Published: October 18, 2007 07:52 am      

‘Climb the mountain while it’s still here’

BEREA — “Climb this mountain while it’s still here.”

That could have been the theme of Berea College’s annual Mountain Day.

Since the 1870s, Berea College students have been given a day off from classes every October to hike up Indian Fort Mountain, view the fall colors and enjoy games that trace their origins to the highlands of Scotland.

While the day always has included an educational element, a forceful environmental lesson was taught this year.

As hikers reached the first of several switchbacks along the trail to the Pinnacle, they found a sign with an ominous message.

“If the Pinnacle was a mountain top removal site, you wouldn’t be walking here.”

Other messages, some with photographs, were posted at strategic points along the trail.

“In the United States, 100 tons of coal is extracted every two seconds,” another posting read.

Near the top of the ridge leading toward the East Pinnacle, a large color photograph showed a mountain stripped to its bedrock core. It looked more like a terraced section of the Grand Canyon that the lush green mountains surrounding it or those visible from the Pinnacle.

“Already more than 800 square miles of the southern Appalachian landscape has been destroyed by strip mining,” the photo’s caption read.

At the foot of the mountain where an early afternoon lunch was served, an exhibit by Kentuckians for the Commonwealth listed disturbing statistics for two eastern Kentucky mountain counties.

In Pike County, some 65,000 acres of land has been strip mined. Red streaks on a map of the county showed where coal had been extracted by blasting and digging away the surface.

Surface mining today often means exploding the tops off of mountains and then extracting the coal that is exposed, the exhibit stated.

Yellow symbols represented 14 sludge dams holding back the wastes generated by mining.

From 1980 to 2005, Pike County’s population declined from 81,100 to 66,750. While coal production increased from 25 million to 28.3 million tons per year during the period, coal-related employment dropped from 8,850 to 4,800.

In Floyd County, the population decline was slight compared with Pike’s, 48,800 to 42,300, but the job loss was much more dramatic. The 3,600 coal-related jobs in 1980 had dwindled to 650 by 2005.

The day was not all about sobering reminders of environmental crisis, however.

Musical performances were scheduled throughout the day, most of it in the Christian “praise” style.

The college step team demonstrated some lively foot work as they performed on a large checkerboard dance floor.

Students were invited to try their hands at traditional mountain crafts in exhibits set up between the parking lot and Indian Fort Theater. They could weave a plaid cloth, sew panels on a quilt, turn wood on a lathe, string twine for the seat of a stool, bind straw for a broom or mold clay to be fired in a kiln.

Several game sets to play corn hole proved to be more popular than horse shoes.

Students also could paint a mini-pumpkin, get their faces painted or be decorated with a temporary henna tattoo.

The more athletic students could show their strength in the log loss, reminiscent of the Scottish tabor toss, or in the crosscut sawing competition.

Bill Robinson can be reached at brobinson@richmondregister.com or at 623-1669, Ext. 267.