I’ll start off with an admission: I had to turn back before the summit of High Rock because the trail was in such bad shape, and ended up instead checking out some other sights that eastern Kentucky has to offer. I looked up other trail logs to see if other Six Pack aspirants had encountered the same problem, only to see no one else has hiked it! So I’m logging it in order to provide some insight into the mountain in case others want to give it a shot. (Jeff, I’ll hike a seventh peak, promise.)

This part of Kentucky doesn’t get many visitors. It’s deep in coal country, there are barely any hotels, and even though the region is breathtakingly scenic there is not much hiking as a pastime. People don’t visit often. As the bartender at Kentucky Mist Distillery told me as he poured me a blackberry moonshine slushy, this isn’t the part of the state that gets tourists. As a result, even state-run trails are not well maintained and have yet to fully recover from major flooding last year. The first quarter mile of the High Rock trail seems to have been rerouted a bit due to flood damage, and AllTrails hasn’t accounted for the change (I got an “off trail” alert) because there just aren’t many people hiking this in the first place. Further up, past the junction for a waterfall trail that seems to be far more of an attraction, the trail got overgrown and was blocked by downed trees in multiple places. There were tons of roots and loose rock, and given that I was the only car in the parking lot and there was no cell reception, it didn’t seem prudent to continue as the trail got even steeper. One fall and I could be in a bad situation.

Also, I am not exaggerating when I say that the area is infested with bears. They were sniffing around my campground at night, climbing trees for fruit in the morning, and lazing around enjoying the sun in the afternoon. As the distillery bartender told me, they’re “basically just big raccoons” and rarely confront people. The caretaker of the campground I stayed at, the amazing and eccentric Wiley’s Last Resort, said the only time a bear had confronted a camper was when one tried to steal a sandwich from a woman who had passed out drunk holding the sandwich (I have questions).

Anyway, in between the remote and low-trafficked trail, the trail conditions, and the frequent encounters with Yogi and Baloo, this did not seem like a safe hike to do solo, and while I did most of it I made the call to not go any further. It’s a shame — the area really is beautiful, but hiking and other outdoors pursuits are under-invested in. I think it’s because if you’re a local outdoors lover who wants to support the region, you’re spending all your time and resources combating coal companies on strip-mining and mountaintop removal. The caretaker at Wiley’s told me that they’ve “watched Black Mountain get smaller and smaller every year.” Black Mountain, which I also hiked this week, is the state high point, and a coal company was planning to blow the top off it — making it no longer the state high point — until activists mounted a pressure campaign. In a high-poverty region where the government doesn’t seem to care much and big industries are actively making it a worse place to live, good hiking trails seem like a luxury.

I’m so glad I went out here. Where I come from, most people would only set foot in Kentucky if someone invited them to the Derby. I’m thankful that the Six-Pack challenges take us out of our comfort zones and to pockets of the country we wouldn’t have even known about otherwise. And with that, it’s back to Virginia and on to Smith Mountain!

(Lead pic is from an overlook from the highway along the side of Pine Mountain, nicknamed “The Slingshot” for all its hairpin turns.)