Hiking with a Goat

A couple of weeks ago I went hiking with 21 of my favorite hiking buddies….one of them is a goat….literally.

The Wednesday Tennessee Trails Association group usually has 12-15 hikers each week. The week that we went to hike on the Cumberland Trail we had more than the usual number of hikers because we all wanted to see first hand what was under way on one section of the state park trail. It is hard to believe that someone is legally able to destroy a state park!

When we parked at the trailhead we were met by a long haired cream and black billy goat. He came trotting down the road and just hung around as we were getting organized to begin the hike. We figured that he was looking for a free handout but since no one fed him I was surprised that he followed us as we started to hike. After a little hesitation at the first bridge, Mr. Goat fell right in line and for some reason he liked to hike about 2^nd or 3^rd in line. If he stopped to eat leaves along the way he would catch up and run past the end of the line to get back to 2^nd or 3^rd. I liked being about in the middle or further back because someone near the front of the line didn’t smell very good and I think that it was Billy. After about 4 ½ miles of beautiful scenic hiking we came to what we were looking for….bulldozed trees and carved up earth in the middle of the Cumberland Trail State Park.

As you may know, when land is sold, sometimes the mineral rights to that land are sold separately or retained by the original owner. In this case, the state of Tennessee spent nearly $2 million to purchase land that is now part of the Soddy segment of the Cumberland Trail State Park. The mineral rights were not part of that purchase, as they aren’t in many Tennessee properties. Now after millions of dollars and thousands of volunteer hours to purchase and build the trail, the owner of the mineral rights has decided to harvest rock for building and landscaping. They have moved in heavy equipment, mowed down trees, built gravel roads and bulldozed and trucked rocks right out of and over the Cumberland Trail. Current mining laws classify rocks as minerals and don’t require the rock harvester to restore the land in any way…even in a state park. Twenty-one of us, plus a goat, hiked in to see this unbelievable destruction. As a homeowner and as a frequent visitor to many of the beautiful scenic areas of Tennessee this is kind of scary. If you don’t own the mineral rights to your land, theoretically, the one who does could drive onto your property, dig out the rocks, haul them away and leave the hole. That is exactly what they are doing on the Cumberland Trail.

If you live in Tennessee your help is needed! Please email or write to our state legislators and ask them to co-sponsor and support House Bill 2764 and Senate Bill 2781. These bills won’t change the rights of the mineral owners or even stop the rock harvesting, but they will at least require the harvesters to restore the land by planting trees and grass. It’s a start. In Fairfield Glade our State Senator is Charlotte Burks, 9 Legislative Plaza, Nashville, TN, 37243, sen.charlotte.burks@legislature.state.tn.us . Our State Representative is Eric Swafford, 202 War Memorial Bldg, Nashville, TN, 37243, rep.eric.swafford@legislature.state.tn.us .

The goat and I will thank you. Well, at least I will thank you. At the end of the trail that day we met a woman who said the goat lives in the farm next to her and he really doesn’t like people. But for some reason he seemed to like us, and hopefully it was because of our warm personalities good looks and not because we smelled like a fellow goat. As much fun as we had with the goat that day the air in the vicinity of Mr. Billy and in the vicinity of the rock harvesters was not as fresh as it usually is in the great outdoors.

Baaaaa!