By Greg Jordan

November 9, 2018 - In West Virginia, work on mapping out a new Mercer County ATV route that will replace one being closed due to an expanding coal mining operation is now underway, a Hatfield-McCoy Trail administrator said Thursday.

Businesspeople operating ATV lodgings and other related enterprises were surprised Oct. 22 when they learned that part of the Pocahontas Trail, Mercer County’s branch of the Hatfield-McCoy Trail System was closing Dec. 3 because a coal mine was expanding. The much-used route’s trailhead is in Bramwell and goes mostly through the Windmill Gap area. John Fekete, the trail’s deputy director, said the closure was temporary.

Fekete said Thursday that mapping out a new trail is now underway. This proposed route is between Bramwell and Anawalt.

ATV riders enjoying the Hatfield-McCoy trail system earlier this year. Work on mapping out a new Mercer County ATV route that will replace one being closed due to an expanding coal mining operation is now underway.

Photo by Bluefield Daily Telegraph

“We’ve been mapping for two weeks,” he said. “I’m putting together kind of the first phase to get started on the new system. We’ve probably mapped close to 100 miles of trail; which is actually bigger than the system we had before, which is good. The other system was about 60 miles.”

Bramwell is included in the new route being mapped out.

“We plan that the town of Bramwell will continue being connected to this system, and we’re hopeful that we’re going to be connected into Anawalt,” Fekete said. “All of the system connections will be as they were before. Bramwell and the Pocahontas Trailhead up to Coaldale will be connected.”

The land being mapped out for a new ATV route is owned by the Pocahontas Land Corporation.

“The next thing we will do either this week or the first of next week is sit down with the property owner,” Fekete said. “We will give them our proposal and we’ll find out how much of this 100 miles we’ll be able to utilize.”

Landowners are not paid when the Hatfield-McCoy Trail puts ATV routes over their property. One goal of the upcoming meeting is to see whether Pocahontas Land has any plans for operations such as coal mining, natural gas drilling or timbering along the proposed route.

“The landowners allow us to use it for free,” Fekete stated. “We’re actually just guests on the property.”

Even though the Hatfield-McCoy Trail is mapping out 100 miles of new trails, constructing all of it may not be possible, he added.

“I feel pretty confident we’re going to get a good chunk of it,” Fekete said. “If Hatfield-McCoy and the company can agree on where the trails go, we will start construction and development of this new system very soon.”

The Mercer County route is scheduled to be closed Dec. 3, and goal is to reopen it by spring 2019.

“We’re moving as quickly as we can,” Fekete stated. “The land company’s been great to work with. I foresee this as moving along fairly quickly, and in about two to three weeks, I can get a better idea how quickly we will have this system open.”