Nature and human history are deeply intertwined on the Mon River Trail. It's impossible to walk a mile on the trail without confronting the crumbling remains of its industrial past, half-buried artifacts that speak silently to a tumultuous and ultimately dehumanizing tale of exploitation and neglect. Abandoned quarries and millstones, broken beehive coke ovens, and sinking homesteads hint at the vast mineral wealth extracted from these hills with little regard for the well-being of the workers who made eye-watering fortunes for ambitious industrialists in far-away cities. A century and a half after King Coal fell from grace and abandoned his kingdom, an Ancient Steward has returned to take back what is rightfully her own. She has planted a crown of blue cohosh and moss on broken stone and breathed life back into the land.
