MADISON, WV: Driving along West Virginia's roads, you wouldn't have noticed anything was out of place. Bright woodland and foliage rose up on either side of the traffic; the ramshackle trailer homes notwithstanding, it looked as close to a rural idyll as anywhere I'd seen in America.
Once I climbed up into the hills, however, it was a very different story. From up here, out of view from the freeway, it was all too clear that thousands of acres of Appalachia's most spectacular mountain ranges had been reduced to rubble.
Blame King Coal for decapitating the landscape. Mining has always been a major industry here, but traditionally it took place out of sight, below ground. Now, however, a modern technique known as mountaintop removal has dramatically reshaped West Virginia.
It is, literally, a scorched-earth process. First the hill is stripped of all its trees. Then explosives are brought in to blast through the rocks. The rubble is taken away and dumped in nearby valleys. Diggers can then gouge coal from the exposed surface.
I stood on ground that had already been emptied of its black gold. Grass was growing where the excavation had taken place, but the surface's harsh, angular contours made it clear what had occurred.
According to some estimates, mountaintop removal has been responsible for the destruction of as much as 150,000 hectares of forest, and 2,000km of valley streams have been affected by waste.
All this posed a dilemma for West Virginians. All around them their heritage was being despoiled. But here, in the second-poorest state in the union, any prospect of skilled employment was desperately needed.
I stopped in Madison, a decaying town which had seen better days. There I met Carolyn Kuhn, 58, at the Coal Heritage Mining Museum, where she was working as a volunteer.
The industry had been crucial to every aspect of Carolyn's life; her husband, Rodney, had worked underground for 35 years, and the pit had been the focal point of the community.
She showed me round artefacts of coalfield life: pith helmets and shovels, pick-axes and union banners. At the back of the building was a darkened corridor designed to resemble a tunnel. I fumbled way through, conscious that this sanitised visitor attraction couldn't do justice to the hard reality of working at the coalface.
To someone like Carolyn, mining had always been something that went on deep below the surface of the earth. I asked her what she thought about this new wave of excavations going on in the mountains above her.
"I know it's a shame what they're doing to the landscape," she said.
"But I'm selfish. I want my grandkids to stay here.
"Several years ago, I thought our town was folding. It was all second hand shops and thrift stores."
But not everyone who was steeped in these traditions wanted to preserve coal jobs at all costs.
Julian Martin, 72, was an eight-generation West Virginian. His father had lost an eye working underground; his grandfather had taken part in the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921, when striking miners took part in America's largest insurrection since the civil war.
He wanted to keep the pits open. But Julian was passionately opposed to mountaintop excavations, horrified at the prospect of this landscape being permanently disfigured.
He also disputed the idea any economic benefits would trickle down to miners and their families.
"In my father's day, there were 125,000 mining jobs in West Virginia," he said. "Now there are only 17,000.
"There's no way they'll ever repair the damage they've done to the environment. This habitat took thousands of years to grow."
I didn't envy Julian and Carolyn for the dilemma they confronted. As the economic climate worsens, however, I suspect that those who love West Virginia's scenery will face tougher choices yet.
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