General Discussions

Just finished mapping! Your route will be 525 miles, and will span 4 states, Virginia, Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee. This route takes you into the heart of coal country and really displays how coal is mined and how reclamation process takes place. While modern mining certainly changes the landscape permanently, it turns topographically unusable mountainous lands into vast, flat meadows for Elk and Horses to make their home.

Here are some other interesting coal facts.

The Appalachian region produce 27% of the entire country's supply with WV being the 2nd largest producer in the USA.

9 out of every 10 tons of coal mined each year in the U.S. is used for domestic electricity generation.

Each person in the U.S. uses around 3.5 tons of coal annually. Coal is the most affordable source of power fuel per million Btu, historically averaging less than one-quarter the price of petroleum and natural gas.

Coal is considered one of America's only home-grown energy sources, relying almost solely on American sourced materials while both nuclear and renewable energy rely on global products for production.

With that said, here are some shots from our mapping. Your route is around 525 miles. With all of our backtracking due to locked gates or washout, our uncleaned track was over 640 miles. Mapping a route to be continuous and spanning such a vast area is a huge undertaking and takes much longer for us. Speaking to locals is a huge asset and most are outstanding at helping us find new trail. It took us over 64 hours to map your route that will take you only about 24 hours of driving to complete! You read that right.

This year's route is pretty taxing and by day 3 you will be ready to go home, but the experiences, the soreness, the wrong turns and and hardships you will face with your friends will forever change you.

More pics incoming. Please like and comment on this forum post to get other competitors seeing!