the park as I was to get back to Whitesburg before running out of gas.) The road got much narrower -- barely 1.5 lanes wide, making any instances of passing cars (there were only a couple) pretty nerve-wracking. And it was very curvy, with even more steep climbs. Going those 14 miles at no more than 20-25 mph made the distance pass very slowly. Especially with a gas light on. But it was beautiful nonetheless. Here's the view from Creech Overlook, at 2,760 feet up:



Once I actually GOT to Kingdom Come State Park, I was so nervous from being so low on gas that I just turned around. I could have kept going on the road, but I really wasn't sure if there would be gas on the other side of the mountain, if the road would keep going up, or what might happen. On the other hand, I knew it was less than 15 miles back to Whitesburg, and downhill 99.9% of the way. Decision: Turn around. And that's when I noticed what the road I had been driving on was called:

Primitive, indeed. (To be clear, that primitive road is Little Shepherd Trail, aka KY-1679.)

I coasted pretty much the whole way down, which was quite enjoyable for its gas-saving properties and the thrill of letting gravity do most of the work. Unfortunately, gravity and narrow mountain roads can be a recipe for disaster, and I had a close call with a downhill switchback and a pile of leaves... luckily there was a runaway car pull-off to save me. Whew!

Here's what my gas gauge looked like on the way down:
That made me really nervous, because that was heading downhill, which means it was registering all the gas in the tank (my gauge registers as being more empty than in reality when I'm headed uphill, and more full when headed downhill). But when I got back to the bottom and pulled into the gas station, here's what it looked like:
No more gas light! I filled up anyway. I think I took a year off my life worrying about being stranded at the top of that mountain, out of gas with no cell phone reception or battery (oh yeah -- I had started out with only 1 battery bar, since the hospital eats up my battery life every day).

Today I decided to try again. With a full tank of gas, a fully charged cell phone, and a study of Google maps before I got in the car, I was off. This time, I took 119 all the way to the other side of Pine Mountain, rather than taking the primitive road at the top to the park. Along the way, I saw the turnoff for Bad Branch Falls -- I'll have to explore that one another day. Once in Cumberland (KY), I took the main entrance up to the park, which was still a steep climb.

Here's a map of my route (click for larger version):
The red line is what I did yesterday -- there and back along the same route. The blue is what I did today, taking 119 to Cumberland (point B) on the map, then up into the park (the blob of green partially obscured by the "B"). The green line is how I got home from the park.

I initially planned to go to Kingdom Come and find a nice spot to read for a while. After all, hiking alone is pretty stupid. But it was overcast, hot, and humid, not good sitting-and-reading conditions. And after driving an hour (covering a mere 25 miles) to get there, I was tired of sitting. So off I went on a hike. Stupid, maybe. But then, so is driving up a mountain with no gas and no cell phone charge, and I had already survived that, so I figured why not?

Besides, it was only 3/8 of a mile to the top of Raven's Rock, according to the trail map, so off I went. Straight up. Ugh.
I don't know if this conveys the steepness of the trail or not, but here it is. Picture me huffing and puffing all alone in the hot sun, with lots of insects buzzing around, areas of overgrown trail (and I was wearing capris and short socks), and me imagining how I was going to survive if I were to be bitten by a snake or spider. Stupid overactive imagination, aggravated by the fact that in the park there was NO cell phone reception, making hiking alone all the more stupid. I reiterate: Not a smart idea.

Once I got up to the top of the rock, though, the view was gorgeous:
This is looking south/east into Virginia. The pictures really don't do it justice, sorry.

I took a different trail back to the car, allowing me to walk under Raven Rock for the duration:

All told, I hiked about a mile, and it took about an hour. After getting back in the car, I decided to take Little Shepherd Trail to the other end, continuing from where I had turned back yesterday (the green line on the map above). Here's the primitive road heading west (again, coasting downhill most of the way):


I ended up on KY-160, and just kept going, following the philosophy of every road leads back to civilization eventually. A sense of direction helped as well, telling me to turn right when I got to Route 7 in Blackey, rather than left. Despite the map saying that I drove through lots of towns with names, what I actually drove through were at best small enclaves of abodes (some houses, some trailer homes). Blackey was the only town that had any signs alerting me to where I was, until I got to Isom.

Did I mention I was driving with the top down? :)

It took me another hour to get home. All told, I drove about 65 miles today in about 2 hours. That's the mountains for you.

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Here are some unique things about Whitesburg:

The back of the Super 8 sits along the river:

Which leads there to be a set of ducks who hang out at the water but have clearly learned that people will feed them:

This evening they were sitting in the parking lot, and didn't even blink as I drove past them (rather closely, I might add):
(It's kind of hard to see them, but you can sort of see the light reflecting off the female's eye.)

And this is totally weird, since we're nowhere near the beach, but I've also seen this sandpiper dude:
I added the arrow because he kind of blends in. If he's not a sandpiper, he's definitely closely related.

And here is some small-town humor for you:
(Also taken this evening, sorry for the darkness.) I wonder who the 2 grouches are... Also, I was indignantly informed the other day that the town actually has closer to 3,000 people; the 2000 census was done based on old city limit lines (just around the town center itself) that had been redrawn prior to 2000, but the 2010 census should reflect the new city lines accurately. So sorry if I offended. There is an RC Cola distributor in town, hence the sign sponsorship. And the doctor who owns the Mountain Heart Center alluded to at the top of the sign is quite the businessman; he has an office in every town I've driven through. I'm sure he's the only cardiologist in the area, and only visits each town no more than once every week or so, but still, that's quite a business.

Anyway, that was Week #1 of living in Whitesburg. There's not much to explore, other than the scenery, and with gas at $3.95/gallon, I don't think I can afford to drive around aimlessly any more.

Still to come, Week #1 of medicine in Whitesburg. With pictures, don't worry!